Why does a good God allow pain and suffering to exist in this world?

[Felix.manuel]

That's good! Hope you do so.

I wholeheartedly wish I could return to the Christian faith, but this issue related to the problem of evil and suffering prevents me from doing so.

OK so a friend died and you've choose to believe God isn't good. Many things could be said and asked? What your friend a Christian. It's not that God loves Christians more then others but he does have systems by which his grace is released. So are so many things that could be asked about your friend and even if we knew all things you could tell us it never may be an absolute picture in regard to how God sees them.

And consider just because they weren't healed doesn't mean they didn't make heaven their home. So while you're getting offended down here on the Earth they might be liking to tell you don't be offended at God. They might not want to come back here even if they were given the chance. So don't be quick to get ticked off at God.

When I lost my friend, I simply stopped believing in christian God and went through many severe challenges. And why does God only release His grace according to these 'systems'? Couldn't He release His grace and manifest His power and goodness independently of these 'systems'? I don't want absolute images of how God sees things or not. I just wanted some reasonable reason for why He allows these things to happen. I'm not ticked off, angry or offended with God; after all, at this point, I don't believe there's a God as understood by Christians that I should be ticked off or indignant with. God, to me, is something similar to Spinoza's god. I'm just questioning the Christian concept that many Christians claim, of an Almighty God.

 

[d taylor]

I believe most people don't choose or want to suffer. A woman and a child don't choose to be abused and molested. A child doesn't choose to have any of those congenital diseases I listed in my OP. An honest worker and family man don't choose to be robbed and killed on their way to work.

-​

Adam made that choice for everyone, that is in the blood line of Adam. Interesting that Jesus was not from the blood line of Adam, but Jesus suffered as much as any person who has ever lived. Why so He could be the blood sacrifice God required from man for Adams sin. This sacrifice and resurrection Jesus accomplished took away the sin of the world. So eventually suffering will end, the coming 1000 year millennium testifies to this.

Here are a few verse that address the age of the 1000 year millennium

“No more shall an infant from there live but a few days,
Nor an old man who has not fulfilled his days;
For the child shall die one hundred years old,
But the sinner being one hundred years old shall be accursed.
They shall build houses and inhabit them;
They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
They shall not plant and another eat;
For as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people,
And My elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain,
Nor bring forth children for trouble;
For they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the Lord,
And their offspring with them.

“It shall come to pass
That before they call, I will answer;
And while they are still speaking, I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
The lion shall eat straw like the ox,
And dust shall be the serpent’s food.
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain,”
Says the Lord

 

[Felix.manuel]

God is all powerful but he releases his power in regard to certain principles. .

And what would those principles be?

Why does God allow sin to exist. He's allowed it for a period of time, I call it a demonstration time where all can once and for all see what type of fruit independence from him produces. Once he's decided that time has lasted long enough you'll see the appointed day Paul talked about in Acts 17 where God will judge the world in righteousness. It's been however a painful, grieving thing however for God to allow it and he most certainly did not nor commission insidious evil type of sins we don't even want to mention to occur.....(as you Calvinists want to claim) .

His wisdom however says as painful as it is to him the end result of his not allowing it to play out unstopped could create bigger problems. That would be the on going accusations questioning God's fairness of not giving something a chance to see what beings could do with being independent from God. Seeing mankind chose sin the issue had to be settled. But don't go saying God ordained sin. That's totally opposite to the character and nature of the loving, gracious God.

Allowing or ordaining perhaps amounts to the same thing after all? After all, it's said that God is omniscient and everything that happens occurs by His will; He cannot be caught by surprise. Isn't it Job who says that God's plans cannot be frustrated? I'm not a Calvinist; I'm a pantheist at the moment, and I don't believe there is a God similar to the God of Christianity

 

[Felix.manuel]

So you're asking why God would allow physical afflictions that plague the people on earth. First when death came into the universe which is the degeneration of life all things physical were effected. The way God designed things to function in a very good way began to break down. Disease, affliction and death. began to manifest. The good news is the day is fast approaching were degeneration (death will be a thing of the past)

Not with all things. All things that pertain to life and godliness have been given unto us according to 2 Pt 1:3-10


He's no where as much mysterious as a lot of people think he is. There are a few things here and there that he has chosen to reveal for if he did we'd spend all our time thinking about things not of vital importance to us in this present time.

But he has revealed his plans on all important matters and he does care about us.


He does love the creation very much.

Why did God allow death to enter the Universe and degrade life and all of His good creation? Couldn't He have prevented it?

There are Christians who disagree with you and claim that God is mysterious and that we cannot understand divine actions and mysteries. I think things related to human and animal suffering are of vital importance, but God has never revealed the reason behind this.

However, God has never revealed His plans regarding the issue of pain and suffering. If God does indeed care for us, why does He allow humans to continue to suffer?

