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Leelee82
Guest
Since God is omnipotent, is every bad thing that happens his will? I’m not including acts of free will, but natural evil like cancer, tsunamis, etc.
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snarflemike
Guest
He has given us the world which we demanded, a world in which we can know good and evil.
Is a world where natural evil is impossible, but free-will evil possible, even conceivable? Where a rock will never fall on you and kill you, but where that rock can be picked up and used as a weapon? Where you can never fall off a cliff, but you can be pushed off a cliff? etc, etc, etc.
Can you actually imagine such a world? I can’t.
Is a world where natural evil is impossible, but free-will evil possible, even conceivable? Where a rock will never fall on you and kill you, but where that rock can be picked up and used as a weapon? Where you can never fall off a cliff, but you can be pushed off a cliff? etc, etc, etc.
Can you actually imagine such a world? I can’t.
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ivebeenshown
Guest
Yes, God does will that ‘natural evils’ happen. God says “I make peace, and create evil.” Now, every act performed is done seeking a good, and in judging which act to perform, we judge which good to pursue and demonstrate which good we most desire. An evil act is performed when the actor judges in favor of pursuing a goodness which does not include the Divine Goodness. Now, God is the highest of all goods, and the goodness he pursues is none other than his own. So in willing the greatest of goods, his actions cannot be said to be evil.
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Michael_Mayo
Guest
Yes, I can.
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snarflemike
Guest
Great, I hope you’ll write about it in some detail someday. Would make a fascinating setting for a novel.
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tonyrey
Guest
Accidents, diseases, deformities and disasters are misfortunes caused by the element of Chance within the framework of Design. It is absurd to think no one should ever be in the wrong place at the wrong time because in an immensely complex world harmful coincidences are bound to occur sooner or later.
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Love4All
Guest
Actually, God is in complete control of everything at all times.
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Michael_Mayo
Guest
I don’t think it is so incredible. Why should guilty suffering require innocent suffering? Why should deliberate harm of others require earthquakes and tsunamis?
We need not try to sanitize God nor make excuses. We do not understand God’s ways and yet we can believe there isa alwys meaning and purpose even in darkness and woe.
Isaiah 45:7
I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the Lord, who do all these things.
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Love4All
Guest
Suffering is reparation for sin. When God eliminates sin, He will also eliminate suffering. As Scripture says, “God shall wipe away every tear.”
And He is eliminating sin now, through your praying of rosary after rosary after rosary.
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tonyrey
Guest
Not direct control. He generally works through the laws of nature. Otherwise He would be directly responsible for every accident, disease, disaster and deformity…
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Michael_Mayo
Guest
All suffering?
Tragic earthquake in China is reparartion for sin?
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ivebeenshown
Guest
Catechism, para. 418: As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to ignorance, suffering and the domination of death, and inclined to sin (this inclination is called “concupiscence”).
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tonyrey
Guest
Certainly not!
**CCC **385 God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil.
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ivebeenshown
Guest
“As a result of original sin, human nature is weakened in its powers, subject to …] suffering” is a very clear statement. Humans would not suffer were it not for original sin. The earthquake itself may not in itself be a punishment, but that humans suffer from it is a punishment.
So in the sense of the earthquake itself, it is not a punishment. But in the sense of the tragedy surrounding the earthquake, it is.
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Love4All
Guest
He is. God creates Reality. There is in reality no such thing as a “law of nature.” There is only God’s Will. “Laws of nature,” per se, are expressions of our observations of nature, and what we are actually observing is God’s Will.Not direct control. He generally works through the laws of nature. Otherwise He would be directly responsible for every accident, disease, disaster and deformity…
Now having said that, I wish to clarify a subtle point. You said “responsible,” which can imply moral fault. God is all good, there is no evil at all in Him. So, let us consider a scenario: a man with a gun kills another man, in order to take his money. He is aware of the commandments, “thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal.” He chose, with his free will, to disobey them. Now God is not the cause of his sin; that is his free will. But God is the cause of his freedom of will. God, for His part, insured that this man knew the Commandments, so the moral responsibility for the murder and the theft falls on the murderer and the thief, not on God.
But, the physics of the bullet coming from the gun and piercing the victim’s flesh, is directly willed by God. Even though human beings brought money into existence against God’s Will, the actuality of the coins and the currency in which money consists, is directly willed by God. The Islamic Doctrine that man chooses good or evil but God creates the reality of the action resulting from man’s choice, is absolutely true. No one can create reality except for God. No one’s will directly produces reality, except for God’s.
You listed four items that you seem to think God has no part in, to wit, accident, disease, disaster, deformity. The reality is that an “accident” is only an unintended consequence of an action. A person accidentally crashes their car. God wills the physics of the crushing of metal and the human head striking the windshield. God dies the human being at that moment, and the moment of that person’s death is precisely in accordance with God’s Will. God created the microbes that cause disease, and wills them into the body of the person who contracts a disease. Natural disasters are actually referred to as “acts of God,” since that is what they are. And God wills to create a human being whose body shape comes about as a causal result of that human being’s DNA, the physics, chemistry, and biology of which is all directly willed by God. Perhaps the deformity is due, not to DNA, but to some physical “mishap,” perhaps a genetic disease of some kind, or simply an injury to the fetus while still in its mother’s womb. All of it is from the hand of God.
Am I making it clear enough? God does everything. Nothing at all can escape His Sovereign Will. And, He is all good, and every thing He does is to bring about His good Will. We may say that God’s designs are inscrutable. That is how it is. But their inscrutability does not render them not God’s designs. God has command of both good and evil, and uses both good and evil to bring about good. Satan, for example, has nothing benevolent in his will, he is 100% evil, yet God uses Satan to fulfill His purposes, not Satan’s. Satan, in the end, serves God in spite of himself. The only real difference between moral good and moral evil is whether you choose to be a willing servant or an unwilling one. Those who are good, serve God willingly. Those who are evil, serve God in spite of themselves.
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Love4All
Guest
Of course.
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Love4All
Guest
You quoted it yourself: “above all to the question of moral evil.” That is why there was an earthquake. It is why people die.
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Love4All
Guest
And God sent the earthquake, and the attendant tragedy, as a punishment for sin.
The sooner human beings face the reality of that, the sooner — I hope! — they will begin entering conversion from their sins, and reparation to God for sin.
God is converting the world from its sins, one way or the other. Acts of charity also repair for sin, but in the absence of many acts of charity, instead there are earthquakes, fires, floods, school shootings, and bombings. 9-11 was in reparation for sin. Denying it is both absurd and counterproductive. People need to acknowledge it, and then get on their knees and pray rosary after rosary after rosary.
Now you can mark my words: when people do that, the disasters will stop happening. Until people do that, the disasters will continue to increase.
What is it going to take?
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davidv
Guest
He often does this by letting us have our way.
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Love4All
Guest
Very seldom indeed does God ever directly thwart the intention of one of His creatures. This is, of course, an endless source of complaint from the unenlightened. It seems, so many of them would prefer that only themselves be able to do what they will, while others should be stopped dead in their tracks, “if God is good.”
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