Old Question -- Any New Answers?

[Bradski]

God doesn’t heal amputees for the same reason that He doesn’t prevent me stubbing my toe or biting my tongue.

I mean, where do you draw the line? Who decides on what needs fixing? If He had to prevent suffering, then we’d all live in some kind of happy-ever-after existence, like those awful scenes on the pages of the Watchtower, where lions gamble with lambs and cute children pick flowers under blue skies.

God doesn’t exist, but if He did, he’d have to let everything work out as it will. He’d be totally indifferent. How could it be any other way?

I had an argument with someone once (on forum), who was convinced that God had answered his prayers to enable him to find a lost CD. So God had answered this call for help, but the young girl being raped and hacked to death in Rwanda (as was happening at the time) had her calls ignored.

That is inconceivable and would surely result in a loss of faith of anyone if it were shown to be true. Therefore it cannot, therefore either God is indifferent (and that works for me from a theological viewpoint) or He doesn’t exist.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

God doesn’t heal amputees for the same reason that He doesn’t prevent me stubbing my toe or biting my tongue.

I mean, where do you draw the line? Who decides on what needs fixing? If He had to prevent suffering, then we’d all live in some kind of happy-ever-after existence, like those awful scenes on the pages of the Watchtower, where lions gamble with lambs and cute children pick flowers under blue skies.

God doesn’t exist, but if He did, he’d have to let everything work out as it will. He’d be totally indifferent. How could it be any other way?

I had an argument with someone once (on forum), who was convinced that God had answered his prayers to enable him to find a lost CD. So God had answered this call for help, but the young girl being raped and hacked to death in Rwanda (as was happening at the time) had her calls ignored.

That is inconceivable and would surely result in a loss of faith of anyone if it were shown to be true. Therefore it cannot, therefore either God is indifferent (and that works for me from a theological viewpoint) or He doesn’t exist.

No. It shows God doesn’t think like you, or have your limited perspectives.

So we can answer that God is not an atheist.

 

[William_of_Ware]

God doesn’t heal amputees for the same reason that He doesn’t prevent me stubbing my toe or biting my tongue.

I mean, where do you draw the line? Who decides on what needs fixing? If He had to prevent suffering, then we’d all live in some kind of happy-ever-after existence, like those awful scenes on the pages of the Watchtower, where lions gamble with lambs and cute children pick flowers under blue skies.

God doesn’t exist, but if He did, he’d have to let everything work out as it will. He’d be totally indifferent. How could it be any other way?

I had an argument with someone once (on forum), who was convinced that God had answered his prayers to enable him to find a lost CD. So God had answered this call for help, but the young girl being raped and hacked to death in Rwanda (as was happening at the time) had her calls ignored.

That is inconceivable and would surely result in a loss of faith of anyone if it were shown to be true. Therefore it cannot, therefore either God is indifferent (and that works for me from a theological viewpoint) or He doesn’t exist.

Of course God is indifferent if by “indifference” you mean god does not have an obligation toward creatures , but, then this is perfectly consistent with Catholicism, after all this the God that bluntly says that he will have mercy in whom he wills.

 

[razredge]

Probability is not being argued. Abscence is.
And frequency or infrequency is not relevent to abscence.

Er, no - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Calanda i’m afraid doesn’t meet this criteria - hell the Church hasn’t even approved it

And how exactly do you know the decisions God will make?

Well, to be perfectly honest I don’t, but neither do you -how do you know that he’d heal an amputee?

I find your hard-nosed skepticism over Calanda on the one hand and your childlike faith in accepting what the skpteoid says (namely, that there are no records of the leg ever being removed) on the basis of authority most charming and adorable…if you were a 7 year old.

Your statement is ridiculous - it’s equivalent with ‘I find your hard-nosed skepticisim over alien abduction accounts…while your childlike faith in accepting what the skeptic says adorable…if you were a 7 year old’.

When faced with an extraordinary improbable event such as a miracle the most rational position to take is one of skepticism.

no, razredge. Three surgeons were interrogated (doctor Joan of estanga, D. Miramuello and M. beltran) and they said removed the leg. I will not put the source since you seem to be good at taking the authority of others as proof.

how would you know that there has only been one of occurrence of this type? if God exists he does or can perform this sort miracles; on what grounds do you suppose that a necessarily existing God does not or cannot perform miracles of any type?
why do you say that X miracles ought to be more frequent? what is the acceptable ratio, by the way?

Besides, what would constitute as not a miracle in your opinion? if god exists, the universe is contingent and is preserved in being by his volition. You will need a more rigorous definition for miracle. :thumbsup

Well you would see more Church approved miracles involving limb regeneration, perhaps at Lourdes. Certainly more than one account 400 years ago of questionable veracity.

 

[vz71]

Well, to be perfectly honest I don’t, but neither do you -how do you know that he’d heal an amputee?

I do not.
The difference though is that this does not lead me to claim that it does not happen or has not happened.
I do not consider a lack of evidence to be evidence of abscence.

The question here proposes a premise that God isn’t really there because a certain type of miracle has not been recorded. This is evidenced by the first 3 responses in the thread.
This is ridiculous reasoning as it proposes that God MUST do something.
God is free to act as he wishes, it is not our place to demand anything of him.

 

[William_of_Ware]

Er, no - extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Calanda i’m afraid doesn’t meet this criteria - hell the Church hasn’t even approved it

Do not make up stuff or lie, rezedge.

Your statement is ridiculous - it’s equivalent with ‘I find your hard-nosed skepticisim over alien abduction accounts…while your childlike faith in accepting what the skeptic says adorable…if you were a 7 year old’.

Read what I wrote; “find your hard-nosed skepticism over Calanda on the one hand and your childlike faith in accepting what* the skpteoid says*.”

Accepting a trustworthy authority is not ridiculous . However, you believe on faith what the article says despite its flaws many contradictions… now that is ridiculous.

But let’s be charitable towards you, you’re taking into the habit of making up stuff yourself .(read start of post for more information) People that lie usually have trouble noticing when they are being lied to. Maybe you cannot distinguish truth from falsehood anymore. .

Well you would see more Church approved miracles involving limb regeneration, perhaps at Lourdes. Certainly more than one account 400 years ago of questionable veracity.

