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tonyrey
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Some natural evil is the result of moral evil, of course, like death from malnutrition caused by social injustice.
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CHRISTINE77
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Of course. Mankind is not living up to the rules set by God. Greed rules a lot of this world. Too much in the hands of too many immoral rich and greedy people who worship mammon, not God.
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Charlemagne_III
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inocent’s views are sometimes difficult to track.I’m curious if all Baptists share Inocente’s view of God? I thought all Christians believe that God is merciful and all-loving?
I used to know a psychologist who thought like inocent.
Anything you would say he would disagree with on principle.
My wife sometimes does that too.
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Richca
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Yes, you have a point here. Jesus came to restore and repair what we lost and broke through sin, to restore us to the original state of our first parents, Adam and Eve. The complete restoration will not come until the last day when the eternal kingdom of Christ and the new heavens and the new earth will be definitively established for eternity. God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the garden of paradise where they were not subject to suffering or death and they enjoyed the intimacy and friendship of their Creator God through the gift of sanctifying grace. God intended that the supernatural gifts He bestowed on Adam and Eve would be transmitted to their descendents, on condition that they be subject to His will and obey the commandment of not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If Adam and Eve had not sinned nor any of us their children, we would be living in a radically different world than the present one we experience. So St Augustine says “Happy would have been the whole human race if neither they- that is our first parents- had committed any evil to be transmitted to their descendants, nor any of their race had committed any sin for which they would have been condemned.” Divine revelation has made known to us that our first parents transgressed the commandment God gave them and in punishment they lost those supernatural and preternatural gifts God bestowed on them at their creation and transmit to us their descendants a fallen nature which is original sin, a human nature subject to suffering and death and especially the death of the soul which is the loss of grace. Added to this state and condition we are born with are all our own personal sins which collectively caused the Flood which cleansed the world from all its human corruption at the time. God did not abandon mankind after the Fall of Adam and Eve, he promised them victory over evil in the proto-evangelium (Genesis 3:15). Indeed, after Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree and they heard God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, they hid themselves from His presence among the trees of the garden, "But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ God is always pursuing us and calling after us to bring us back to His friendship even after we sin.
As I mentioned in a previous post, the problem you mention here is fundamentally a human problem caused by the free actions of humans for God created human beings with a free will which entails that they are responsible for their actions and their consequences. God does not miraculously intervene to alleviate all suffering because much of this suffering is the result of the free actions of humans and it is within the natural God given power of humans to rectify situations or circumstances which may be a source of their suffering. In absolutely no way can we blame God that a child dies of diarrhea every minute of every day. Firstly, excepting cases of rape and such like, children are produced by the free actions of their parents, the sexual act. And for the most part, God concurs in this act by creating the soul of the child. Most likely, in the majority of the cases of the children that die of diarrhea every minute of every day (excepting rape and such like), the children are the offspring of the free actions of their parents with God concurring. Now we can’t blame God (I’m not saying that you are) for what humans do with their free will. Neither am I condemning the parents. But we certainly can’t blame God for what is indisputably the consequence of free human actions. I know you mention the case of water being contaminated upstream without the parents knowledge with the result of child death from drinking it. No, I’m not condemning the parents for lack of this knowledge. But, how did the water become contaminated? Was it caused by humans? In many cases it is.
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inocente
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It must be frustrating that I won’t rise to your baiting.Evasive as ever!
Hint: discuss the subject
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inocente
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Strange you posted this to Charles, as if he could possibly know what all Baptists think.I’m curious if all Baptists share Inocente’s view of God? I thought all Christians believe that God is merciful and all-loving?
It’s not my view of God. As Christians, we all have to reconcile the existence of unnecessary suffering with a loving God. Every Catholic on this thread has given a different solution. Philosophers and theologians also differ. Clearly all we can do is explore the problem, and to do that we have to get past any “that’s not what I think so it must be wrong” gut reaction.
What’s your view on the thread topic?
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inocente
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Logic didn’t force God to create a physical world. He knew (through omniscience) that there would be unnecessary suffering in the world but none in heaven, so He could have only created heaven.
btw, “united with God” sounds as if you mean that our individual identities merge with his, which of course isn’t mainstream Christianity.
Again, logic didn’t force God to create a physical world, or force Him into these particular laws of nature with disease, starvation and disasters.
In passing, I can’t understand your claim that disease and starvation “are largely caused by human greed, indifference and selfishness”, as if that could apply to leukaemia, Parkinson’s, sleeping sickness, malaria, yellow fever, etc.