If God loves us, then why does He allow a large part of His creation to suffer so tragically? I simply don't understand this.

 

[Felix.manuel]

God created the world perfectly, without pain, suffering or anything evil. He also created humanity and gave them choice to either obey or disobey, with a warning what will happen when they disobey.God created the world perfectly, without pain, suffering or anything evil. He also created humanity and gave them choice to either obey or disobey, with a warning what will happen when they disobey.

When we sinned, sin entered the world and all the evil with it.

You see, God is Holy, and sin separates us from God, and separation from God is death. We need a Saviour, a redeemer, someone who will perfectly obey God, and makes a perfect sacrifice for our sin. And as we all sinned, and we cannot save ourselves, God sent His Son to die on the cross, that whoever believes in Him, should be saved, but who believes in Him not, should die in their sin.

The question you asked I hear all the time. No one ever asks why God allows good. It is not surprising God allows evil when we constantly sin. But why should God allow good when we constantly sin. We mock Him, we never thank Him for anything despite Him giving us life, taking care of us 24/7, He sends sun and rain so we have food, He gives all these good things and no one ever thanks Him. We constantly lie, cheat, hate others. We kill unborn babies and celebrate it, we kill each other, steal, rape, do all sorts of evil. Yet God does not treat us according to our sins, but is merciful and calls us to His Son to repent. But that will end one day, and God will justfully judge sinners.

You question the goodness of Christian God, well one day He will judge you, and ask you why you never done what He created you for, why you never obeyed. Then what? We all do this, question God all the time, but who are we to question the Creator, is He not allowed to do whatever He wants with His creation?

You asking where is the love of Him. God gave everything He has for our salvation, He gave Himself. He cannot do more than that.

So your question should be not why God allows evil, but why He allows good. And my question is this: have you ever done anything for God? Have you worshipped Him, loved Him and praised Him as He deserves? If not, then why do you want good things from Him?

And yet He still not judges you, but calls you to His Son to repent, so you may have an everlasting life, without suffering, pain, or any evil.

You say that God created a perfect world, without pain or anything evil, right? If it was indeed perfect, without pain or any evil action or influence, then why create beings He already knew would commit evil actions through sin and ruin everything? Why did God create a way to test us knowing that we would fail the test and ruin everything?

Why did God allow death and evil to enter the world through sin and afflict all creation through our sins and iniquities? Why do All humans and All of nature need to suffer for the sins of Adam and Eve?

Why did He need to subject Christ to the torture of crucifixion and death? Couldn't He redeem us, save us, heal us, and forgive our sins in another way? Without Jesus' execution on the Cross being necessary?

We see more evil than good in this world. The good that God allows may not even compare to the occurrence of evil and violence in this world. In what way do we mock God? In what way do people who suffer tragically mock God? And the tragedies and disasters in this world provide evidence that it is likely that God is not caring for us all day long and every day of the week. And yet God created human beings who are ungrateful, wicked, murderers, and selfish even though God has all the Power to have created us with a different nature or at least to change our corrupt nature.

I question the goodness of the Christian God because reality shows me that He is not as benevolent as many Christians claim He is, unfortunately. Why will He judge me? You are not obligated to believe in what I write here, but I at least strive to live an honest and just life, I try to do my best to treat people with dignity and respect, do you think this is not a good way to act? Do you think He did not create me to act in this way? Do you think I am disobedient just because I question the goodness of God in my OP?

You mentioned something similar to the passage in Romans 9: 20-21, if God does not allow us to have doubts and even question Him, if it is wrong to question, then why did God make us thinking and questioning beings?

Yes, I ask where His love is. Why does God, who is Love and Justice, allow children to suffer from these conditions and tragedies that I mentioned in my OP? When I was a Christian, I always believed that God as an Almighty Being would do much more than we think, ask, or imagine.

As I said, you may not believe and I also don't want to convince anyone to believe in what I write. I was born in a Christian home, I have always devoted my faith to the Christian God, I have worshiped and praised Him with all my heart and all my soul, and I have prayed to Him with all faith and devotion, read the scriptures faithfully and devotedly. So, yes, to all your questions. Can we do something for a God?

If God is calling me, then why doesn't His call come in a clearer and undeniable way for me to believe?

 

[Felix.manuel]

When Adam and Eve chose to listen to satan (lies) rather than God (truth) sin-death entered into the world ...

eleos, why did God allow Satan to be in the Garden to tempt Adam and Eve with the fruits of the forbidden tree?

 

[Felix.manuel]

There isn't really a knock-down, drag-out answer anyone can give you on this, and being that the Argument from Evil is the one argument I don't have a clear answer on myself and I don't think anyone really does, all I can offer are a few ideas to consider.

