How could a loving God allow this?

[EarnestQ]

Many of us look from afar at disasters, see people homeless or dead, communities, or sometimes, regions, demolished, and wonder “How could a loving God allow this?” Others, including many who are reading or hearing this sentence, have gone through overwhelmingly difficult, or even unimaginably devastating, experiences. It is natural to ask “Why would a loving God allow this to happen to me?”


Two points:
1) People in such pain are not often interested in glib “theoretical” discussions. Many of them (us) need someone to give us a hug, emotional support, and often even provide material support. This discussion is not “exactly” targeted to them. People going through such difficulties need “God's love with skin on”, more than objective “theologizing” about their pain.


2) This discussion is more on the “theologizing” side, though it is written with the hope that (a) there may be some actual reframing of the pain to bring it into the context of Eternity, and, more specifically, (b) to respond to those who claim that such disasters “prove” either there is no God, or that He doesn't care enough about us to work in our lives.



The main point of response “b” is “If you haven't been inviting God to work in your life before the disaster, why would you expect Him to work where He isn't invited to work, or even rejected?”


One may question why would a loving God allow the hundreds of millions of evil deaths seen in the last hundred years. The simple superficial answer may be because the people making the decisions about the lives or deaths of others were not asking God to help them make God honoring decisions. And the majority of those suffering from such evil decisions were also not asking God to guide them and protect them. So why should God work in their lives when the people did not want Him to work in their lives?



“But what about all those who were seeking God's will in their lives and still had to go through such evil experiences?” There is an entirely different answer for them and it should be understood, if it is correct, by all Christians from early on in their relationship with Christ.



In short, when bad things happen, those who have not asked God to come into their lives and guide and protect them daily have no right to criticize God for not doing so.



But, those who have invited the living God into their lives through the death, burial, and resurrection of His one and only human born Son, Messiah Jesus, can be confident that even if God does not miraculously deliver them from a devastating situation, He is more than willing to walk with them through it.



They only need to keep drawing closer to God and keep inviting them into their lives moment by moment. This is why God allows His children to go through such difficulties – to give them opportunity to draw very close to Him all day long and see how glorious He is no matter what you are going through.



Even though it may feel like “hell on earth” as you are going through it now, in eternity, you will glorify God for trusting you with such an opportunity to grow in Him and love Him more and more right now in your life.



With that in mind, my advice is to grow in love for Jesus as much as you can right now, because in eternity, you will see that the goal of life on this earth is not to avoid difficult situations and/or enjoy God's bounty. It is to grow in our knowledge of, and love for, God's one and only human born Son, who died for us, and three days later, came back to life. We first love Him for that and start getting to know Him personally through that.

Thereafter, the most important thing to learn is to daily be growing in our love for Him, and reflecting His love to those around us.



Then, no matter how difficult, or pleasant, our lives, we accept that God is working in our lives to bring us closer to Him and to become more like His Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Messiah.


In summary, when difficulty, and even horror, happens, God is not responsible to those who have been rejecting His Son working in their lives. However, for those who have been seeking God's will in their lives, starting with salvation through Messiah Jesus alone, He will use the difficulties, tragedies, horrors and pain in our lives to give us opportunities to grow, and in eternity, we will worship Him all the more because we allowed Him to help us through the terrible situation. (Or, we may be “kicking ourselves” for being so stubborn and small minded that we refused to learn what God was trying to teach us over and over and over again.) Every experience, every moment, in our lives is an opportunity to learn what God wants to teach us, or reject His will for us and do whatever else we want.

 

[Seymmour]

Why don't we take just the sections in bold as they are clearly the important bits the author is trying to convey.
I'll use two random examples of the unpleasantness the deity allows to occur and see how that'll map onto reality.

The first example is the attempt by the National Socialists to exterminate all of European Jewry in the 1940's and the other is the flooding of my home town of New Orleans in the year of our Lord 2005.

You may recall that in both cases the deity decided not to intervene, at least not in the way most of the unfortunates would have liked Him to.

“Why would a loving God allow this to happen to me?”

So why should God work in their lives when the people did not want Him to work in their lives?

In the case of the Jewish people, the answer could be (according to some, not me) that since they don't accept Jesus, they weren't candidates for divine intervention. This line of arguing strikes me as, to put it mildly, rather callous. What are we to make of, say, the fate of Anne Frank, a girl who simply accepted what her parents told her to be true, only to die of Typhus, alone and scared in the hell of Bergen-Belsen?