Also in passing, I strongly disagree with your claim that some people must suffer epidemics, droughts, earthquakes, etc. in order to give others the “freedom to choose what to believe and how to live”. It’s hard to put into words how very unjust that would be.
I don’t know much about Luther, except that he’s the archenemy of Superman. I only explained the argument, which again, is that natural evil implies that God cannot be all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful, that one of them must be compromised.
Your claim appears to be that God is compromised by the physical nature of His creation and the logic of free-will, and so is not all-powerful. It’s not a convincing claim. The physical nature of the world doesn’t stop us from building flood defenses or earthquake-proof buildings to reduce natural evil. It didn’t stop humans from eradicating smallpox 38 years ago. We’re not stopped, yet we’re a lot less powerful than God.
Isaiah’s God does not agree with your claim:
“I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the Lord, do all these things.” - Isaiah 45
Isaiah’s God is supreme, almighty, never constrained, never compromised. One commentary (Cambridge) has “The prophet’s words are startlingly bold, but they do not go beyond the common O. T. doctrine on the subject, which is free from the speculative difficulties that readily suggest themselves to the mind of a modern reader.”
It’s interesting to look at what various commentaries make of it - biblehub.com/commentaries/isaiah/45-7.htm
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inocente
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Your view here seems to be that natural evil is punishment for sin. That the child who dies suffering from diarrhea is paying the price for humanity being cast out of the Garden.
It’s not clear why accident of birth dictates that she has a much lower chance of being punished if she is born in modern day USA than in Africa or two-hundred years ago. It’s not clear even why a two-year old must suffer death by diarrhea as a punishment for a sin she never committed.
The UN has adopted goals to reduce mortality in children under five by two-thirds. If natural evil really is punishment for sin, it’s not clear whether the UN is working against God’s justice.
Personally I take the story of the Fall as figurative rather than literal, and as being about moral evil not natural evil. In a universe which had already been running 13.8 billion years since the big bang, it’s hard to see how there could be a garden where earthquakes, hurricanes, meteor strikes, etc. would never be possible if only the first humans had never acquired knowledge of moral good and evil.
No, there are for instance microscopic parasites transferred from animals. We can’t blame people living in a village 1,000 years ago for drinking water contaminated by something they could not see or smell, particularly when they didn’t even have any alternative.
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CHRISTINE77
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I think Satan creates evil - likewise men who follow the path of Satan. God is all good. Those who follow His teachings are combatting the evil of Satan. I think this world is a battlefield between good and evil, likewise every life is a battle.
As for the innocent suffering, that is caused by evil people - greedy and selfish people who only want more for themselves. How can we alleviate all this suffering? By giving, sharing, caring, praying.
It seems like you consider anything that causes death as being evil though. None of us is going to get out of this world alive. If you believe in the afterlife, death is the doorway to the end of suffering for the good. We are all going to suffer and die at some point.
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Charlemagne_III
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It’s not really baiting you to ask how you do that, since you claim that you have done it.
So how do you reconcile, or do you evade yet again?
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Charlemagne_III
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So the Gospel John is not mainstream Christianity?
“Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou has sent me.” - John 17:20-21
“Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one flock, one shepherd.” (John 10:16).
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inocente
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When do you think I claimed to have solved it?It’s not really baiting you to ask how you do that, since you claim that you have done it.
So how do you reconcile, or do you evade yet again?
It’s always been a puzzle to me, never have found an answer which ticks all the boxes. Not sure it can be solved by considering God in the abstract. Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Which you’ll recognize as the famous we preach Christ crucified passage from 1 Cor 1.
In some Eastern religions individual consciousness merges with God to form a single eternal consciousness, but in mainstream Christianity we each keep our separate souls, are own individual unique identity:
CCC 1025 To live in heaven is “to be with Christ.” The elect live “in Christ,” but they retain, or rather find, their true identity, their own name.
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tonyrey
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God created this magnificent universe full of wonders and exquisite beauty because He knows it proclaims His power and glory in addition to giving His creatures immense delight, satisfaction and physical fulfilment. You seem to have fallen into the trap of Manicheism.To confine the Creator to spiritual reality implies supernatural insight into what He should not have created…
, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me".… John 22-23
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You need to produce a feasible blueprint of a better world.
It is well known the diseases of civilisation are caused by man’s unwitting - but also deliberate - abuse of his environment. Leukaemia is caused by exposure to radioactivity, natural and man-made. Epidemics are the result of colonisation and urbanisation.The world could easily produce enough food and water for everyone but vested interests ensure that one third of the population don’t have the basic necessities of life and many die of hunger, malnutrition and lack of resistance to disease.
