Why did God create a world were babies are killed?

[Richard_Powers]

In any case, Richard, I find your line of questioning disingenuous. You say you don’t believe God created the world, and yet you asked a question that presupposes that He did. This smacks of setting a trap, and it’s inflammatory and intellectually dishonest. If you truly want to debate this point from an atheistic standpoint, it would be more charitable of you to be up front about your first principles.

Peace,
Dante

I am trying to understand how Catholics see the world. Do I have to be Catholic to ask these questions?

The “physical evil” to which I referred is not the hurricane itself, but the havoc, death, destruction, and suffering which result when a “properly behaved” hurricane hits a populated area. This is what the OP seems to be asking about, and Pete (and I, in support) was pointing out that God allows such things to happen because the universe is not yet perfected, and God does not as a matter of habit interfere with its machinations. When He does, it’s a miracle. When He doesn’t, he is allowing evil to exist, but also bringing good out of it.

So God created an imperfect universe?

 

[Richard_Powers]

To clear something up, while I am atheist (agnostic really), for the purpose of this thread I am working from the presumption that the universe was created.

 

[seekerz]

I never said there was suffering that was man’s fault. But it all should not be seen that way. Death and suffering predate man.

Even if for argument’s sake I accept your assertion that animals suffered before man ever existed, that doesn’t naturally follow that man would have suffered too - we suffer because the entry of sin into the world caused separation between us and God.

Animals are not human and they don’t have souls, so your assumptions are in effect comparing apples and oranges. That being said, I believe the Fall upset, not just our relationship with God, but the whole balance of creation.

What about all the babies that died? What did they get out of their suffering? Is God using them as a means to help other help?

Again, you have to be specific. Babies die from any number of causes: disease, hunger, abortion, abuse…many, if not most a direct/indirect result of human action/inaction - not God’s.

If the suffering of starving children touches peoples hearts so that they give assistance, inspires scientists to develop drought-resistant crops or pressures governments to reallocate resources to the needy, then that suffering (though avoidable) accomplished something worthwhile.

That we need to see babies suffer before we can act to fairly(?) redistribute the earth’s bounty, is a testament to man’s callousness not proof that God wanted them to suffer.

 

[Richard_Powers]

When I wrote:

I never said there was suffering that was man’s fault. But it all should not be seen that way. Death and suffering predate man.

I meant to write:

I never said there was not suffering that was man’s fault. But it all should not be seen that way. Death and suffering predate man.

If the suffering of starving children touches peoples hearts so that they give assistance, inspires scientists to develop drought-resistant crops or pressures governments to reallocate resources to the needy, then that suffering (though avoidable) accomplished something worthwhile.

That we need to see babies suffer before we can act to fairly(?) redistribute the earth’s bounty, is a testament to man’s callousness not proof that God wanted them to suffer.

Let’s take the death and suffering of uncountable children that died of disease in infancy 100,000 years ago. Just like today babies were born with diseases that killed them soon after death. This is before the development of medicine. Now, you say that these deaths helped us develop medicine. But what is that to the baby that died? Most likely the baby’s death was not motivation for the development of any medicine, but even if it was it just makes the baby a means. This baby died before written language was developed and was probably completely forgotten by time that man started developing even folk medicine. What is the point of this baby dying of disease? And what does the baby (not others) get out of it?

That being said, I believe the Fall upset, not just our relationship with God, but the whole balance of creation.

What was effect of this upsetting of creation out of balance? Do you have any evidence that man existed without death and suffering for a period of time before falling?

 

[Dauphin]

Richard, you seem to be working under the assumption that human beings can understand the ways of God. You should realize by now that Catholics don’t think this way. To us, it’s like suggesting a monkey can learn quantum physics.

You’re not going to find the kind of answers you want here. In fact, if answers we could understand actually existed, God would be excessively simple. He wouldn’t be much of a God at all. By placing yourself above God and subjecting him to human reason and experimentation, you’re really losing sight of God entirely. The only appropriate way to approach these questions is to place God above yourself, recognizing yourself as an inferior creature.

 

[Richard_Powers]

Richard, you seem to be working under the assumption that human beings can understand the ways of God. You should realize by now that Catholics don’t think this way. To us, it’s like suggesting a monkey can learn quantum physics.

You’re not going to find the kind of answers you want here. In fact, if answers we could understand actually existed, God would be excessively simple. He wouldn’t be much of a God at all. By placing yourself above God and subjecting him to human reason and experimentation, you’re really losing sight of God entirely. The only appropriate way to approach these questions is to place God above yourself, recognizing yourself as an inferior creature.

Then how can you know anything about God? How can you even know God exists or that existence has meaning in relation to God? How can you know that Bible and Catholic tradition accurately captures anything about God? You (or any human) can only see God through human reason and understanding.