1) On Predatory Animals - Energy exchange "happens" between trophic levels in all of earth's ecosystems, so animals feed on other animals and/or on other forms of organic life. It's a matter of the interplay between physics and biology, and since we don't live in a stiff, static universe or existence, energy flows between and among systems everywhere and at all times.

2) On Human Suffering - From an evolutionary view, we are like the animals mentioned above, needing energy and thus we feed off of what is around us. As for human violence and death, I'll just say that from a Biblical point of view, this is due to the fact that most of humanity has a difficult time responding to what God has instilled within us; we thus are subject to injury, sickness, entropy and death.

3) Taking a "leap of faith" - This idea that Soren Kierkegaard used doesn't have anything to do with turning off our reasoning capacities within our minds. He wasn't offering a Pre-Charismatic notion or mere interpretation of "leaning not on our own understanding." No, he was responding to the epistemological and historical criticisms made against the Christian Faith by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing during the 1700s. What a "leap of faith" entails for Kierkegaard is a willingness to reach out to Christ with our whole person despite the fact that we realize we only have partial evidences for Christianity and we don't have certainty in our engagement with God or with The Bible.

4) Epicurean Trilemma - Lastly, the supposed dilemma (trilemma) attributed to Epicurus doesn't really deal with the Traditional Jewish/Israelite view of God. No, it deals with the idea of the "God of the Philosophers." So rather than applying this trilemma all too easily like so many folks do, it would be better (and more philosophically appropriate and cogent) to apply our griefs in life to the Biblical view of God instead, if the desire for Christian Faith is being sought. In sum, the biblical view as you already know posits that in a Fallen World, we all suffer, but by the personal response and faith we give to God, we can look forward to an Ultimate, Supreme Solution in the Resurrection which God will provide through Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

​

Epicurean paradox - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Anyway, as I said, there is no answer that will satisfy us in the here and now of this life. Rather than looking for a clear answer, I'd suggest seeing a counselor in order to help you with any residual trauma you may have been experiencing through your hardships and the loss of your friend. I'm sorry to hear that he passed.


Peace.

@2PhiloVoid
I understand, but isn't it difficult for you to believe in something for which there is no answer or good reason?

I know that the exchange of energy in trophic levels is a fundamental process that sustains life in ecosystems. But I've always found this process of predation very brutal. Why would God create animals that are forced to eat each other to survive? Why allow all this brutal Darwinian process of millions and millions of years that we see in nature? And why create a Universe where energy between systems has to flow in this way?

If human violence and death are mainly explained by humanity's difficulty in responding to what God has placed and instilled within us, how do we explain the significant variations in levels of violence and suffering that have various factors, including the evolutionary factor? Why did God allow a Universe where we are subject to decay, horrific deaths such as Tay-Sachs disease um childrens and a universe where men kill others through brutal and systematic genocides like the Holocaust and such horrendous events like the Holodomor that occurred due to brutal Marxist and Stalinist policies, as I pointed out in my OP.


Thank you for sharing this. But despite this, faith has always demanded a trust that surpasses any form of logic or human understanding, hasn't it?

Despite differences about conceptions of God, then it is right to affirm that Epicurus' trilemma cannot be used as a challenge to the Judeo-Christian view of God? Therefore, is it right to say that the Christian God is not omnipotent and good as this conception of the God of the Philosophers? Am I understanding correctly?

That's what often troubles me, the lack of a satisfactory answer. I just wanted to accept this idea and be able to believe that God and Christ are good and love us despite everything that happens in this world. After my friend passed away, I started undergoing treatments with psychologists and psychiatrists. It was a very difficult process.

 

[dlamberth]

I'm a pantheist at the moment, and I don't believe there is a God similar to the God of Christianity

Just out of curiosity, your comment about being a pantheist made me wonder if perhaps you might lean more towards being a Panentheist.

 

[Brihaha]

Why did God allow death to enter the Universe and degrade life and all of His good creation? Couldn't He have prevented it?

There are Christians who disagree with you and claim that God is mysterious and that we cannot understand divine actions and mysteries. I think things related to human and animal suffering are of vital importance, but God has never revealed the reason behind this.

However, God has never revealed His plans regarding the issue of pain and suffering. If God does indeed care for us, why does He allow humans to continue to suffer?

If God loves us, then why does He allow a large part of His creation to suffer so tragically? I simply don't understand this.

If one walks in faith he doesn't need to understand God's mysterious ways. We don't need to walk by sight, and see the hows and whys of his grace. He showed us a couple thousand years ago and we still didn't listen. We weed ourselves out by searching for something solid in which to convince us because it's too hard for some of us to handle the suffering, with their faith intact.

I don't believe the things of this world you seem to hold so valuable are the priority in the long run. Not for God or those with faith. The things of this world are merely tools for us to stumble over time and again and ruin our chances of grace and salvation. Like I said, we weed ourselves out by chasing the wind in pursuit of esteemed objects of man.