Do you reject the value of free will?
How could God have arranged the world so that there is no need to build flood defences and earthquake-proof buildings or ensure floods and earthquakes never harm or kill people? It is very easy to suggest piecemeal improvements but to design the entire biosystem is rather more difficult.
Only Fundamentalists interpret every statement in the Old Testament literally. Isaiah was a prophet not a theologian.The selection of his work by the Apostolic Church reveals the fatal flaw of Sola Scriptura. Scripture cannot be self-authenticating because it cannot interpret itself. It requires an authority to select the wheat from the chaff. The failure to acknowledge that authority explains why there are more than thirty thousand Christian sects…
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Charlemagne_III
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:clapping:
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wmw
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Yes, the Lord God is the author of all.
If heaven was all there was I think God would have been quite a boring fellow.
The poetic angst of a good God that brings evil along for a ride to eventually right all the wrongs, heal all the wounds, and create all the great human personalities from the fight they had to endure upon this earth. That’s a gutsy God!
We are in the greatest of the great stages of all creation; its just that it really hurts. So, we are mostly wimps, two bit extras, and massive failures to live up to our potential. Still, for everyone He’s happy to wipe the slate clean.
The message of "just don’t be luke warm"is that if we’re going to struggle let’s struggle boldly!!
If heaven was all there was I think God would have been quite a boring fellow.
The poetic angst of a good God that brings evil along for a ride to eventually right all the wrongs, heal all the wounds, and create all the great human personalities from the fight they had to endure upon this earth. That’s a gutsy God!
We are in the greatest of the great stages of all creation; its just that it really hurts. So, we are mostly wimps, two bit extras, and massive failures to live up to our potential. Still, for everyone He’s happy to wipe the slate clean.
The message of "just don’t be luke warm"is that if we’re going to struggle let’s struggle boldly!!
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Charlemagne_III
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Kevin_Gore_LC
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Great point, Inocente.
It is important to note that although the She regards the philosophical doctrine of St. Thomas highly, the Catholic Church does not officially adopt any particular philosophy.
Each answer therefore must stand on its own two legs. Each of us needs to be prepared to “give reasons for the hope that is in you”.
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Kevin_Gore_LC
Guest
Great point. I think the issue here is that Pallas only accepts measurable, physical evidence. (From an English philosophical school called Empiricism)
In our daily lives, we accept many types of evidence:
1.) Empirical: Accepting something as true because I have physical, material, quantifiable, measurable data that backs up my claim - often called in recent times “scientific”.
2.) Logical: Accepting that a conclusion is true because of the truth of the reasons. (If a wheel is missing, I don’t have to try to drive my Chrysler to know that it won’t work.)
3.) Authority: Accepting something as true because of the authority of the one who claims that it is true. (Even much of modern science is based on authority - I don’t have a particle accelerator in my backyard, but I still accept the data that scientists have gathered in their experiments because I believe they are competent and honest.)
While there is no directly Empirical data for the existence of God, there are many reasons for believing based on Logic and Authority.
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tonyrey
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Welcome to the forum, Kevin.
Atheists like Pallas presuppose the reality of truth for which there is no adequate explanation in a meaningless universe. One materialist on this forum tried to explain it as an isomorphism of atomic particles, his hypothesis being that one arrangement of them corresponds to another - which I find very far-fetched. What happens to insight and consciousness in such a scheme of things?
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tonyrey
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Indeed. The idea of spiritual development disappears in the atheist’s soul-destroying scheme of things because there is nothing to develop! John Keats was closer to the mark in his belief that this world is “a vale of soul-making” and his extreme suffering and death at the age of twenty-five were an outstanding example of courage and hope inexplicable in scientific terms. His devoted friend Joseph Severn who cared for him throughout his last months wrote that an unearthly radiance came over his face towards the end of his life. After having blamed his atrocious suffering on a “malignant being” he finally welcomed death as a blessing and was more concerned about Joseph than himself. When he knew he was about to die he said “Thank God it has come” and his last words were “Don’t breathe on me – it comes like ice.” Even though germs hadn’t yet been discovered he was concerned his friend would contract his illness just as he had when he nursed his brother Tom until he died. One of his finest sonnets sums up his attitude to life - and love:
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Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the nightLike nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.
It should be added that Keats believed sex without love is bestial - unlike his atheist friend Charles Brown but I’m sure many atheists do have spiritual values…
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