 

[Dauphin]

Then how can you know anything about God? How can you even know God exists or that existence has meaning in relation to God? How can you know that Bible and Catholic tradition accurately captures anything about God? You (or any human) can only see God through human reason and understanding.

I can give my dog rudimentary instructions. With repetition and reward, I can get him to sit on command. He gradually understands and associates the sound I make with the action I require. However, he’ll never learn the english language. I can get him to conform to my commands (or at least understand them ), but I can never really tell him why I want him to sit. With your reasoning, couldn’t my dog easily conclude that I have no reason to ask him to sit? Couldn’t he conclude that my designs are really oppressive, and that I don’t have his best interest in mind? After all, I refuse to spell it out to him in plain terms he can understand!

The gulf between us and God is far greater than that between me and my dog. If God exists in the way the church describes Him, how can anyone seriously expect to understand Him fully? What kind of a God would He be if I could capture His nature with words?

God has given us all He possibly can to inform us of His ways, but He can only do so much. We can only know what our minds can grasp. God isn’t so foolish as to waste His time lecturing humans on His ways, just as my math professor isn’t so foolish as to lecture a squirrel about regression analysis.

 

[Richard_Powers]

I can give my dog rudimentary instructions. With repetition and reward, I can get him to sit on command. He gradually understands and associates the sound I make with the action I require. However, he’ll never learn the english language. I can get him to conform to my commands (or at least understand them ), but I can never really tell him why I want him to sit. With your reasoning, couldn’t my dog easily conclude that I have no reason to ask him to sit? Couldn’t he conclude that my designs are really oppressive, and that I don’t have his best interest in mind? After all, I refuse to spell it out to him in plain terms he can understand!

The gulf between us and God is far greater than that between me and a dog. If God exists in the way the church describes him, how can anyone seriously expect to understand him fully? What kind of a God would He be if I could capture his nature with words?

God has given us all He possibly can to inform us of His ways, but He can only do so much. We can only know what our minds can grasp. God isn’t so foolish as to waste His time lecturing humans on His ways, just as my math professor isn’t so foolish as to lecture a squirrel about regression analysis.

But if God is so beyond us and so un-understandable and unknowable, how do you know that know and understand things about him? How do you know that the Bible and Catholic teaching accurately represent God? Even if God is teaching us, how do you know what is the proper understanding of an un-understandable entity’s teachings? It seems you have created a paradox. God is either understandable by humans or he is not. Which is it?

 

[Dauphin]

But if God is so beyond us and so un-understandable and unknowable, how do you know that know and understand things about him? How do you know that the Bible and Catholic teaching accurately represent God? Even if God is teaching us, how do you know what is the proper understanding of an un-understandable entity’s teachings? It seems you have created a paradox. God is either understandable by humans or he is not. Which is it?

I’ve already answered this question. Review my post again. I used the analogy of me and my dog to help illustrate this point. God can give us rudimentary instruction; He can speak in human terms and use human concepts to help demonstrate infinite truths, but He cannot possibly get us to understand His ways fully.

My dog knows I exist. He knows what I want. He has no clue, though, why I want it.

 

[Richard_Powers]

I’ve already answered this question. Review my post again. I used the analogy of me and my dog to help illustrate this point. God can give us rudimentary instruction; He can speak in human terms and use human concepts to help demonstrate infinite truths, but He cannot possibly get us to understand His ways fully.

My dog knows I exist. He knows what I want. He has no clue, though, why I want it.

That is a weak analogy and you have already admitted as much. You said that the gulf between man and God is even greater than that between man and dog.

But let’s work with it anyways. A dog has no understanding of humans. It only has a learned stimulus response to humans through its interaction with humans in relation to its innate processes determined by its evolutionary past. A dog can be tricked into reacting to a dummy as if it was a human if the dummy is made to move and “talk” through a speaker. If a dog can be fooled into reacting to dummy as if it is God, then why cannot a human be tricked into reacting to a non-god as if it was god? Would it not be even easier to trick the human since the gulf is even greater? How do you know your knowledge of God is not a trick? How can humans have any understanding that so beyond what humans are?

 

[Dauphin]

That is a weak analogy and you have already admitted as much. You said that the gulf between man and God is even greater than that between man and dog.

That argument only amplifies the potency of the analogy!

But let’s work with it anyways. A dog has no understanding of humans. It only has a learned stimulus response to humans through its interaction with humans in relation to its innate processes determined by its evolutionary past. A dog can be tricked into reacting to a dummy as if it was a human if the dummy is made to move and “talk” through a speaker. If a dog can be fooled into reacting to dummy as if it is God, then why cannot a human be tricked into reacting to a non-god as if it was god? Would it not be even easier to trick the human since the gulf is even greater? How do you know your knowledge of God is not a trick? How can humans have any understanding that so beyond what humans are?