I’ll merely point out that you’re arguing in a circle and did not address anything I pointed out before.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Bradski: I had an argument with someone once (on forum), who was convinced that God had answered his prayers to enable him to find a lost CD. So God had answered this call for help, but the young girl being raped and hacked to death in Rwanda (as was happening at the time) had her calls ignored.

That is inconceivable and would surely result in a loss of faith of anyone if it were shown to be true. Therefore it cannot, therefore either God is indifferent (and that works for me from a theological viewpoint) or He doesn’t exist.

So many atheists play this card, without really (I think) considering all the ramifications, or are unaware that the argument has been largely discarded in modern philosophy. Let me respond at some length, if that’s okay:

The problem of moral evil is a favorite argument of atheists, as it is an emotional one rather than a logical one, as all of us have had to consider it. It would certainly seem to make sense from the perspective of an atheist, as they don’t believe in an afterlife, but if they posit the existence of God for the sake of argument, they don’t clearly think through the results of the premise – if there is a God (as Christians see him), there is an afterlife. Once you posit “If there is a God,” whether you believe in one or not, your argument has to take into account all the corollaries to God’s existence. You can’t cherry-pick your data. The existence of an afterlife would extend mercy and justice for the suffering into another plane.

We know that brutal and seemingly pointless deaths happen. Death is the one constant we all face. Whether we die young or die old, it will probably be through pain and suffering. Even if our own deaths come relatively quickly and painlessly at an advanced age, it will cause suffering and grief for our loved ones (unless you are such a wretched person that people celebrate your death), and it may well be a painful, protracted death for ourselves personally. So, to argue that any one particularly poignant death, such as the murder of a child, stands out as a special instance of God’s apparent indifference is ultimately absurd. Most death seems absurd from the standpoint of the living. And if we find no purpose in death, it ultimately makes life itself a cruel jest upon us. Any safety or happiness we or our loved ones can achieve is only temporary, to be yanked away from us at any moment on fate’s whim. Which is pretty much the Atheist Answer to Suffering. At best, they may argue that Science (as if that were an atheist-only reservation) should be used to reduce suffering.

Yet, despite any scientific palliatives for suffering. Death is required of us all. Life itself is based on the death of others, just as the food that fuels our life is derived from the death of living things. The same Carbon Silicate Cycle within the earth that regulates the planet’s temperature and makes it possible for the Earth to sustain life, also moves the tectonic plates that create earthquakes and tsunami such as the recent tragedy in Japan.

(Atheists sometimes (not always) often describe death and suffering with particular horror. I understand that their premises lead them to this, but I sometimes wonder if the largely urban, academic background of most atheists has anything to do with this. Country people seem to be more acquainted with death on a day-to-day basis, whether on the farm, ranch, or hunting, and as with other groups that have to deal with violence and death on a regular basis – doctors, nurses, soldiers, cops – they are overwhelmingly religious.)

If nothing else, we need to die to make room for others. We live on a finite planet, and if none of us die or ever died, the sheer number of people on the planet would make life impossible, or at least horrible beyond belief. The Population Research Bureau estimates that about 106 billion people have been born on the planet since homo sapiens appeared (prb.org/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx). If none had ever died, and if most of them had children, and none of them had ever died, and if none of their children’s children had ever died, etc., the mind boggles at what life would be like on the earth today – presumably, we would be standing on each other’s shoulders to avoid suffocating in our own waste. People died to make room for me, as I will die to make room for others. Of those billions and billions of deaths, we can presume that not many came peacefully at the end of a long and prosperous life, surrounded by one’s loved ones.

Regardless of whether a death came peacefully or violently and painfully, after death all are the same. All pain passes. I wish to avoid my own death, and those of my loved ones, as long as possible, but recognize that it will come to us all. Death is the great democratizer. Regardless of how horrible the deaths of those billions may have been, their suffering is ended now, and the number of those dead would not have changed. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, we can decry all the deaths that have occurred in wars, but every one of those people killed in wars throughout history, until the present age, would still be dead regardless.

If the end result of death is always equal, that leads me to believe that HOW we die, and thus how we lived, may have supreme importance. As Edmund Vance Cooke wrote:

And though you be done to death, what then?
If you battled the best you could;
If you played your part in the world of men,
Why the critic will call it good.
Death comes with a crawl, or comes with a pounce,
And whether he’s slow or spry,
It isn’t the fact that you’re dead that counts,
But only, how did you die?

 

[Arizona_Mike]

We may walk on a quaking bog of corpses, as a famous atheist once said, but we can recognize that life – mortal life or eternal life – itself requires death, and that gives meaning to our lives. As Christians, that is an article of faith for us, as we recognize Christ’s sacrifice as an exchange for our eternal lives, and we are called upon to emulate Him. We as Christians just have a better and more reasonable explanation for the problem of evil than atheists do. Which may be why a majority of people on the planet are atheists – it’s hardly reasonable to presume that the small subculture of atheists are the sole holders of reason and truth.

The argument from suffering or evil is not even a particularly advantageous argument for atheists, although most haven’t thought it through this far, as it only takes the atheist part-way. It is exclusively an argument against the Judeo-Christian God, which is the God most western atheists wish to disprove. This is understandable, as most atheists in the west come from a Christian background, and they have “Sky-Daddy issues” (to use their own parlance) and need to not only disbelieve, but to convince others that they should disbelieve as well. If not, why do atheists bother to post on a forum devoted to Catholicism? The argument can really only be extended to the Judeo-Christian God, and doesn’t argue against Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Baha’i, or other religions, as most atheists in the west neither care, nor are knowledgeable enough about those faiths, to attack them. At best, they may throw some additional shots against the Mormons or (very carefully and in the safe anonymity of the Internet) against the Muslims. It’s all about the Christian Sky-Daddy for most atheists. The argument does not disprove a deist god, it doesn’t disprove an evil god, it doesn’t disprove a polytheistic pantheon of good and evil gods who alternately defend and protect humanity. And that’s okay for most atheists, as their apologetic strategy is simplly to chip away at the elements of Christian belief using any arguments they can, even if those arguments conflict with each other, as they often do. But the problem of suffering is not an all-purpose argument to disprove “God,” or simple Theism, and it fails on numerous other levels against the Christian concept of God, as set forth below.

For me, the argument from suffering, while superficially attractive to an atheist, fails on a number of grounds, both intellectually and emotionally, and is ultimately naïve.

