If you intentionally drop a bowling ball on someone else's foot, who should be blamed: God for not freezing the ball in mid-air, or gravity for being an evil force for harm (which God is in control of)?
Clearly whoever intentionally dropped the bowling ball. How does this relate? In my example of suffering innocents, if you believe in a creator God, the only agent in play is him.
People like blaming God for all kinds of things when they should instead be looking in the mirror. Having the power to do certain things is separate from what the best thing to do is. The concept that if one has the power to do good he should do it doesn't take into account what is best. Just because I can afford a plane ticket to Africa doesn't mean I should fly a container of peanut butter over to one of the starving children. I can use my time and money for the benefit of many more than one person.
Are you really suggesting that an omnipotent God allows this suffering because it's the best thing to do? Again, he's omnipotent right? He could stop innocent suffering at any time with a swipe of his magic finger and still apply justice where deserved.
People that struggle with this question of why God allows suffering usually refuse to accept the idea that it is best to allow one person to starve to save 1000 other people, because they view it only as a power issue. The erroneous deduction is that because God has the power he has the moral obligation. Power does not impart responsibility. Being given authority imparts responsibility. Rejecting God rejects his authority, not only for ourselves, but for those God might otherwise affect through us.
Again, he's God, why should any innocent starve? Please explain how hundreds of thousands of children dying each year in abject misery, through no fault of their own could be a benefit?
Our freewill is defined by how God reacts to our choices. Like it or not, God is not going to do anything that makes our free will more impotent. Free will is one of the most God-like attributes he gave us, and IMO, the most important one except for self-awareness. That God allows suffering is necessary for us to still continue to have a God-nature and not become more like animals in our nature. If we do something which has the natural consequence of pain, it is best for who we are, our experience of reality, and our descendants that the pain come upon us. Remember that God did not design us to know the difference between good and evil? (The tree Adam was commanded not to eat from.) It is only through obeying God that we can come to know the difference.
How do you know how god reacts to your choices? The rest of it I don't understand to be honest as there was no literal Adam or Eve. I find it rather insulting that you say only through obeying god can we know the difference between good and evil. Speak for yourself.
God knows what all the consequences are of all actions for all people for all time. He does what is best for individuals, families, communities, and all mankind. Only he can resolve that into what actions are best.
Really? Can you cite an example of this? Seems to me when I read the bible that god cares for a small group of people above all others. Who are his chosen people again? Doesn't sound like all of mankind to me. Also I feel you are proving my point. If god knows what's best for individuals, communities etc. and still allows awful suffering of individuals, families and communities then he cannot have the characteristics of omnipotence, omniscience and omnibenevolence.
There is also another issue, and that is simply, who is responsible for what? Why does anyone think God has any moral responsibility TO US? It is we who have a moral responsibility to him. It is only because of God's love that he has made promises to us, which he always keeps. (Be sure you understand the context of the promise—see Deuteronomy 28.)
If that's the god you worship, it's all yours. Still doesn't get closer to answering the question of suffering though.
Add to all that the fact that every time we sin we are shouting that we reject him and do not want him as our God in our lives. What we want is for him to serve us according to what we desire. We have all done far more than enough to deserve eternal condemnation, and that includes furthering instead of healing a sin-tainted environment which brings suffering to others. The question is not, what is the moral imperative by which he allows suffering, the question is, what is the moral imperative for him to do anything other than allow the natural consequences of actions?
Because he's supposed to be omnibenevolent so should care about innocent suffering and be able to stop it but doesn't.
But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ” (Romans 9:20, 1984 NIV)
Because those that have not yet come to believe in and accept God cannot choose to obey God (and will mercifully be judged accordingly, Romans 2:12), the blame for suffering in the world falls on those that claim to believe in God (2 Chronicles 7:14). (They are responsible to God, not the other people.)
Almost everyone's sense of justice is twisted. It is only when we have accepted the fact that God is always loving, kind, and generous that we can start to see the real causes of suffering—which are mostly because our selfish, arrogant ancestors cared more about their own short-term comfort than their descendants' long-term comfort.
Again, tell that to the dying kids. He could stop innocent death if he chose to right?
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