With faith, it's easier to accept the pain and suffering of mortality. Because without it, God's true goal for us in the hereafter would likely not come to fruition. If you grow your faith you will be graced with the ability and tools to suffer any pain anyhow. Stop worrying and read the word if you want salvation. If you wholeheartedly wish you could return to Christianity then DO IT! If you don't try then you lied when you said wholeheartedly.

 

[RDKirk]

Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?.... Do you not know that we shall judge angels? -- 1 Corinthians 6

The Greek word used here for “judge,” krino, also means “to rule or govern.” This strongly implies that we will have authority over the holy angels, for they have no sin for which to be “judged” in the sense of “condemned.” It appears from this passage is that we, as God’s redeemed, will be placed in authority over angels in the age to come.

If this is true, what measure of wisdom must we have attained by then? Can the innocent be a judge? Or wouldn't we need knowledge of good and evil such as the Triune God Himself possesses?

And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. -- Genesis 3.

I think that even before creation, it was the Triune God's intent for mankind to rule over all Creation, including the angels. And to do so, I think it was always the Triune God's intention for mankind to know good and evil like Himself.

Because all the space-time continuum is within the single instant of the Triune God's eternal glance, He had fully comprehended all that has occurred in all His three Persons even before Creation. This is the concept of "extemporal simultaneity." As a Person of the Triune God, the Son had fully comprehended life as a human, the persecution, the sorrow, and the pain of death on the cross even before Creation. That is why the Spirit could inspire the psalmists to write such psalms as Psalm 22 and Psalm 56. In the extemporal gaze of the Triune God, the Son had already been there even before His incarnation. All this was already the experience of the Person of the Son even before creation.

This is the knowledge of good and evil that the Triune God already comprehended and that mankind needed to acquire in order to judge even angels.

If good things only happened to good people and bad things only happened to bad people, this would not be a fallen world, it would be a just world. Injustice is an inherent characteristic of a fallen world.

But just as what evil in the world the Son would go through (that is, what the Son had already been through in the extemporal simultaneity of the Triune God), mankind would have to go through--each of us who are redeemed must go through it, we must each bear that cross. I believe that's why it was necessary for God to allow the world to fall. We could not achieve our entelechy as His children without it.

 

[Ivan Hlavanda]

You say that God created a perfect world, without pain or anything evil, right? If it was indeed perfect, without pain or any evil action or influence, then why create beings He already knew would commit evil actions through sin and ruin everything? Why did God create a way to test us knowing that we would fail the test and ruin everything?

God does everything for His glory. It's all about Him, not us. God indeed knew we would sin, but He created us to show His mercy and wrath. God allowed us to sin, so the Son can glorify the Father on the cross. Despite knowing we would sin, He still created us out of love, even though He knew how much our salvation would cost Him.

God is the Creator and can therefore do whatever He wants. He answers to no one. He does as He pleases, but whatever He does know that He will deal with you justly, as God cannot make an unjust judgement.

Why did God allow death and evil to enter the world through sin and afflict all creation through our sins and iniquities? Why do All humans and All of nature need to suffer for the sins of Adam and Eve?

No one forces you to sin, yet you do anyway, because that's what you chose to do. As it is written, God has given everyone knowledge of Him, yet people surpress Him, because people don't want there to be God who they have to serve, people don't want there to be God because that would mean there is someone who they will answer for their sin. You, as everyone, we sin because we want to, and even when a person does not know what the Law, they know what is evil and they do it anyway.

If human violence and death are mainly explained by humanity's difficulty in responding to what God has placed and instilled within us, how do we explain the significant variations in levels of violence and suffering that have various factors, including the evolutionary factor? Why did God allow a Universe where we are subject to decay, horrific deaths such as Tay-Sachs disease um childrens and a universe where men kill others through brutal and systematic genocides like the Holocaust and such horrendous events like the Holodomor that occurred due to brutal Marxist and Stalinist policies, as I pointed out in my OP.

I am going to respond to you as God responded to Job who question Him like you.

Can you explain how God created the universe? Where we you when God lay foundations of the Earth? Were you there to give Him wisdom on how He should create the universe? Have you in your life commanded the sun to raise or the clouds to give rain? Do you understand have God created a human merely out of dust? Have you considered the vast expanses of the Earth? Tell me all about them. Can you count the stars and explain how they were created and why they look the way they look? Do you command all the creatures in the sea and birds in the air? Do you feed them all in precise time? Do you command the winds or the waves of the sea?

If you can't explain these things, then why do you question God who created all these things out of nothing? Please read the book of Job, or at least chapter 38 and 39 and see how you measure against the infinite God who can form things out of nothing.