1. I have consciousness, which God granted me. Were I to live only a short and pain-filled life, I would still consider that preferable to never existing. I would rather be the clay that got to sit up and look around for a second, and recognize that I exist, than never to have existed at all. This is, in my opinion, an act of beneficence that is among the greatest gifts of God, could only be morally accomplished by God, and outweighs any other positive or negative in my life.

Of late, it has become fashionable for atheists to describe the horrors of Harlequin Icthyosis, a painful birth deformity that (until recently) resulted in death within a few days of birth for those born with the mutation (recent drug advances have prolonged the life of those suffering, the current oldest survivor is about 26 years old. It is extremely rare, and the odds of the defect in any given birth is a 1–in–1,000,000 chance.) Numerous (and I mean NUMEROUS – if you google “Harlequin Icthyosis” + “atheist” you’ll get about 186,000 hits) atheists post on their own websites and spam Christian websites including photos, or links to photos and videos of those suffering from the disease (none of which, I think, were authorized by the parents of those children). This is all done by atheists to promote their cause, using these poor children, in an attempt to say “Look at THIS! How could an all-loving God permit such a thing! A short, agonizing life! There can’t be a God!”

And yet – when a child dies young (as happened recently to a friend), or is born with a deformity, one rarely hears from the parents that they wish the child had never been born at all. Instead, one hears that they value the short time they had with the child, and thank God for that. It also seems to draw the family closer to a belief in God. Crazy, isn’t it?

I’ve known a fair number of people who suffered from awful birth defects and deformities. I doubt they appreciated their circumstances in life, but they were, by and large, fairly happy people who did the best they could with their limitations, sometimes quite heroically. I never heard later that any of them committed suicide, and I know they would have reacted with horror and anger to the idea that their lives somehow mattered less than anyone else’s. That doesn’t mean that they’re plaster saints, I’m sure they suffered the same self-doubts and depression to which everyone else is subject, but I never heard one say they wish they had never been born.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

There’s an interesting new book out by the economist Bryan Caplan, “Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids.” It’s not a religious book at all, Caplan simply argues from a statistical basis that the fears most people have about having children are misplaced, that having kids is less work and more fun than you might think, and that being a parent makes good sense from an economic perspective. If you’re a new parent, or thinking about being a new parent, it might be worth a read and will probably allay some of your fears, although I don’t agree with the author on everything.

One of the points Caplan makes is that while we worry about bringing a child into this world,

*What’s funny about these doubts is that virtually no one feels that it was unfair for their parents to have them. While we waste a lot of time blaming our parents for our problems, almost no one tells himself: “My parents were wrong to have me. They should be ashamed of themselves.”

The more specific the doubts, the weirder they sound. Many prospective parents fret, “It’s not fair to have a child when we’re having trouble making ends meet,” or “It’s not fair to have a child out of loneliness.” Can you imagine someone saying, “My whole life has been a mistake because I grew up poor,” or “My parents had me out of loneliness.” These are flimsy reasons to regret your own existence. If they wouldn’t come close to convincing you that your life was a mistake, aren’t they equally flimsy reasons against passing the gift of life along to someone else?

Almost everyone – children of flawed parents included – is glad to be alive. The upshot is that, contrary to popular worries, almost anyone who decides to reproduce is doing the child a favor. Fretting about “fairness” is looking a gift horse in the mouth. No one asks to be born, but almost everyone would if they could.

…In the graphic novel “It’s a Bird,” a writer named Steve shows how Huntington’s disease, a dreadful hereditary condition, has haunted his family. He finally realizes that his father doesn’t want to admit to himself that he might have doomed his own children…simply by having them.” Steve finally tells his dad to forget his regrets: “I’d rather have known my family, and fallen in love with Lisa, and written my stories, and then come down with Huntington’s…if that turns out to be my fate…than not to have lived, and missed all that.”
I can’t argue that there aren’t people who live under horrible conditions that don’t think about ending their own life, or that don’t hope that the end will come quickly. It is a fact that all the pain and suffering, and more, that most of us feel throughout a long life may be condensed into the short life of one who is least equipped to deal with it. I remain convinced, however, that a short and painful life, or even a long and painful life, is better than no existence at all.*One wonders, too, what the atheist answer to this is. I don’t think they have one, except perhaps rigorous gene surveillance, abortion, and mandated eugenics. Some have called for the euthanasia of the deformed after birth (like the old pagan Roman law that mandated that the paterfamilias of a household kill any child born with a deformity.) “Bioethicist” Peter Singer, who holds an endowed chair at Princeton, argues that it is ethical to kill elders with cognitive impairments as well as newborns with birth defects, from the Utilitarian perspective which is shared by many “New” Atheists. Somehow, I don’t see that as an answer.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

1. The nature of a world that is created to allow us to enjoy free will.
   If we regard free will as a good, one wonders how one could create a world where it coexists with a lack of suffering. It may simply be the equivalent of creating a square circle, or making a rock so big that the creator can’t lift it, or matching an immovable object against an irresistible force – in other words, a contradiction, which theologians argue is outside the power of even an omnipotent being.

Voltaire mocked Leibniz in “Candide” for saying that this is the “Best of all Possible Worlds,” as if this made Leibniz (or his stand-in in the novel, Pangloss) hopelessly optimistic. In fact, Leibniz’s view was among the gloomier philosophical recognitions – that given human nature and free will, this really is the best of the possible worlds.

As this world seems to be meant as a crucible for human action rather than as a petting zoo for God’s creation, this would seem to be the world that results from the interplay of our own fallen state and the necessity for human freedom – that is, that allows us to be who we are, rather than biological robots (or in the words of the Catholic author Anthony Burgess, mere “clockwork oranges.”)

1. We cannot know whether any given instance of suffering is truly “gratuitous,” as our perspectives are mortal and time-bound, and we lack the infinite perspective of God.

