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| Originally Posted by aqua@home Why does God (I am a believer) allow this sort of thing to happen? Children are innocent, why would He allow them to go through so much? Why are the innocent hurt? I don't believe He lets it happen but maybe He just doesn't interfere. Which brings me to the second part of my question. How does He decide when to step in or does He? I believe in miracles so I'm sure He does intervene, but why and when? Does anyone have any thoughts on these questions? |
Yours is the cry of millions who have similar experiences to yours. Your questions form part of the wider question about the problems of evil and suffering. One argument being that if God is all-powerful, why does he not stop evil things happening, and why does he not intervene to prevent the innocent from suffering, and stop it when it does happen.
Nonbelievers and believers alike often question why God would allow evil of any kind to exist.
Epicurus said,
Either God is unwilling to prevent the evil that occurs or he is unable to prevent it. If he is unable, then he is not omnipotent; if he is unwilling, then he is not perfectly good.
Epicurus' statement of the dilemma is based on two assumptions:
1) a perfectly good being prevents all the evil it can; and, 2) an omnipotent being can do anything and, hence, can prevent all evil.
From a scriptural perspective the first assumption is false. A perfectly good being would certainly wish to maximize the good, but if, in the nature of things, allowing an experience of evil were a necessary condition of achieving the greatest good, a perfectly good being would allow it. For example, it seems evident that the existence of opposition and temptation is a necessary condition for the expression of morally significant freedom and the development of genuinely righteous personalities. How can we choose to do right if we are unable to choose to act in opposition to 'doing right'? Scripture rejects the second assumption.
God aids each of us in reaching our potential. It is not a "decree" that disease, stress, and pain are part of our growth and enlightenment. The universe and we who live within it simply operate that way. It is enough to know that God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, though not the source of our tragedies, yet have power to enable us to climb above it, into everlasting joy.
The purpose of our lives is to come to know God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, and to grow to become like them as well as we are able, and to enjoy an eternity in their presence as the reward of our faith through the grace of God and the atonement of Jesus Christ. In the meantime, our lives unfold, person to person, very differently. Yet irrespective of the circumstances of our individual lives, each of us is, as Paul described, 'the offspring of God,' and God does not leave us to bear our buirdens or sufferings alone. He provides to us the strength to deal with whatever conditions are applied in our lives, whether it is our own sickness or disabilities, or those of our loved ones.
God does not cause our troubles, but like a wise Father he leaves us to deal with them through our faith, and the fruits of that faith are an increase in strength, wisdom, and understanding that enable us to see beyond today's concerns, however pressing and disocuraging they might be, and take the eternal view that in the resurrection, all our deficiencies will be made whole.
To the question about the man born blind in John, when asked who sinned to make him blind, Jesus said that it was not the man himself nor even his parents who were responsible for his blindness. The same question is dealt with throroughly in the Book of Job when Job's comforting friends insist that he is suffering because he must have done something wicked and offended God. But it was not wickedness that brought suffering to Job's door, it was life. In life, sometimes things go wrong for no apparent reason, and God lets us get on with it, giving strength sufficient to our faith.
Many parents blame themselves when their children suffer in some way, or when they die, but they are not to blame. Accidents happen, things go wrong, and no one is at fault. Not parents, not the children, and not God.
The dialogue between Job and his friends offers perhaps the most moving poetry in the realm of religious experience. The problem raised remains a universal one, and the spiritual sufferings depicted find responsive hearts whenever we ponder deeply the issues of life. Job is the victim of philosophy, one that blinds him to some of the most obvious facts of human experience. He has never seen men, women, and children victimized by circumstances over which they have no control and which bear no relation to their motives or their acts. He knows nothing of innocent suffering, for basic in his thinking is the assumption that divine justice always exhibits itself in punishing the guilty and in prospering the innocent. Righteousness, to him, is insurance against all misfortunes.
His own life has been one of extraordinary virtue. Indeed, he has attained what approaches human perfection. He has, therefore, every reason to look forward to a life of unbroken prosperity and happiness. Then without warning comes disaster after disaster. Flocks, herds, and loved ones are snatched from him with stunning swiftness, and his body is afflicted with a painful and loathsome disease. And for it all, his philosophy or religion offers no explanation. The appalling conclusion forces itself upon him that God is no longer a God of justice. Rather, He seems a capricious and vindictive God, saving the evil and destroying the good.
In agony of spirit, Job curses the day that gave him birth and pleads with his alienated deity to grant him death:
"Oh that I might have my request,And that God would grant me the thing that I long for!Even that it would please God to destroy me;That he would loose his hand and cut me off!Then should I yet have comfort."
Yet the great debate in the Book of Job affords no solution to the problem of innocent suffering. The greatest lesson that Job learns is one that sooner or later most of us learn: human life is a fragile thing, and human beings live in a world the events of which are not all to be explained by any simple philosophy:
"Man that is born of womanIs of few days and full of trouble.He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down;He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not."
Job's example instructs us in how to "suffer suffering," rather than in the reason for our suffering.
From the Book of Job we gain no definitive answers to the philosophical problem of evil. In fact, the Lord never supplies Job with an explanation for his afflictions, much less for suffering in general.
But Job's deepest need, as is ours, is not for reasons but for revelation, not for theological precepts but for the divine presence. His crisis is spiritual. His deepest anguish springs from his feeling of godforsakenness, which can be relieved only by the witness, borne on the whirlwind, that God has not forsaken him.
Job's example makes clear that though sometimes suffering is a sign of punishment, it is not so always. Though the book of Job does make it clear that affliction is not necessarily evidence that one has sinned." That is a great comfort, especially for the many blameless souls who accuse themselves when tragedy befalls them. When an infant is born with birth defects or a loved one is killed in an auto accident, when cancer strikes or a job is lost—our immediate response often is, "What have I done to deserve this?"
Job implies that there can be "no-fault" tragedy. This is a truth that pious, well-intentioned religionists have been ever prone to forget. Jesus had to remind those in his day of this lesson on more than one occasion.
Be at peace.
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