Why God does things then way He does? And why not? Who am I to question Him? God is who He is.

 

[Lost4words]

I don't believe that Adam and Eve existed, so I don't see why we should say that we failed them. Why should we pay for their mistake? Why did God allow death to enter the world and the Universe because of a mistake made by two people?

If you believe in God then you would believe in His Word. In Scripture.

 

[Neogaia777]

Hello, I have known these forums for a few years, but I haven't accessed them for a long time and I noticed that things have changed around here.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss this topic. If it's not, I apologize and ask the moderators to move it to the appropriate forum if this is not the right place for this kind of topic. I apologize in advance if I break any forum rules. And I also apologize for the long post below.

I consider myself a pantheist and a freethinker, but I really want to regain my former faith in Christianity. Yes, I was raised in a Christian family, my whole family is Christian, and I used to be a Christian as well. I started losing faith in the Christian God after I lost my friend to cancer several years ago. The ancient philosophical and theological problem of evil is perhaps one of the biggest and main challenges preventing me from returning to Christianity. When I was a Christian, I was taught in church that God is All-Powerful, All-Loving, Perfect, a God who hears our prayers and cares for us, an Omnipotent God. If this God really cares about us, why did He allow my friend to lose the battle against liver cancer? This disease made him wither and suffer in such a tragic and inhumane way, even after almost two years of treatments and many prayers, but none of that helped, he lost the battle and passed away. I considered him like a brother. This made me question the goodness of the Christian God and my faith.

There was a moment when I came across Epicurus' trilemma, which presents the following dilemma attributed to this philosopher, saying:

If God is unable to prevent evil, then He is not all-powerful.

If God is not willing to prevent evil, then He is not all-good.

If God is willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist?

This was also one of the reasons that made me question the goodness of the Christian God. And several other questions related to evil and suffering arose, such as these:

Why does God allow diseases like Tay-Sachs, which affect the neurons of some children, causing them to live short lives and experience horrible suffering? Why allow hepatic carcinoma that killed my friend, pancreatic cancer, lung cancer, and many other forms of cancer that often cause so much pain and terrible suffering in patients, many of whom are also young children? Why does leprosy exist, which, if untreated, rots the flesh and causes fingers to fall off? Why do such horrible congenital defects exist, such as epidermodysplasia verruciformis, cyclopia, ethmocephaly, craniopagus parasiticus, epidermolysis bullosa, anencephaly, progeria, spina bifida (and many other congenital diseases listed here https://medlineplus.gov/geneticsbirthdefects.html)? If you are sensitive to strong images, do not search for them on Google. The number of genetic and congenital errors that can occur is almost infinite. Why do mental and behavioral disorders exist, causing such horrible suffering that many people wish they had never been born, preferring to take their own lives, some even losing their sanity and discernment? Moreover, there are diseases like Alzheimer's, sickle cell anemia, autism, color blindness, diabetes, and countless other diseases that kill millions and millions of people, including babies and young children. Why does God allow natural disasters that have killed many people like these here ? Why do we have parasitic infections like malaria, dengue, Chagas disease, tetanus, lice, ticks, Loa loa, brain-eating amoebas, and many others? Why create a world with predation where animals cruelly kill each other to survive and where animals also suffer pain and agony? Why create a world where millions of women and small children were killed in Auschwitz, Treblinka, and other extermination camps, and also murdered by SS soldiers and the Einsatzgruppen during World War II? Why? Just because they were Jews? Why create a world where, besides the Holocaust, other events like the Stalinist Holodomor and other genocides and crimes against humanity have occurred and still occur? A world where women and children are mistreated, assaulted, exploited, used in sex trafficking, mutilated, raped, and killed in such cruel ways? A world where millions and millions of humans have been killed by wars, famines, and plagues? A world where misogyny, religious intolerance, homophobia, racism, chauvinism, fascism, rampant capitalism, extreme poverty, theft, and hunger exist, etc.? A world where people experience hatred, violence, indifference, hypocrisy, lies, and rancor? A world where some people are so selfish and full of themselves, proud, vain, mean, hateful, arrogant, abusive, and narcissistic?

And this is just what comes to mind at the moment.

I know that this is a question that has been asked and pondered by great philosophers and theologians over millennia, but despite that, I would like to hear the perspective of the Christians in this forum.

A long time ago, I read a post that @ViaCrucis (CryptoLuther) wrote in this forum several years ago quoting the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who said that 'to believe in God, a leap of faith must be made.' I'm sorry, but unfortunately, I can't find that post anymore. Although I found this very interesting, I can't make the leap to faith and embrace Christianity. I feel that doing so would be abandoning reason. Sometimes Christians say that God is beyond reason or that His plans are mysterious and incomprehensible to our limited minds. If God often doesn't want us to use reason and critical thinking to question His actions, then why did He make us thinking and rational beings? And why is He so mysterious and sinister? If we cannot even know God's plans, actions, and mysteries, then why assume that He really cares about us? I simply wish I could at least begin to understand in some logical way why the Christian God, with all the attributes He has, allows these terrible and tragic things to happen to us and to the rest of His creation that He claims to love so much.