We can’t hope to view reality from God’s perspective, but we can be reasonably certain, from observation and from revelation, that God did not create us as his pets, to be pampered and protected from birth. We can’t always fathom the ways of a supreme being, nor should we expect to:

“‘For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the LORD. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts your thoughts.’” (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The late William Alston, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Syracuse University, and former President of the American Philosophical Association, in his classic article “The Inductive Problem of Evil and the Human Cognitive Condition,” in Philosophical Perspectives vol 5: Philosophy of Religion. Ed. James E. Tomberlin (Atascadero, California: Ridgeview Press, 1991) examined the issues at some length and essentially destroyed the inductive and deductive argument from evil from a philosophical standpoint. I’d recommend reading the full article yourself if you haven’t already, but Alston identified at least six broad categories of potential limits on our cognitive capacities (with numerous theodicies under each category), each pertinent to assessing the probability that God would have morally sufficient reason for permitting gratuitous evil. These show that no one (human) is in a position to justifiably assert that God could not have sufficient reason or reasons for allowing apparently gratuitous suffering. Alston sensibly argued that not all limits will apply equally to all the many different categories of moral and natural evil, but that all conceivable categories are covered under one or several reasons. Thus, the probalistic argument from evil fails.

Alston is very clear on the purposes of his objections:

“First, I will not be proceeding on the basis of any general skepticism about our cognitive powers, either across the board or generally with respect to God. I will, rather, be focusing on the peculiar difficulties we encounter in attempting to provide adequate support for a certain very ambitious negative existential claim, viz., that there is (can be) no sufficient divine reason for permitting a certain case of [gratuitous] suffering.]”
Alston said, “Note that it is no part of my purpose here to develop or defend a theodicy. I am using theodicies only as a source of possibilities for divine reasons for evil, possibilities the realization of which the atheologian will have to show to be highly implausible if his project is to succeed.”

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Six Relevant Differences identified by Alston:

Alston: “1. LACK OF DATA: This includes, inter alia, the secrets of the human heart, the detailed constitution and structure of the universe, and the remote past and future, including the afterlife if any.”

Here, Alston refers not only to God’s omniscient ability to see an unbounded, continuous timeline simultaneously, and thus to know all the possibilities, causes, and the results of our suffering, but also our inability to determine whether, in all cases, the apparently “good” person is really good and undeserving of suffering, or unable to adequately benefit from the positive aspects of suffering – we are unable to examine his heart, his interior life, or his private life; we are unable to see if, in some cases (clearly NOT cases of suffering by a young child or an animal) suffering is not meted out as divine punishment for a transgression. This is, as Alston noted, not a currently popular theory but looms large in Christian theology of the past. This is not a special pleading, as any honest atheist will admit that we ARE unable to view another’s interior life and ARE unable to predict the results of suffering.

As few non-Judeo-Christian religions hold the same values of suffering or address the issues of free will, it is appropriate to argue from a Christian viewpoint, as the arguments advanced by the Atheist in this argument are targeted specifically against the Judeo-Christian concept of God:

• “Since I am thinking of the inductive argument from evil as directed against Christian belief in God, it will be appropriate to understand the punishment-for-sin suggestion in those terms. Two points about sin are particularly relevant here. (1) Inward sins-one’s intentions, motives, attitudes-are more serious than failings in outward behavior. (2) The greatest sin is a self-centered refusal or failure to make God the center of one’s life. (2) is sharply at variance with standard secular bases for moral judgment and evaluation. Hence the fact that X does not seem, from that standpoint, more wicked than Y, or doesn’t seem wicked at all, does nothing to show that God, on a Christian understanding of God, would make the same judgment. Because of (1) overt behavior is not always a good indication of a person’s condition, sin-wise.

“Second, according to Christianity, one’s life on earth is only a tiny proportion of one’s total life span. This means that, knowing nothing about the immeasurably greater proportion of [a sufferer]'s life, we are in no position to deny that the suffering qua punishment has not had a reformative effect, even if we can see no such effect in his earthly life.*

Alston further notes the common argument that moral suffering can be a positive good, by helping us grow and develop traits that will enable us capable of an eternal life of loving communion with God. Alston disposes of several common Atheist objections to this argument, including by addressing not the superior viewpoint logically inherent in an omniscient God, but the limited horizons of human cognition which even an atheist will readily admit:

*“‘If God is using suffering to achieve this goal, He is not doing very well. In spite of all the suffering we undergo, most of us don’t get very far in developing courage, compassion, etc.’ There are two answers to this. First, we are in no position to make that last judgment. We don’t know nearly enough about the inner springs of peoples’ motivation, attitudes, and character, even in this life. And we know nothing about any further development in an after-life. Second, the theism under discussion takes God to respect the free will of human beings. No strategy consistent with that can guarantee that all, or perhaps any, creatures will respond in the way intended. Whether they do is ultimately up to them. Hence we cannot argue from the fact that such tactics often don’t succeed to the conclusion that God wouldn’t employ them.”

“God must, because of self-imposed limitations, use means that have some considerable likelihood of success, not means that cannot fail. It is amazing that so many critics reject theodicies like [John[ Hick’s[Evil and the God of Love, rev. ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1978] on the grounds of a poor success rate. I don’t say that a poor success rate could not, under any circumstances, justify us in denying that God would permit [gratuitous suffering] for the sake of soul making. If we really did know enough to be reasonably sure that the success rate is very poor and that other devices open to God would be seen by omniscience to have a significantly greater chance of success, then we could conclude that Hick’s line does not get at what God is up to. But we are a very long way indeed from being able to justifiably assert this.”

“One can argue that a person’s suffering is disproportionate to his need for spiritual redemption, but we cannot see his inner problems, nor his life after death to see if it was worth it…Moreover, we are in a poor position, or no position, to determine what is the most effective strategy for God to use in His pursuit of [a person] We don’t know what alternatives are open to God, while respecting [the person]'s freedom, or what the chances are, on one or another alternative, of inducing the desired responses. We are in a poor position to say that this was too much suffering for the purpose, or to say how much would be just right. And we will continue to be in that position until our access to relevant information is radically improved.”*Alston also notes Eleanor Stump’s theory that suffering could be a way of “fixing our wills,” which have been damaged by the Original Sin of turning from God, and that natural (and perhaps moral) evil has a way of turning us back to God, to give him the opportunity to make us better:

.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Stump: “Natural evil-the pain of disease, the intermittent and unpredictable destruction of natural disasters, the decay of old age, the imminence of death-takes away a person’s satisfaction with himself. It tends to humble him, show him his frailty, make him reflect on the transience of temporal goods, and turn his affections towards other-worldly things, away from the things of this world. No amount of moral or natural evil, of course, can guarantee that a man will seek God’s help. If it could, the willing it produced would not be free. But evil of this sort is the best hope, I think, and maybe the only effective means, for bringing men to such a state.”