The people who drowned in their attic, here down South, are another matter. Most of them were Catholic, so why their prayers weren't answered is not as clear. Perhaps (again, some argue this, but not me) they were simply the wrong kind of Christian.

To these poor people, the conclusion of the author " when bad things happen, those who have not asked God to come into their lives and guide and protect them daily have no right to criticize God for not doing so." may come across as a tad harsh.


The second reason we've been offered for God's absence when tragedy or Stormtroopers strike is:

[They] only need to keep drawing closer to God and keep inviting them into their lives moment by moment. This is why God allows His children to go through such difficulties – to give them opportunity to draw very close to Him all day long and see how glorious He is no matter what you are going through.

Well, how much opportunity to draw close to God does one have between being forcefully taken from one's house, driven into a train-car like cattle and hurled into a gas-chamber? One would think these poor people could be excused for having other, more immediate concerns.

For those who drowned after the levees broke, one could argue that they could have been closer to God when they died, but one can be reasonably sure that when they prayed for salvation, they had something more terrestrial in mind.

But in the next segment, we learn that the grave will make it all worthwhile.

Even though it may feel like “hell on earth” as you are going through it now, in eternity, you will glorify God for trusting you with such an opportunity to grow in Him and love Him more and more right now in your life.

While this sure sounds like an uplifting explanation, I would caution the author to refer to the Holocaust or Katrina as an "opportunity" in a synagogue or anywhere near New Orleans. (S)he may not get the response (s)he was hoping for.

In summary, I don't think the author has decisively solved the problem of theodicy.

There is, however, an explanation for the inaction of an invisible deity that is more in line with Occam's razor and that is the-perhaps unsettling- notion that the invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.

Seymour G.

 

[posthuman]

humans sure feel comfortable judging their Creator.

wonder why that is?

 

[EarnestQ]

Why don't we take just the sections in bold as they are clearly the important bits the author is trying to convey.
I'll use two random examples of the unpleasantness the deity allows to occur and see how that'll map onto reality.

The first example is the attempt by the National Socialists to exterminate all of European Jewry in the 1940's and the other is the flooding of my home town of New Orleans in the year of our Lord 2005.

You may recall that in both cases the deity decided not to intervene, at least not in the way most of the unfortunates would have liked Him to.



In the case of the Jewish people, the answer could be (according to some, not me) that since they don't accept Jesus, they weren't candidates for divine intervention. This line of arguing strikes me as, to put it mildly, rather callous. What are we to make of, say, the fate of Anne Frank, a girl who simply accepted what her parents told her to be true, only to die of Typhus, alone and scared in the hell of Bergen-Belsen?

The people who drowned in their attic, here down South, are another matter. Most of them were Catholic, so why their prayers weren't answered is not as clear. Perhaps (again, some argue this, but not me) they were simply the wrong kind of Christian.

To these poor people, the conclusion of the author " when bad things happen, those who have not asked God to come into their lives and guide and protect them daily have no right to criticize God for not doing so." may come across as a tad harsh.


The second reason we've been offered for God's absence when tragedy or Stormtroopers strike is:



Well, how much opportunity to draw close to God does one have between being forcefully taken from one's house, driven into a train-car like cattle and hurled into a gas-chamber? One would think these poor people could be excused for having other, more immediate concerns.

For those who drowned after the levees broke, one could argue that they could have been closer to God when they died, but one can be reasonably sure that when they prayed for salvation, they had something more terrestrial in mind.

But in the next segment, we learn that the grave will make it all worthwhile.



While this sure sounds like an uplifting explanation, I would caution the author to refer to the Holocaust or Katrina as an "opportunity" in a synagogue or anywhere near New Orleans. (S)he may not get the response (s)he was hoping for.

In summary, I don't think the author has decisively solved the problem of theodicy.

There is, however, an explanation for the inaction of an invisible deity that is more in line with Occam's razor and that is the-perhaps unsettling- notion that the invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.

Seymour G.

Seymour, thank you for your thoughtful response. I would like to point you to the Gospel of John, Chapter 9 vs 1-3. "As he [Jesus] went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life."

