But why couldn’t he just have made us good to begin with? If he is all powerful why did he even let evil exist in the first place? Does he not have power over all?
Why did he make life so beautiful, yet thousands of hearts are broken daily by death? A death which has no promise of an afterlife, no sign from God that there is a heaven, no visible evidence as comfort.
We definitely did not “invent hell.” What gave you that idea? I would never invent such a place. Even the worst sinner would never want to invent somewhere in which there is eternal torture and torment.
He HAS committed lies. Jesus promises God will give us what we ask in his name. When my friend’s wife gets struck by a car and he screams out to Jesus begging for his wife to live and she ends up dying the next day, God did not fulfill his promise.
He invites us to worship him despite a world of hurt, tragedy, death, despair, and confusion. A planet amongst thousands of stars and other planets with no explanation why. Cancer, heart attacks, strokes, sudden deaths, etc. Heartaches and losing loved ones. It is an imperfect world. That’s what he is saying.
If God really had that much power, and TRULY wanted us to be happy, he should’ve made it that way.
You’ve just described every parent who has ever existed. What a bunch of monsters our parents have all been - letting their toddlers walk around knowing for mortal certainty that those children are going to fall and hurt themselves from time to time. Taking them to the doctors for all those horrible vaccinations when they know there’s only a slim chance those children will catch the diseases they’re being vaccinated against.
Giving them bicycles when they know those kids will fall off and skin their knees. Sending them to school to learn when they know that at least sometimes they’re going to fail - or at least be upset by a less-than-perfect grade. Not giving them mountains of sugar and guns and knives to play with for the asking.
Parents don’t do these things because they are cruel. They do them because they need to. Because they know that we, stubborn human beings that we are, usually learn best through walking (or getting on that bike or doing that tough maths quiz) and falling and getting up again and trying again. Over and over again until we get it right.
They know that endless supplies of sugary treats, and free access to dangerous weapons, is bad for us, no matter how prettily we may plead for them, and that gettingvaccinations, getting to sleep early, doing our homework and eating our vegetables are good for us, no matter that we don’t at the time see the sense in doing these things.
Jesus also said ‘who, if his child asks for a fish, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for bread will give him a snake’? He knew full well that sometimes the child will ask for the stone or the snake, not knowing that such things are no good, or at least no use, to them. You need to do some research into what ‘in My name’ actually means. It doesn’t simply mean that tacking the words ‘in Jesus’ name’ onto the end of a prayer guarantees that you will receive what you pray for as you are guaranteed to receive a can of Coke for putting the correct change into a vending machine.
Lots of evil things have surely been prayed for ‘in Jesus’ name’, after all, do you think God ought have granted all of them? What if you found out your friend’s wife had died because some malevolent person prayed as fervently for her to die as your friend did for her to live? Would you then be happy that He had granted that prayer?
As an afterthought - she IS living - just not on Earth. And probably as much good from her family from where she is now as she could while she was alive - the Saints certainly work powerful miracles through their intercession. Perhaps God took her to Him for that reason? Of course your friend is hurting and grieving and will think all this sounds callous and simplistic but that sort of hope - nay, promise - is anything but. Is it really better to extinguish that hope and not trust in that promise? To believe that she died through dumb luck and there is nothing left - no hope, no promise, nothing to uplift and help with the grief?
ETA - ‘invent’ is the wrong word. Certainly those who go to Hell choose to go there in the same sense that criminals choose their fines and jail sentences in choosing to commit their crimes. More so in that criminals can be punished merely for doing the wrong necessarily being aware of any details of the punishment the law attaches to it, whereas we are told plainly in scripture how terrible Hell is and so are not unwarned.