Alston notes Marilyn McCord Adam’s theory that great suffering, even if not in the cause of Faith, can constitute a kind of Martyrdom, which if witnessed or known to others, has the effect of causing great spiritual change and repentance in others (and sometimes society, as with Etan Patz and Adam Walsh, the death of the child of the MADD founder, Anne Frank, and many other victims, which caused a realignment within society of how we view certain evils), with the promise of eternal life and happiness for the sufferer. “Onlookers are invited to see in the martyr the person they ought to be and to be brought to a deeper level of commitment. Alternatively, onlookers may see themselves in the persecutor and be moved to repentance.” While noting that not all instances of suffering are analogous to martyrdom, in some cases suffering can hold benefits to the sufferer as well as others:

Adams:* “[T]he threat of martyrdom is a time of testing and judgment. It makes urgent the previously abstract dilemma of whether he loves God more than the temporal goods that are being extracted as a price …the martyr will have had to face a deeper truth about himself and his relations to God and temporal goods than ever he could in fair weather…the time of trial is also an opportunity for building a relationship of trust between the martyr and that to which he testifies. Whether because we are fallen or by the nature of the case, trusting relationships have to be built up by a history of interactions. If the martyr’s loyalty to God is tested, but after a struggle he holds onto his allegiance to God and God delivers him (in his own time and way), the relationship is strengthened and deepened.”*

It may also hold benefits for the persecutor in some very specific cases:

“Once more, even if we cannot see that [a child]'s suffering brings these kinds of benefits to her attacker or to onlookers, our massive ignorance of the recesses of the human heart and of the total outcomes, perhaps through eternity, for all such people, renders us poor judges of whether such benefits are indeed forthcoming. And, finally, even if no goods of these sorts eventuate, there is once more the insoluble problem of whether God could be expected to use a different strategy, given His respect for human free will. Perhaps that was (a part of) the strategy that held out the best chance of evoking the optimal response from these particularly hard-hearted subjects.”

 

[Arizona_Mike]

As Christians believe, suffering can also be an invitation into the inner life of Christ, as an opportunity to share in his life.

The positive gift of free will is an additional argument that the benefit outweighs the impact of suffering:

“The suggestion of this theodicy is that it is conceptually impossible for God to create free agents and also determine how they are to choose, within those areas in which they are free. If He were so to determine their choices they would, ipso facto, not be free. But this being the case, when God decided to endow some of His creatures, including us, with free choice, He thereby took the chance, ran the risk, of our sometimes or often making the wrong choice, a possibility that has been richly realized. It is conceptually impossible for God to create free agents and not subject Himself to such a risk. Not to do the latter would be not to do the former. But that being the case, He, and we, are stuck with whatever consequences ensue. And this is why God permits such horrors as the rape, beating, and murder of [a child]. He does it not because that particular wicked choice is itself necessary for the realization of some great good, but because the permission of such horrors is bound up with the decision to give human beings free choice in many areas, and that (the capacity to freely choose) is a great good, such a great good as to be worth all the suffering and others evils that it makes possible.”

Alston addresses the most common atheist objections to this:

*“t has been urged that it is within God’s power to create free agents so that they always choose what is right. For another, it has been denied or doubted that free will is of such value as to be worth all the sin and suffering it has brought into the world… On the first point, if we set aside middle knowledge as I am doing in this paper, it is logically impossible for God to create beings with genuine freedom of choice and also guarantee that they will always choose the right. And even granting middle knowledge, Plantinga (1974) has established the possibility that God could not actualize a world containing free creatures that always do the right thing. As for the second point, though it may be beyond our powers to show that free will has sufficient value to carry the theodical load, it is surely equally beyond our powers to show that it does not.”

To the argument that, as in the case of a child who suffers great harm, God could reasonably prevent harm through a miracle at the last moment, in some cases, without affecting the exercise of free will by the offender:

“To be sure, if God were to act on this principle in every case of incipient wrongdoing, the situation would be materially changed. Human agents would no longer have a real choice between good and evil, and the surpassing worth that attaches to having such a choice would be lost. Hence, if God is to promote the values emphasized by the free will theodicy, He can intervene in this way in only a small proportion of cases. And how are these to be selected? I doubt that we are in a position to give a confident answer to this question, but let’s assume that the critic proposes that the exceptions are to be picked in such a way as to maximize welfare, and let’s go along with that. Rowe’s claim would then have to be that [a child]'s murder was so horrible that it would qualify for the class of exceptions. But that is precisely where the critic’s claims far outrun his justification. How can we tell that Sue falls within the most damaging n% of what would be cases of human wrongdoing apart from divine intervention. To be in a position to make such a judgment we would have to survey the full range of such cases and make reliable assessments of the deleterious consequences of each. Both tasks are far beyond our powers. We don’t even know what free creaturely agents there are beyond human beings, and with respect to humans the range of wickedness, past, present, and future, is largely beyond our ken. And even with respect to the cases of which we are aware we have only a limited ability to assess the total consequences. Hence, by the nature of the case, we are simply not in a position to make a warranted judgment that [a child]'s case is among the n% worst cases of wrongdoing in the history of the universe. No doubt, it strikes us as incomparably horrible on hearing about it, but so would innumerable others. Therefore, the critic is not in a position to set aside the value of free will as at least part of God’s reason for permitting
[a child]'s murder.”

Alston notes that the ability to make moral decisions demand a universe of laws which allows our decisions to take place within a framework where consequences follow moral actions, as argued by Bruce Reichenbach in “Evil and a Good God” (1982).

Reichenbach: “God in creating had to create a world which operated according to natural laws to achieve this higher good. Thus, his action of creation of a natural world and a natural order, along with the resulting pain and pleasure which we experience, is justified. The natural evils which afflict us-diseases, sickness, disasters, birth defects-are all the outworking of the natural system of which we are a part. They are the byproducts made possible by that which is necessary for the greater good”*

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Alston: “2. COMPLEXITY GREATER THAN WE CAN HANDLE. Most notably there is the difficulty of holding enormous complexes of fact-different possible worlds or different systems of natural law-together in the mind sufficiently for comparative evaluation.”