If our knowledge of God is really a trick, who do you suppose is trying to deceive us? Thor? How can this “non-god” possibly have dominion over the earth? Wouldn’t this “non-god” simply be an evil equivalent of God? Where would the “real” God be in all of this? He wouldn’t allow all this trickery to go on!

Catholics choose to accept that there is only one God, and that He’s good. What’s our alternative? To be driven insane by the idea that God is out to get us?

 

[Richard_Powers]

If our knowledge of God is really a trick, who do you suppose is trying to deceive us? Thor? How can this “non-god” possibly have dominion over the earth? Wouldn’t this “non-god” simply be an evil equivalent of God? Where would the “real” God be in all of this? He wouldn’t allow all this trickery to go on!

Catholics choose to accept that there is only one God, and that He’s good. What’s our alternative? To be driven insane by the idea that God is out to get us?

Maybe there is no god and because of their properties natural processes trick humans into thinking there is a god. It does not seem that you have presented any evidence to back up the Catholic assertions about God. However, all of this is kind of beside the point of this thread.

 

[Dauphin]

Maybe there is no god and because of their properties natural processes trick humans into thinking there is a god. It does not seem that you have presented any evidence to back up the Catholic assertions about God. However, all of this is kind of beside the point of this thread.

That’s exactly why I didn’t bring it up. I’m just trying to help you realize that God can’t be understood in the way you want to understand Him.

 

[Richard_Powers]

That’s exactly why I didn’t bring it up. I’m just trying to help you realize that God can’t be understood in the way you want to understand Him.

Then how can he be understood? Humans can only understand things from human reason and understanding. This practically a tautology.

 

[Dauphin]

Then how can he be understood? Humans can only understand things from human reason and understanding. This practically a tautology.

He can be understood imperfectly through human reason and divine revelation. I don’t see how that’s a tautology.

 

[Richard_Powers]

He can be understood imperfectly through human reason and divine revelation. I don’t see how that’s a tautology.

Earlier I understood you to be saying that human reason and understanding can’t be used to understand God. Is what you are actually saying is that human reason and understanding can be used to understand God (but only imperfectly)?

 

[Dauphin]

Earlier I understood you to be saying that human reason and understanding can’t be used to understand God. Is what you are actually saying is that human reason and understanding can be used to understand God (but only imperfectly)?

That’s what I’ve said all along.

 

[DanteAlighieri]

I am trying to understand how Catholics see the world. Do I have to be Catholic to ask these questions?

Certainly not. But you asked a question that presupposes that God created the universe, and after receiving responses, you used your disbelief in God as an argument against the answers you got.

And then you say that “for the sake of argument” you’re assuming that it was, in fact, created. That doesn’t seem to line up.

So God created an imperfect universe?

A perfect universe (remember: we are part of it) would be one in which everything in it conforms to God’s will – you know, Paradise. In the passages that Peter provided above, the Church stated that the world is “journeying toward its ultimate perfection”, and that this was ordained through God’s wisdom and goodness. As another poster said below, Catholics do not pretend to understand the ways of God beyond a belief in His everlasting goodness, wisdom, justice, and love – and even then we are unable fully to grasp any one of these qualities.

You have to remember that, as someone (whom I can’t remember) once said, one can only prove the existence of God through logic (c.f. St. Thomas Aquinas); at some point, a leap of faith is required if one wishes to believe that God is good.

Peace,
Dante

 

[catharina]

Earlier I understood you to be saying that human reason and understanding can’t be used to understand God. Is what you are actually saying is that human reason and understanding can be used to understand God (but only imperfectly)?

As others have said, even belief in God (thus “knowing” God) exists as an act of faith so how does one proceed when one has only questions about God’s very existence and goodness?

One prays for faith. Catch yourself at those moments when you tend to have some belief in God and pray for faith. Do it often. Faith is always given to those who ask for it.

Rather than repeating a circle of the same questions here, you might want to look for answers in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Code of Canon Law (revised in 1983). Search through google. Both documents are available. Then bring your questions regarding teachings to this forum. No one can hand you faith. Asking for it is essential. If you own a proper Bible, so much the better. Maybe read the Gospels and the Psalms first.

 

[VociMike]

What evidence is there that there was an actual fall? Science shows us that death and suffering (of animals) was in the world before humans.

God is not limited in time as we are. Every moment past, present and future is present to him. Perhaps he created the fallen world because he knew that we would fall. I don’t know the answer, and for those who believe it simply is not an issue. For those who don’t believe, no answer will satisfy them.

How does the baby that dies even have a chance to choose God? Babies are developed enough to make choices.

John the Baptist leaped in the womb at the presence of Christ (also in the womb). We tend to assume that the only kind of choice possible is an adult, rational choice, but that incident tells us that our assumption is wrong. With humans it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.