Why does a God who is supposedly omniscient, omnipotent, and good allow all this suffering and pain that we see and experience in this world?

Thank you for reading until here.

The simplest and shortest answer to your question is, because one cannot have or experience true growth into the true highest God's true likeness any other way.

Our part is to make sure this is doing that for us each and every single day.

Otherwise it's meaningless. And in my view, might even wind up meaning that you are not one of the ones who is going to be saved, etc.

God Bless.

 

[Neogaia777]

The simplest and shortest answer to your question is, because one cannot have or experience true growth into the true highest God's true likeness any other way.

Our part is to make sure this is doing that for us each and every single day.

Otherwise it's meaningless. And in my view, might even wind up meaning that you are not one of the ones who is going to be saved, etc.

God Bless.

This goes for the world as well, the world cannot be transformed into God's Kingdom without it first having to go through it's sufferings, etc.

And since we live in the world, that means we sometimes have to suffer because of that as well, etc.

But it's purpose is always transformation, and because true transformation cannot happen any other way, etc.

God Bless.

 

[Astrid]

Hello, I have known these forums for a few years, but I haven't accessed them for a long time and I noticed that things have changed around here.

I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss this topic. If it's not, I apologize and ask the moderators to move it to the appropriate forum if this is not the right place for this kind of topic. I apologize in advance if I break any forum rules. And I also apologize for the long post below.

I consider myself a pantheist and a freethinker, but I really want to regain my former faith in Christianity. Yes, I was raised in a Christian family, my whole family is Christian, and I used to be a Christian as well. I started losing faith in the Christian God after I lost my friend to cancer several years ago. The ancient philosophical and theological problem of evil is perhaps one of the biggest and main challenges preventing me from returning to Christianity. When I was a Christian, I was taught in church that God is All-Powerful, All-Loving, Perfect, a God who hears our prayers and cares for us, an Omnipotent God. If this God really cares about us, why did He allow my friend to lose the battle against liver cancer? This disease made him wither and suffer in such a tragic and inhumane way, even after almost two years of treatments and many prayers, but none of that helped, he lost the battle and passed away. I considered him like a brother. This made me question the goodness of the Christian God and my faith.

There was a moment when I came across Epicurus' trilemma, which presents the following dilemma attributed to this philosopher, saying:

If God is unable to prevent evil, then He is not all-powerful.

If God is not willing to prevent evil, then He is not all-good.

If God is willing and able to prevent evil, then why does evil exist?

This was also one of the reasons that made me question the goodness of the Christian God. And several other questions related to evil and suffering arose, such as these:

Why does God allow diseases like Tay-Sachs, which affect the neurons of some children, causing them to live short lives and experience horrible suffering? Why allow hepatic carcinoma that killed my friend, pancreatic cancer, lung cancer, and many other forms of cancer that often cause so much pain and terrible suffering in patients, many of whom are also young children? Why does leprosy exist, which, if untreated, rots the flesh and causes fingers to fall off? Why do such horrible congenital defects exist, such as epidermodysplasia verruciformis, cyclopia, ethmocephaly, craniopagus parasiticus, epidermolysis bullosa, anencephaly, progeria, spina bifida (and many other congenital diseases listed here https://medlineplus.gov/geneticsbirthdefects.html)? If you are sensitive to strong images, do not search for them on Google. The number of genetic and congenital errors that can occur is almost infinite. Why do mental and behavioral disorders exist, causing such horrible suffering that many people wish they had never been born, preferring to take their own lives, some even losing their sanity and discernment? Moreover, there are diseases like Alzheimer's, sickle cell anemia, autism, color blindness, diabetes, and countless other diseases that kill millions and millions of people, including babies and young children. Why does God allow natural disasters that have killed many people like these here ? Why do we have parasitic infections like malaria, dengue, Chagas disease, tetanus, lice, ticks, Loa loa, brain-eating amoebas, and many others? Why create a world with predation where animals cruelly kill each other to survive and where animals also suffer pain and agony? Why create a world where millions of women and small children were killed in Auschwitz, Treblinka, and other extermination camps, and also murdered by SS soldiers and the Einsatzgruppen during World War II? Why? Just because they were Jews? Why create a world where, besides the Holocaust, other events like the Stalinist Holodomor and other genocides and crimes against humanity have occurred and still occur? A world where women and children are mistreated, assaulted, exploited, used in sex trafficking, mutilated, raped, and killed in such cruel ways? A world where millions and millions of humans have been killed by wars, famines, and plagues? A world where misogyny, religious intolerance, homophobia, racism, chauvinism, fascism, rampant capitalism, extreme poverty, theft, and hunger exist, etc.? A world where people experience hatred, violence, indifference, hypocrisy, lies, and rancor? A world where some people are so selfish and full of themselves, proud, vain, mean, hateful, arrogant, abusive, and narcissistic?