“Even if we could, at least in outline, determine what alternative systems of natural order are open to God, we would still be faced with the staggering job of comparative evaluation. How can we hold together in our minds the salient features of two such total systems sufficiently to make a considered judgment of their relative merits? Perhaps we are capable of making a considered evaluation of each feature of the systems (or many of them), and even capable of judicious comparisons of features two by-two. For example, we might be justified in holding that the reduction in the possibilities of disease is worth more than the greater variety of forms of life that goes along with susceptibility to disease. But it is another matter altogether to get the kind of overall grasp of each system to the extent required to provide a comprehensive ranking of those systems.”

Alston: “3. DIFFICULTY OF DETERMING WHAT IS METAPHYSICALLY POSSIBLE OR NECESSARY: *Once we move beyond conceptual or semantic modalities (and even that is no piece of cake) it is notoriously difficult to find any sufficient basis for claims as to what is metaphysically possible, given the essential natures of things, the exact character of which is often obscure to us and virtually always controversial. This difficulty is many times multiplied when we are dealing with total possible worlds or total systems of natural order.”

“ Why couldn’t there be a natural order in which there are no viruses and bacteria the natural operation of which results in human and animal disease, a natural order in which rainfall is evenly distributed, in which earthquakes do not occur, in which forests are not subject to massive fires? To be sure, even God could not bring into being just the creatures we presently have while subjecting their behavior to different laws. For the fact that a tiger’s natural operations and tendencies are what they are is an essential part of what makes it the kind of thing it is. But why couldn’t God have created a world with different constituents so as to avoid subjecting any sentient creatures to disease and natural disasters? Let’s agree that this is possible for God. But then the critic must also show that at least one of the ways in which God could have done this would have produced a world that is better on the whole than the actual world. For even if God could have instituted a natural order without disease and natural disasters, that by itself doesn’t show that He would have done so if He existed. For if that world had other undesirable features and/or lacked desirable features in such a way as to be worse, or at least no better than, the actual world, it still doesn’t follow that God would have chosen the former over the latter. It all depends on the overall comparative worth of the two systems.”*

Alston: “4. IGNORANCE OF THE FULL RANGE OF POSSIBILITIES. *This is always crippling when we are trying to establish negative conclusions. If we don’t know whether or not there are possibilities the ones we have thought of, we are in a very bad position to show that there can be no divine reasons for permitting evil.”

“Even if all my argumentation prior to that point were in vain and my opponent could definitively rule out all the specific suggestions I have put forward, she would still face the insurmountable task of showing herself to be justified in supposing that there are no further possibilities for sufficient divine reasons. That point by itself would be decisive.”*

 

[Arizona_Mike]

Alston: “5. IGNORANCE OF THE FULL RANGE OF VALUES. When it’s a question of whether some good is related to [gratuitous suffering] in such a way as to justify God in permitting [gratuitous suffering], we are… in a very poor position to answer the question if we don’t know the extent to which there are modes of value beyond those of which we are aware. For in that case, so far as we can know, [gratuitous suffering] may be justified by virtue of its relation to one of those unknown goods.”

Alston notes that we may not have advanced our understanding of value enough to understand all the possible goods suffering may bring, in the same way that we have not advanced physical science enough to understand all the universe:

Alston: *”Perhaps, unbeknownst to us, one or the other of these bits of suffering is necessary, in ways we cannot grasp, for some outweighing good of a sort with which we are familiar, e.g., supreme fulfillment of one’s deepest nature. Or perhaps it is necessary for the realization of a good of which we as yet have no conception. And these possibilities are by no means remote ones. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Truer words were never spoken. They point to the fact that our cognitions of the world, obtained by filtering raw data through such conceptual screens as we have available for the nonce, acquaint us with only some indeterminable fraction of what is there to be known. The progress of human knowledge makes this evident. No one explicitly realized the distinction between concrete and abstract entities, the distinction between efficient and final causes the distinction between knowledge and opinion, until great creative thinkers adumbrated these distinctions and disseminated them to their fellows. The development of physical science has made us aware of a myriad of things hitherto undreamed of, and developed the concepts with which to grasp them-gravitation, electricity, electromagnetic fields, space-time curvature, irrational numbers, and so on. It is an irresistible induction from this that we have not reached the final term of this process, and that more realities, aspects, properties, structures remain to be discerned and conceptualized. And why should values, and the conditions of their realization, be any exception to this generalization?” *

“Moreover, remember that our topic is not the possibilities for future human apprehensions, but rather what an omniscient being can grasp of modes of value and the conditions of their realization. Surely it is eminently possible that there are real possibilities for the latter that exceed anything we can anticipate, or even conceptualize. It would be exceedingly strange if an omniscient being did not immeasurably exceed our grasp of such matters. Thus there is an unquestionably live possibility that God’s reasons for allowing human suffering may have to do, in part, with the appropriate connection of those sufferings with goods in ways that have never been dreamed of in our theodicies. Once we bring this into the picture, the critic is seen to be on shaky ground in denying, of Bambi’s or Sue’s suffering, that God could have any patient-centered reason for permitting it, even if we are unable to suggest what such a reason might be.”

Alston: “6. LIMITS TO OUR CAPACITY TO MAKE WELL CONSIDERED VALUE JUDGEMENTS. *The chief example of this we have noted is the difficulty in making comparative evaluations of large complex wholes.”

“We find it difficult enough, if not impossible, to arrive at a definitive comparative evaluation of cultures, social systems, or educational policies. It is far from clear that even if I devoted my life to the study of two primitive cultures, I would thereby be in a position to make an authoritative pronouncement as to which is better on the whole. How much less are we capable of making a comparative evaluation of two alternative natural orders, with all the indefinitely complex ramification of the differences between the two.” *

Re the atheist argument that man’s cognitive limitations constitute a “Special Pleading,”

Alston:* “The point is that the critic is engaged in attempting to support a particularly difficult claim, a claim that there isn’t something in a certain territory, while having a very sketchy idea of what is in that territory, and having no sufficient basis for an estimate of how much of the territory falls outside his knowledge. This is very different from our more usual situation in which we are forming judgments and drawing conclusions about matters concerning which we antecedently know quite a lot, and the boundaries
and parameters of which we have pretty well settled.”*

As Alston and others have pointed out, it is not necessary to claim that any one reason would justify all cases of apparently gratuitous evil. As we live in a complex universe, there are numerous causes and results, and thus no single theodicy would be required to explain the problem of suffering, but all or a portion could fully explain the problem. So to claim that Reason A does not account for Evil B, and that Reason B could not account for Reason C, is a divide and conquer strategy that does not account for the complexity of possible reasons for suffering.

