How could a moral God allow suffering?

[Tomdstone]

1. Who He said he was, the Son of God, having the same infinite nature as God the Father and proved it by His many miracles and rising from the dead

I am not sure that the Bible explicitly says that Jesus has the same infinite nature as God the Father:

“The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus.” (Acts 3:13).
Jesus is the servant of God.
“The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs.” (Mark 11:12-13).
If Jesus is God and God is all knowing, wouldn’t He know that the fig tree had no fruit before he went to find out about it?
“‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?’ ‘The most important one,’ answered Jesus, ‘is this: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.Mark 12:28-30
He does not say that God is a Trinity.
“…for us there is but one God, the Father . . . and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ…” (1 Corinthians 8:6).
The Father is God, and Jesus is Lord?
“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke 22:42). If Jesus and God are one, why don’t their wills coincide?
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

 

[Doug_Kraeger]

I doubt that my God is concerned…and I do view him as a good man. What is written about him is questionable.

Does your God establish an objective, absolute moral order and reveal any of it to men and women and hold us accountable to Him if we knowingly and deliberately violate one of His moral commandments, or is anything licit if you can get away with it?

 

[Holly3278]

God can bring good out of anything even suffering and evil. We have to realize that we do not see things from God’s point of view. He sees the big picture and we definitely do not. He sees how suffering can lead to a greater good down the road. Many times we do not see this.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

When Jesus is reported to have said something, do you believe that He said exactly what was written? Or is it more reasonable to assume that it is an approximation of what someone might have heard, reported in a way that reflects the beliefs of those who heard it transposed in the telling and changed slightly in the translation?

Which is more reasonable?

That you are desperately looking for a reason to believe it is all hogwash.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Observation

If he is indifferent, why does he bother to create a universe?

 

[oldcelt]

Does your God establish an objective, absolute moral order and reveal any of it to men and women and hold us accountable to Him if we knowingly and deliberately violate one of His moral commandments, or is anything licit if you can get away with it?

God establishes nothing in Deism. Humans are very capable of recognizing positive and negative acts and formulating their own laws. Some of the most famous people in the early US ( Founding Fathers) were Deists and they managed to come up with a workable system.

 

[oldcelt]

If he is indifferent, why does he bother to create a universe?

Indifferent is your term, but the reason for creation is quite simple…It is in God’s nature to create. All one need do is look around to see that. No revelation required.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Indifferent is your term, but the reason for creation is quite simple…It is in God’s nature to create. All one need do is look around to see that. No revelation required.

No, I think indifference would be your term, because you have given no evidence that there is any other quality in God but power and indifference.

Once your God takes an interest in his creation, I could begin to respect him. At present I see no evidence that he is anything but a powerful machine. But if you want to flesh him out, be my guest. I’m all eyes!

 

[Charlemagne_III]

God establishes nothing in Deism. Humans are very capable of recognizing positive and negative acts and formulating their own laws. Some of the most famous people in the early US ( Founding Fathers) were Deists and they managed to come up with a workable system.

Yes, but they only recognized it would be a workable system if not only only created it, but nurtured it and loved it to the point of dying for it.

That doesn’t seem to be anything your God would be interested in doing for his creation.

 

[oldcelt]

Yes, but they only recognized it would be a workable system if not only only created it, but nurtured it and loved it to the point of dying for it.

That doesn’t seem to be anything your God would be interested in doing for his creation.

Just maybe that’s because He is aware that his creation is capable of tending to itself…just like the example cited. Created by humans, watched over by humans and so on. No deity needed.

So, rather than indifference, how about confidence in His creation?

 

[Tomdstone]

Once your God takes an interest in his creation, I could begin to respect him.

At a high school football game between a Catholic high school and a Baptist high school, you have both sides praying for victory. Do you think that God listens to and answers these prayers and that he takes an interest in this situation?

 

[tonyrey]

Just maybe that’s because He is aware that his creation is capable of tending to itself…just like the example cited. Created by humans, watched over by humans and so on. No deity needed.

So, rather than indifference, how about confidence in His creation?

Yet you reject the Christian God because of all the suffering in the world… How does that inspire confidence?

 

[tonyrey]

At a high school football game between a Catholic high school and a Baptist high school, you have both sides praying for victory. Do you think that God listens to and answers these prayers and that he takes an interest in this situation?

Why not? Do you think inaction and indifference are virtues?

 

[Tomdstone]

Why not?