And this is just what comes to mind at the moment.

I know that this is a question that has been asked and pondered by great philosophers and theologians over millennia, but despite that, I would like to hear the perspective of the Christians in this forum.

A long time ago, I read a post that @ViaCrucis (CryptoLuther) wrote in this forum several years ago quoting the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, who said that 'to believe in God, a leap of faith must be made.' I'm sorry, but unfortunately, I can't find that post anymore. Although I found this very interesting, I can't make the leap to faith and embrace Christianity. I feel that doing so would be abandoning reason. Sometimes Christians say that God is beyond reason or that His plans are mysterious and incomprehensible to our limited minds. If God often doesn't want us to use reason and critical thinking to question His actions, then why did He make us thinking and rational beings? And why is He so mysterious and sinister? If we cannot even know God's plans, actions, and mysteries, then why assume that He really cares about us? I simply wish I could at least begin to understand in some logical way why the Christian God, with all the attributes He has, allows these terrible and tragic things to happen to us and to the rest of His creation that He claims to love so much.

Why does a God who is supposedly omniscient, omnipotent, and good allow all this suffering and pain that we see and experience in this world?

Thank you for reading until here.

Easy to answer. He doesnt.

 

[Astrid]

God does everything for His glory. It's all about Him, not us. God indeed knew we would sin, but He created us to show His mercy and wrath. God allowed us to sin, so the Son can glorify the Father on the cross. Despite knowing we would sin, He still created us out of love, even though He knew how much our salvation would cost Him.

God is the Creator and can therefore do whatever He wants. He answers to no one. He does as He pleases, but whatever He does know that He will deal with you justly, as God cannot make an unjust judgement.



No one forces you to sin, yet you do anyway, because that's what you chose to do. As it is written, God has given everyone knowledge of Him, yet people surpress Him, because people don't want there to be God who they have to serve, people don't want there to be God because that would mean there is someone who they will answer for their sin. You, as everyone, we sin because we want to, and even when a person does not know what the Law, they know what is evil and they do it anyway.



I am going to respond to you as God responded to Job who question Him like you.

Can you explain how God created the universe? Where we you when God lay foundations of the Earth? Were you there to give Him wisdom on how He should create the universe? Have you in your life commanded the sun to raise or the clouds to give rain? Do you understand have God created a human merely out of dust? Have you considered the vast expanses of the Earth? Tell me all about them. Can you count the stars and explain how they were created and why they look the way they look? Do you command all the creatures in the sea and birds in the air? Do you feed them all in precise time? Do you command the winds or the waves of the sea?

If you can't explain these things, then why do you question God who created all these things out of nothing? Please read the book of Job, or at least chapter 38 and 39 and see how you measure against the infinite God who can form things out of nothing.

Why God does things then way He does? And why not? Who am I to question Him? God is who He is.

What is " glory"? Is there some special theist meaning?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

@2PhiloVoid
I understand, but isn't it difficult for you to believe in something for which there is no answer or good reason?

Of course it's difficult to believe in the truth claims of Christianity when the answers aren't packaged in a way that's conducive to the Contemporary mind. This is one reason that I identify myself as a moderate existentialist---the evidences we have available at our disposal for the Christian Faith don't provide the sort of concrete, absolute proofs that we all tend to prefer. And this is where the epistemic journey of jumping into the Rabbit Hole becomes a necessity, where and when any of us realizes that the Bible we hold in our hands is, and has never been, comprehensive or perfect. However, this isn't to say that there is "no answer" or any "good reason" to believe. In fact, it's an equivocation to think that a good reason is "only" one that is present with a concordance of other good reasons. That's just not how Christianity was given, whether those means by which it was produced were truly divine or merely human in nature.

No one has to presuppose the contents of the Bible in order to eventually come to value it, or even believe in its contents at some level.

I know that the exchange of energy in trophic levels is a fundamental process that sustains life in ecosystems. But I've always found this process of predation very brutal. Why would God create animals that are forced to eat each other to survive? Why allow all this brutal Darwinian process of millions and millions of years that we see in nature? And why create a Universe where energy between systems has to flow in this way?

Not all questions have directly accessible answers. The world is what it is. If there is no God, it will continue to be brutal and red in tooth and claw and to flow in energy exchanges as it always has. One can only guess as to why, if there is a God, it "has" to be this way (with Leibnez' 'Best of All Possible Worlds' hypothesis not withstanding.) It just is this way, and as an existentialist, I know that my own death, as well as that of everyone else, is impending and the real question for me has always been not "why?" but "is there more than just this?"