Even if an atheist argues against these as not applicable to an inductive use of the argument from evil, he will still have to show these examples are all highly implausible to put the weight of evidence behind his inferences.

While it can be argued that God, if all-powerful, could use other means to move us towards moral behavior, but the existence of other possible techniques, or therapies, doesn’t mean that God would not have the knowledge that any one technique might be the OPTIMAL technique in a specific case.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

We can also note that
EVIL IS NEEDED TO KNOW GOOD: If evil was not present, we would have no way of knowing what Good is. Also, if there is no evil or suffering, there is no opportunity for compassion, no charity, and no courage, which we recognize as moral goods.

SOME SUFFERING COULD PREVENT GREATER SUFFERING: In the web of causality, a far greater sorrow could be prevented by a lesser amount of suffering in some cases. A broken arm may cause a change of events that prevents a death later in time.

SUFFERING REFOCUSES OUR LIVES. When I was about to leave the house about ten years ago, I was in a hurry to get everything together for work, quickly say goodbye to my wife and kids, and get on the road before rush-hour traffic got bad. As I was heading out the door, I got a phone-call from a friend telling me I should turn the TV on. I did not think, when getting out of bed that morning, that I would be watching the collapse of the World Trade Center within a few hours, or how the events of that disaster would irrevocably change my life. I doubt many of the people who died that day woke up thinking it would be their last day on Earth. For most of us, we probably won’t think that on the day we actually do die. But it does remind those of us who survived that day that no one ever promised us a tomorrow, and that we should hold the persons near to us close and tell them what they mean to us. We should probably do that every day, as someday it will be that day. Suffering – the witness of a 9-11, the death of a parent, the near-death experience of a car-crash or almost-drowning – teaches us what is trivial and what is really important, and can help us understand how much of our lives are occupied with the trivial. God probably doesn’t care who won the latest reality show or if you can afford the latest high-tech smart-phone, but He does care about your eternal soul. As Blaise Pascal said, “Man’s sensitivity to trivia, and his insensitivity to matters of major importance, reveal he has a strange disorder.”

SUFFERING CAN HELP US DEVELOP MORALLY: Suffering can build psychic muscle, as well. We are all familiar with the phenomenon of the Trust Fund Brat, whose every need is catered to, and who develops into a spoiled and thoroughly unlikeable person. We don’t want our children to suffer misfortune, but it is reasonable for us to consider some level of suffering and discomfort as character-building. As C.S. Lewis said, “What do people mean that if God is all-good, he won’t allow us any harm? Have they never been to a dentist?” This is consistent with the view that this world is not the buffet line on a cruise ship, it’s a crucible to temper us and test us and prepare us for what lies next. One can curse the lesson yet still bless the knowledge.

 

[Arizona_Mike]

SUFFERING CAN PROVIDE AN OPPORTUNITY TO EXHIBIT COMPASSION AND COURAGE: If dying in the collapse of a building in a natural disaster, I think that I would rather die pushing a child out of the way of a collapsing structure. Who knows? For some, such actions may help balance out greater sins. I’ve found some of the greatest kindness and compassion exhibited in burn wards and hospices – often by those who are patients.

SUFFERING CAN SERVE AS A LESSON TO OTHERS – The results of bad moral decisions can lead us and others, to change our behavior. Thus, if we see another suffering from an STD, we can learn that promiscuous unsafe sexual behavior is not good. The more examples we see of this, the more the lesson is reinforced. So, as Swinburne argued, the knowledge gained from such lessons is a moral good as it 1) allows us to learn more about the world; 2) allows us to learn more about the consequences of our actions, so our chances to act as moral agents for others improves – if the universe did not operate by cause and effect, we would not know how to help someone in need; and 3) the knowledge we gain about the world from seeing predictable consequences allows us to exercise Significant Free Will.

SUFFERING CAN TURN A WITNESS TO BETTER BEHAVIOR: Those who see the act of oppression, either personally or second-hand, may repent of similar behavior, or may seek to prevent further such behavior – the horrible murders of Etan Patz and Adam Walsh turned the entire nation to consider the problem of missing children. The death of the child of the founder of MADD led her to fight against drunk driving, which has reduced the number of DUI incidents nationwide. The murder of Anne Frank, has led millions to a greater understanding of the evils of anti-Semitism and prejudice. Hearing of a child struck by a car can lead other drivers to drive more carefully.

SUFFERING CAN SERVE AS A WITNESS TO GOD THROUGH MARTYRDOM: The witness of belief by refusal to renounce one’s faith can be the most dramatic evidence of one’s faith, and may lead others to faith. Martyrdom can include lesser suffering as well, as Marilyn McCord has noted – if we are tested and don’t lose faith (as with the story of Job), and God delivers the sufferer in time, the relationship is strengthened and deepened. It can also serve as an invitation to the inner life of Christ, as one offers one’s sufferings up to Him.

SUFFERING CAN TURN AN OPPRESSOR BACK TOWARDS GOD: The self-realization of the oppressor’s own baseness can be a powerful message to bring the sufferer back to God. Such people can become powerful witnesses themselves in an attempt to redeem themselves (which is part of the effectiveness of faith-based systems such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Saul, who was one of the most enthusiastic persecutors of the early Christian movement, and who held the coats of the men who murdered St. Stephen, was struck blind on the road to Tarsus and after a conversion experience, changed his name to Paul and became the most effective apostle of the Jesus movement.

SUFFERING AS PUNISHMENT: Suffering could also serve as temporal retribution, as 1) Justice 2) Deterrence, and 3) Rehabilitation. If you accept the possibility of Purgatory as a theological realm, earthly suffering could mitigate some of the need for a prolonged period in Purgatory, or even the need for Hell, both of which would be moral goods.

EVEN A UNIVERSE WITH THE PRESENCE OF GRATUITOUS SUFFERING ADDS TO THE TOTAL LEVEL OF GOOD IN A CREATED UNIVERSE: An interesting perspective and solution to the problem of evil offered by an Atheist, Professor Bradley Monton: bradleymonton.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/the-many-universe-solution-to-the-problem-of-evil/

 

[Arizona_Mike]

An objection to the use of some of these Relevant Differences and Theodicies is that if we can’t always judge the possible positive effects of suffering, why should we as humans intervene to prevent it? More confusing is the possibility that moral actions that appear from our perspective to be good may not result in a good action (which we have probably all experienced.) The clear commandment to intervene whenever we can, out of love for our fellow man, makes it reasonable to do so, and that it is likely the net positive benefit of moral intervention would outweigh any other considerations. It leaves open the question whether we are judged by our intentions or our results.