Being born blind is a tragedy worse than losing your house in a flood. But God allowed it so that God would be glorified in the man's life. I don't doubt that the man asked why this had happened to him countless times in his life. What good can come from being born blind, or deaf, or without any arms and legs. But for the last two thousand years that man has been glorifying God because God saw fit to "bless" him with blindness so that the power of Jesus could be displayed in his life.

I gather you don't hold to the concept of having a personal relationship with the Living God. My post was more targeted at those who know God personally and sometimes wonder if God is active in their lives. There is hope when one knows Jesus personally that whatever you go through will work to God's glory in the end.

I agree that my "explanation" about non-Christians was "rather callous". I wasn't targeting them in my comment as I didn't really expect any of them to read my statement. I do have compassion for all those who go through difficult situations. I myself have gone through difficult situations.

But as a Christian, God works in my life through difficult circumstances to change my attitude to be more like that of His Son who went through the most difficult torture and death anyone can imagine.

The book of Job in the Bible is another example of someone who went through very difficult trials for no reason he could understand. The purpose of Job's trials was to glorify God and to "test" (display) Job's attitude toward God in the very worst of circumstances. Again, after the trials Job considered it worth going through what he went through.

For those who know Jesus personally, our life may well end in torture and death, but if we keep the right attitude toward God, we will judge it to have been worth the trouble when we get into eternity.

I gather that you do not believe there is anything past the grave. And from that perspective, you are right. Evil happens and there is no sense to it. But for those who know God through His one and only Son, Messiah Jesus (no matter what denomination they are), the insanity of life has an explanation and benefit.

Reframing suffering into an eternal perspective is not the reason to become a Christian. It is more a side benefit. The real reason I became a Christian is because it is true. Being true, it helps makes sense out of a very confusing, arbitrary, often evil life.

We all want to know why we are here and what our purpose is in life. Christianity is the most logical explanation for the existence of life and the nature of life (including where evil comes from).

Evil happens. Sometimes it is because someone does evil, sometimes it is just nature or coincidence. As a Christian, I know that God will only allow the amount of evil to happen to me that I can handle. (Refer to the first and second chapter of Job regarding God only allowing what we can handle.)

Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss this further, or respond on this thread.

 

[MessageOfTheCross]

Does God send adversity? Yes (2 Cor. 12:7-10)

Adversity is one of God's most effective tools for strengthening our faith.

When God sends adversity in your life, He never sends it to hurt us, but to help us.

We are never alone in our adversity. Thank God! He is always there (Hebrews 13:5 AMP).

Adversity can be a precious gift from God.

- Pastor Charles Stanley

 

[MattforJesus]

God allows things to run their natural course,and will not step in each time a disaster would strike,for then it would not be faith we have to deal with,for then we would know for sure that God does exist.

God allows things to run their natural course at times,and Jesus said,blessed is he that has not seen Me,but still believes,for it is faith.

Creation testifies there is a God,and that He loves people,so the world is without excuse,but after they knew God,did not want to glorify Him as God,but wanted to believe that things came about a different way.

Jesus said,do not fear them which can kill the body,but can do no more,but fear God.

If nobody has an excuse for not believing in this higher power,and loving this higher power,and loving people,then the world can turn to God at any time they want regardless of the situations that go on.

A tornado is whipping around in the area with the wicked witch of the west flying around it taking down house after house,a hurricane with the power of 3,000,000 big bad wolfs to blow your city down,an army of 1,000,000 soldiers plows through your city taking away many,and your general natural disaster,or any disaster there is,does not stop a person from believing in God,and being saved,and being on His side,which is all that matters.

Homeless,marriage falls apart,lost your job,hungry,and what else is a bad situation,it does not matter what goes on in this world,everybody can be right with God,and eventually the problems will be gone.

But we do not like that people are physically hurt,but they can turn to God,who could possibly save them from problems,and if not pain is temporary,but being with God is eternal.

The world operates the way it operates,and the more that people are sinful,which the last generation will be the most sinful of all,the more the natural disasters occur,and a lot of people put themselves in their position,and a lot of people get hurt because of other people,and a lot of people not with God without His protection get hurt.

It is of faith,and if God were to stop every single problem that occurred on earth,then it would not be by faith,for then we would know that God is true without a doubt,and people want to be sinful,and get worse as time goes on,for that is the direction the world is going,then the more problems they have to deal with.