You ask why not? I think not, because it seems that oftentimes the side with fewer Christian supporters wins over the side that prays the most. Do you think that in a high school football game, the prayers of one side or another are answered and that God rewards those who pray the most? What does it indicate if the team from a Muslim high school wins over a Catholic team?

 

[oldcelt]

Yet you reject the Christian God because of all the suffering in the world… How does that inspire confidence?

I reject the Christian God because he is clearly described as causing human suffering on numerous occasions. Christians have also prepared a litany of defenses for this behavior.
Since that is not a quality of the real God in MHO, I do not accept that he exists.

 

[ajecphotos]

I reject the Christian God because he is clearly described as causing human suffering on numerous occasions. Christians have also prepared a litany of defenses for this behavior.
Since that is not a quality of the real God in MHO, I do not accept that he exists.

Man is the cause of all our suffering. Now and in the past!

 

[mikee]

At a high school football game between a Catholic high school and a Baptist high school, you have both sides praying for victory. Do you think that God listens to and answers these prayers and that he takes an interest in this situation?

As Catholics we believe in Divine Providence. God governs everything down to the smallest details taking into account even our free will. Nothing happens, not a leaf falls from a tree, nor a hair from our head, without God’s permission or governance. So in terms of Providence, yes, even football games would be included in that.

However, prayer would not be infallible in such situations. The Catholic theology of prayer holds that prayer is infallible only for things that we for ask that are necessary for our salvation, provided the four conditions are met (… 1) we ask these graces for ourselves, 2) that these graces are necessary for our salvation, 3) that we ask piously, and 4) that we ask perseveringly [see St Thomas Aquinas’ http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3083.htm#article16”]ST. II-II. 1. 83, a. 15). Other petitions we ask for in prayer are conditional. God obviously does not go around overthrowing the course of natural events at the whim of every Christian’s prayer. The football teams can pray to win, but it’s on the condition that it’s according to his will. And in such matters, there are simply too many variables that we do not see. The Christian’s attitude towards these things is always, “thy will be done”

 

[Tomdstone]

As Catholics we believe in Divine Providence. God governs everything down to the smallest details taking into account even our free will. Nothing happens, not a leaf falls from a tree, nor a hair from our head, without God’s permission or governance. So in terms of Providence, yes, even football games would be included in that.

However, prayer would not be infallible in such situations. The Catholic theology of prayer holds that prayer is infallible only for things that we for ask that are necessary for our salvation, provided the four conditions are met (… 1) we ask these graces for ourselves, 2) that these graces are necessary for our salvation, 3) that we ask piously, and 4) that we ask perseveringly [see St Thomas Aquinas’ http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3083.htm#article16”]ST. II-II. 1. 83, a. 15

). Other petitions we ask for in prayer are conditional. God obviously does not go around overthrowing the course of natural events at the whim of every Christian’s prayer. The football teams can pray to win, but it’s on the condition that it’s according to his will. And in such matters, there are simply too many variables that we do not see. The Christian’s attitude towards these things is always, "thy will be done"So it would be the will of God that the Muslim team win, even though the Catholics had said several rosaries for their side?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

I reject the Christian God because he is clearly described as causing human suffering on numerous occasions. Christians have also prepared a litany of defenses for this behavior.
Since that is not a quality of the real God in MHO, I do not accept that he exists.

Physicians cause human suffering when they perform open-heart surgery.

Believe me, I ought to know.

The causing of suffering is not intrinsically evil. Indeed, it can be positively therapeutic.

People who are sent to prison suffer. But they are there for a reason. Soldiers kill each other in horrible ways, yet generally for a reason. They do not usually kill with indifference. Some struggle mightily with their conscience to find justice in the killing.

God’s reasons for causing suffering are generally therapeutic. That is, they are designed to serve a higher purpose.

But since the deist God does not get involved with his creation, the suffering caused on earth by his indifference cannot be said to be therapeutic. It is caused by indifference. For the deist the plagues of Egypt were a natural, not a supernatural, event. They were not even designed by nature to pressure the Pharoah into freeing the Jews.

Indifference to suffering is the unkindest cruelty of all. The deist God is cruel beyond reckoning.

 

[Tomdstone]

God’s reasons for causing suffering are generally therapeutic.

How do you know this?
In any case, I don’t see where it could be true for a child in Gaza injured by an Israeli bomb and facing a life of horrific suffering.