........ how we decide to deal with this existence we find ourselves in will come from a wide number of considerations, and some of those considerations will either enable us to hope for more within a reasonably justified avenue of inquiry, or we'll react by shutting the door on the whole prospect of anything "better" and carry on with a purely materialistic outlook on life until the day we have no more breath of our own. Personally, I prefer to start with the sort of existential inquiry that someone like Blaise Pascal began with and then work through the apparent implausibility of the Christian Faith and hold out for some "hope" than to capitulate to a fatalism and pure materialism.

If human violence and death are mainly explained by humanity's difficulty in responding to what God has placed and instilled within us, how do we explain the significant variations in levels of violence and suffering that have various factors, including the evolutionary factor? Why did God allow a Universe where we are subject to decay, horrific deaths such as Tay-Sachs disease um childrens and a universe where men kill others through brutal and systematic genocides like the Holocaust and such horrendous events like the Holodomor that occurred due to brutal Marxist and Stalinist policies, as I pointed out in my OP.

Again, these are questions that despite what Christian Apologists try to allay with band-aid answers, there are not only no good reasons to give for this, there are no accessible answers. For us to have satisfying, personal answers to human violence and death would require that any one of us be able to have direct access to God in an interview style and be able to ask Him questions. We, however, don't have that sort of access and haven't had that kind of direct access (despite what some supposed self-proclaimed modern prophets insist they have).

The world is a mix of catastrophic evils and fragile, beautiful potentialities that wear out in due time. For me, the tendency to focus on the hyper-evils and insist that their presence in our world must be the prime focus of our questioning about existence or theology is a matter of subjective preference rather objective necessity.

Thank you for sharing this. But despite this, faith has always demanded a trust that surpasses any form of logic or human understanding, hasn't it?

No, not really. That's a projected epistemic expectation coming out a particular predisposition to interpret biblical contents that doesn't bear out.

Unfortunately, the nasty epistemological conundrum is that "faith," like the concept of "mind," isn't exactly some one thing that we either have or don't have. It's more dynamic than that both Biblically speaking and Epistemologically speaking. One of the problems here is to refer to some ethereal idea about any form of logic or human understanding and them move forward as if we definitively "know" what we're talking about when it's just an obscure notion that we've really dug in deeply in our critical thinking. One really does have to jump into the Rabbit Hole rather than merely dallying with the notion of doing so. This requires time, attention and a willingness to remain open to ongoing contemplation and deliberation in our understanding. What happens all too often these days is that people simply hit an emotional wall and fall in to a pit of what falsely passes for "deconstruction."

Despite differences about conceptions of God, then it is right to affirm that Epicurus' trilemma cannot be used as a challenge to the Judeo-Christian view of God?

Correct. Epicurus' trilemma cannot be used to challenge the Judeo-Christian view of God. The reason is because the "trilemma" is conceptually dependent upon Greek metaphysical ideas that underlie its apparent critical claims of contradiction about "God's" nature, and these Greek metaphysical ideas differ from the Israelite and Christian ideas. So, Epicurus' contradictions emerge out of concepts specific to Greek notions of their own "gods."

On the other hand we can still ask the same questions of the Judeo-Christian view that Epicurus asked of his own view, but if we do so, then we'll have to work from Jewish conceptions about God rather than those of the ancient Greeks. Otherwise, we're just shooting clay pigeons when we're really wanting dinner.

Therefore, is it right to say that the Christian God is not omnipotent and good as this conception of the God of the Philosophers? Am I understanding correctly?

I'd let go of the usage of ancient Greek "OMNI" concepts about God since they don't exactly representative how the ancient Israelites and/or Jewish thinkers conceptualized God's qualities. It's also one reason why it was difficult for ancient Greeks to accept Jesus as "savior." Jesus wasn't the same sort of "hero" as was represented by Hercules or Perseus.

That's what often troubles me, the lack of a satisfactory answer. I just wanted to accept this idea and be able to believe that God and Christ are good and love us despite everything that happens in this world. After my friend passed away, I started undergoing treatments with psychologists and psychiatrists. It was a very difficult process.

My heart goes out to you on this. I know it's very difficult to bear up under the loss of someone we care about, whether they're friend or family. Again, I'm sorry to hear that he passed.

 

[dlamberth]

If you believe in God then you would believe in His Word. In Scripture.

I think it would be more accurate to say that "If you believe in the Christian God then...."

 

[Lost4words]

I think it would be more accurate to say that "If you believe in the Christian God then...."

There is only one God...

 

[Diamond72]

He allow my friend to lose the battle against liver cancer?

That was your friends choice and God allows us to choose.