Even the often-cited “Bambi” example used by atheists fails in this regard: (A big-eyed little fawn is crushed under a burning tree in a forest fire. There is no purpose to its suffering, and so it is gratuitous suffering, and thus, to an atheist, disproves the existence of God). Although controversial among Christians (including members of this forum), no authoritative teaching has been offered by the Church or through revelation on how the animal soul is provided for in the afterlife. Whether animals go to “our” Heaven or not (and I personally suspect that some do – dogs evince such qualities of duty, loyalty, love, compassion, joy, sorrow, and guilt that they could not be other than natural Catholics), a merciful God will make just provision for them.

1. Whence the Good?
   If we decide that the presence of suffering in this world is all too much, and must show that there is no God, how do we account for the (arguably greater) prevalence of Good?
   Do we somehow weigh it out? If a 34 year old father of two dies of cancer, how many points on the negative side is that? How many points do we give for the 10 years he spent with a loving wife? How many points do we give for the 8 and 9 years he had to enjoy being with his children? How many points for spending 34 years in a relatively prosperous and free western democracy? How many points do we give just for being born?
   I can walk out of my house and look around. I can look at the horizon, and look at the sky, and find greater evidence for good than evil. I can talk to any random group of people, and find more good people than bad people. What is the source for that?

 

[Arizona_Mike]

1. The presence of moral or natural evil, and the suffering that results, is not always easily understandable, but our response to it is commanded by Christ and is quite clear and easily understandable.

Jesus recognized the problem of explaining evil in all circumstances, in Luke 13, as he tied together both Natural Evil and Moral Evil, which are often combined. Even as Jesus said we should not judge those who suffer in a specific circumstance as in any way “deserving” their suffering, we can acknowledge that moral evil often worsens the impact of natural evil – the elected official who diverts funds intended for flood control to his personal wealth, the building inspector who takes a bribe to overlook shoddy construction, the profiteers and looters and thugs who take advantage of the stricken, all add to the suffering in an instance of Natural Evil. There is nothing so bad that human evil can’t make it worse. (Although politically controversial, we should also consider the effects of man on the environment when considering the effects of Natural Evil – global warming, the mutagenic and carcinogenic effects of chemicals, etc.)

From the Old Testament demands to “do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:6-8), or to “rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:12-17) we know that human actions can also lessen human suffering, and that failure to act can make it worse. Christ quite clearly boiled down our moral obligations to two easily understandable imperatives – to love God and to love and care for our fellow man (Matthew 22: 37-39).

When an atheist demands that God should have “done something” to prevent an act of suffering, one wonders in what manner this would happen? By changing the will of the offender? Atheists such as Christopher Hitchens have a particular horror of God controlling our minds or dictating to us, why would this be acceptable for God to do in any circumstance? Certainly, the child-rapist thinks he has the same right to perform evil as anyone else does for their own actions. What should be the cut-off point for God to intervene to prevent suffering? (And does fetal pain count? Or just Bambi’s pain?)

God has supernatural moral agents at his command. In the same way we would consider a general in the army or the chief of police to have fulfilled a moral duty to stop aggression or crime by dispatching his soldiers or his police officers, so we would consider that God acted justly in sending an angel to protect someone.

God has other moral agents at his command as well. Namely, us. Given that God has commanded we watch over our brothers and sisters, we must say that evil happens, we are called upon to prevent or mitigate the effects.

To me, this seems to be the answer to the problem. God expects us to act as his moral agents to reduce suffering.

Have the people complaining about human suffering signed up to be a Big Brother or Sister? Have they donated blood? Have they donated food to the St. Vincent de Paul Food Bank? Do they volunteer their time in an AIDS hospice? Do they do outreach with Catholic Social Services to help rescue the victims of child sexual trafficking? If not, do they have moral standing to speak?

This is not to argue that God could not, on occasion, directly intervene either subtly or directly, and I think the evidence is good that he does, and I believe I have witnessed this. I also think it likely that God does not want us to grow flaccid in our moral responsibilities by doing all the good actions we are required to do, for us. Like spoiled children whose parents do everything for them, we would not learn and grow in our moral duties. As St. Ignatius of Loyola said, “Pray as if everything depended on God. Act as if everything depended on you.”

Don’t complain about God and the question of suffering if you haven’t gotten off your …couch… to do something about it. YOU are the answer. If you don’t like evil, do good.

As an infantryman, I didn’t have to understand all the issues that my commander-in-chief and chain of command had to consider when deciding how to conduct a war. I was given simple and clear directives, and it was given to me to accomplish them within the codes of conduct I had been given. It was not always clear WHY I had to perform a certain task, but I trusted my commander and did my best to accomplish the mission, even at the cost of my own life, because I knew that my side had to win.

I acknowledge God’s omnibeneficence in my creation, and in the creation of all things I hold dear – Family, friends, the universe, values, His Church. Even if I haven’t been given the knowledge or capacity to understand all His reasons for why things happen the way they do, I extend reasoned trust to him and his ultimate goodness, which is my definition of Faith. God is not obligated to explain Himself to me (as St. Paul said, the clay has no right to judge the potter). Christ’s commands to me (and his example) are sufficient to deal with the problem of suffering.

Okay, end of rant.

 

[CEM5]

I just read something on CAF awhile ago which reminded me of the age-old question, “Why doesn’t God heal amputees?” It got me thinking and googling. Now I know amputees aren’t sick, so that answer won’t cut it. I have yet to read a good answer for this and wondered if anyone here has something that makes sense?

God did not cause the injury to the person, just as God does not cause genetic disorders, or other physical or moral evils. We, from our choices and the consequences of living in a “fallen” world, suffer from these maladies/evils. God brings ‘good’ from evil, and like any good parent, is there to comfort us and give us the strength to carry on with our lives.

Now, in the hereafter, in heaven, we will all be “whole” and perfect. By accepting the love of God and the gift of eternal salvation, we will one day be “healed” and the imperfect will be made perfect forever.

The world is but transiant and fleeting, and our lives, should we accept, in heave will be forever.

Blessings,
CEM