Just a Couple Thoughts

[Dream]

A question that often gets brought up is "why do good things happen to bad people?" or "why is there suffering in the world?" or "how can a God who is all good allow bad stuff to happen?"

Here are my thoughts:

1) We can't judge God in human terms. By saying that pain to us is a result of imperfection, we are only looking at what we can comprehend as humans. God is God. Man is man. We can never judge eachother according to our own standards. (I sure hope that the Lord won't judge me as a god)

2) As humans, we almost always look at the immediate results. The big picture is not often considered. When historians research a war, they realize that some of the downsides ended up turning into good. For example: looking at the short term effects on Pearl Harbor, many innocent American lives were lost. Looking at the big picture, we could maybe say that Pearl Harbor was what led to American involvment in WWII, which ended up saving the world from Nazis. And, of course, only God is able to see the big picture for everything. We humans can never see everything.

3) So much of the pain that we experience is because of the free will of others. How can you possibly blame God for the pain inflicted on you by your neighbor? This is all part of God's gift of free will. Sure, it may seem like there are some downsides sometimes, but think of what it would be like if we didn't have the gift of free will. We wouldn't be humans, we would just be mindless robots. We wouldn't be able to think for ourselves and we wouldn't be able to take pleasure in anything.

4) It may all just be a big test. During a school exam, we are given tough problems to see if we are able to come up with the correct answers. Maybe life is just a big exam. We are given problems to see if we can deal with them and still be a loving, caring, and faithful individual. If the teacher to your class decided to give everybody an A on the test, it would be pointless. It wouldn't mean anything if you actually studied hard to get the right answers. Just like in life, it would be pointless if we never had problems of our own. There would be no way of determining how decent of an individual each person is.

5) Pleasures always feel so much better when preceeded by pain. Nothing feels better than drinking a nice cold can of Coke after you've been hiking for the past two hours in 90 degree weather. Because you are extremely thirsty, that can of Coke is even more refreshing than it would be if you were just lounging around in an air-conditioned house. Because of all the pain we experience on Earth, Heaven will seem all the better.

6) Would we even know what pleasure is without pain? Could you ever enjoy eating a nice meal if you were never hungry? If you never had to work for anything in life because of a huge inheritence, would you appreciate a $500 paycheck? Being a person with asthma, nothing feels better than being able to breath normally again after an asthma attack. Most people don't even think about breathing. They've never had any problems with it or felt any pain with it. So do they ever really enjoy being able to breath?

7) If there was absolutley no pain in this world, would you ever thank God for sparing you pain? Defintely not. If you never even knew what pain was, you would never thank God for leading you to a pain-free life. This may be an absurd analogy, but does your car ever get up and drive away on it's own free will? Hopefully not. But since cars don't do this, you never thank God for when they stay put. When was the last time you said in your prayers "God bless mom and dad, please watch over my children, and thank you for another day without my car driving off to Mexico."?

Now it's your turn. Let's hear your thoughts.

 

[Dream]

Bump

 

[Irenaeus]

DreamTheater,

You may be interested to know that St. Augustine thought about the exact same things. Especially the last three numbers.

After his dear friend died after receiving Holy Baptism Confessions Chapter IV...

CHAP. IX. -- THAT THE LOVE OF A HUMAN BEING, HOWEVER CONSTANT IN LOVING AND RETURNING LOVE, PERISHES; WHILE HE WHO LOVES GOD NEVER LOSES A FRIEND.
14. This is it that is loved in friends; and so loved that a man's conscience accuses itself if he love not him by whom he is beloved, or love not again him that loves him, expecting nothing from him but indications of his love. Hence that mourning if one die, and gloom of sorrow, that steeping of the heart in tears, all sweetness turned into bitterness, and upon the loss of the life of the dying, the death of the living. Blessed be he who loveth Thee, and his friend in Thee, and his enemy for Thy sake. For he alone loses none dear to him to whom all are dear in Him who cannot be lost. And who is this but our God, the God that created heaven and earth, and filleth them, because by filling them He created them? None loseth Thee but he who leaveth Thee. And he who leaveth Thee, whither goeth he, or whither fleeth he, but from Thee well pleased to Thee angry? For where doth not he find Thy law in his own punishment? "And Thy law is the truth," and truth Thou?

Many of the reasons we suffer on earth is because we esteem worldly goods too highly. What many people perceive to be an evil are not an evil, only unpleasureable; but we know even from natural circumstance, that what is unpleasureable is not necessarily evil. However, those who, as Augustine said, love, and experience life in God, and through God, and with God, never lose anything, because all the things they possess are in the one who can never be lost.

We remember the words of Ecclesiastes, that the heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the home of fools is in laughter.

As St. John Chrysostom put it, no one can harm a man who does not harm himself, because the soul that is secure in God and in grace, apart from the sin which he commits by his own free will, does not lose anything in God, nor is he harmed by him; for all his love is in the one whom contains all love, and all things are loved through him who cannot change.

People seem to forget that 90% of human calamity is the result of human sin. As you mentioned, why do we blame God for what we ourselves cause? And if we have natural disasters, even that in the Christian perspective is the inheritance of our Father Adam who sinned. It is not for flowery prayers do we implore God to have mercy on us in this "valley of tears."

Interesting thoughts, Dream.

 

[Dream]

Many of the reasons we suffer on earth is because we esteem worldly goods too highly. What many people perceive to be an evil are not an evil, only unpleasureable; but we know even from natural circumstance, that what is unpleasureable is not necessarily evil. However, those who, as Augustine said, love, and experience life in God, and through God, and with God, never lose anything, because all the things they possess are in the one who can never be lost.

Yes, very true. Good post Irenaeus.

 

[Dream]

Bump again.

 

[RhetorTheo]

Sadly, there are no compelling or satisfactory answers to the existence of evil.

 

[Dream]

Sadly, there are no compelling or satisfactory answers to the existence of evil.

Nope. All we can do is speculate.

 

[Irenaeus]

Rhetor,

IMO, Augustine's is the most reasonable.

 

[Skripper]

Test . . . disregard.

 

[Credo]

The university professor challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists?" A student bravely replied, "Yes, He did!" "God created everything?" The professor asked. Yes sir", the student replied. The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil, since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are, then God is evil".

The student became quiet before such an answer. The professor, quite pleased with himself, boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth. Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?"

"Of course", replied the professor. The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (- 460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."

The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"

The professor responded, "Of course it does."

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray o! f light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?" Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil."

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.