People without God are of the earth,so they have to deal with their problems that occur,and the worse they get the more nature will spew out natural disasters,which is probably why there is more of them at the end time,but sometimes the saints can get caught up in the problems of the earth,and be taken away,but they are alright for they are with God.

How do we sum up the situation.

You made your bed,now lie in it.The world wants to ignore God it will pay a price,not God's fault,but if they choose to not want to acknowledge Him then they are on their own to deal with the world,and its hurtful ways.

 

[MessageOfTheCross]

[/QUOTE]

God allows things to run their natural course at times,and Jesus said,blessed is he that has not seen Me,but still believes,for it is faith.

Creation testifies there is a God,and that He loves people,so the world is without excuse,but after they knew God,did not want to glorify Him as God,but wanted to believe that things came about a different way.

Jesus said,do not fear them which can kill the body,but can do no more,but fear God.

If nobody has an excuse for not believing in this higher power,and loving this higher power,and loving people,then the world can turn to God at any time they want regardless of the situations that go on.

A tornado is whipping around in the area with the wicked witch of the west flying around it taking down house after house,a hurricane with the power of 3,000,000 big bad wolfs to blow your city down,an army of 1,000,000 soldiers plows through your city taking away many,and your general natural disaster,or any disaster there is,does not stop a person from believing in God,and being saved,and being on His side,which is all that matters.

Homeless,marriage falls apart,lost your job,hungry,and what else is a bad situation,it does not matter what goes on in this world,everybody can be right with God,and eventually the problems will be gone.

But we do not like that people are physically hurt,but they can turn to God,who could possibly save them from problems,and if not pain is temporary,but being with God is eternal.

The world operates the way it operates,and the more that people are sinful,which the last generation will be the most sinful of all,the more the natural disasters occur,and a lot of people put themselves in their position,and a lot of people get hurt because of other people,and a lot of people not with God without His protection get hurt.

It is of faith,and if God were to stop every single problem that occurred on earth,then it would not be by faith,for then we would know that God is true without a doubt,and people want to be sinful,and get worse as time goes on,for that is the direction the world is going,then the more problems they have to deal with.

People without God are of the earth,so they have to deal with their problems that occur,and the worse they get the more nature will spew out natural disasters,which is probably why there is more of them at the end time,but sometimes the saints can get caught up in the problems of the earth,and be taken away,but they are alright for they are with God.

How do we sum up the situation.

You made your bed,now lie in it.The world wants to ignore God it will pay a price,not God's fault,but if they choose to not want to acknowledge Him then they are on their own to deal with the world,and its hurtful ways.

And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people. Exodus 32:13-14 KJV

 

[ROSSELLA]

Many of us look from afar at disasters, see people homeless or dead, communities, or sometimes, regions, demolished, and wonder “How could a loving God allow this?” Others, including many who are reading or hearing this sentence, have gone through overwhelmingly difficult, or even unimaginably devastating, experiences. It is natural to ask “Why would a loving God allow this to happen to me?”


Two points:
1) People in such pain are not often interested in glib “theoretical” discussions. Many of them (us) need someone to give us a hug, emotional support, and often even provide material support. This discussion is not “exactly” targeted to them. People going through such difficulties need “God's love with skin on”, more than objective “theologizing” about their pain.


2) This discussion is more on the “theologizing” side, though it is written with the hope that (a) there may be some actual reframing of the pain to bring it into the context of Eternity, and, more specifically, (b) to respond to those who claim that such disasters “prove” either there is no God, or that He doesn't care enough about us to work in our lives.



The main point of response “b” is “If you haven't been inviting God to work in your life before the disaster, why would you expect Him to work where He isn't invited to work, or even rejected?”


One may question why would a loving God allow the hundreds of millions of evil deaths seen in the last hundred years. The simple superficial answer may be because the people making the decisions about the lives or deaths of others were not asking God to help them make God honoring decisions. And the majority of those suffering from such evil decisions were also not asking God to guide them and protect them. So why should God work in their lives when the people did not want Him to work in their lives?



“But what about all those who were seeking God's will in their lives and still had to go through such evil experiences?” There is an entirely different answer for them and it should be understood, if it is correct, by all Christians from early on in their relationship with Christ.



In short, when bad things happen, those who have not asked God to come into their lives and guide and protect them daily have no right to criticize God for not doing so.



But, those who have invited the living God into their lives through the death, burial, and resurrection of His one and only human born Son, Messiah Jesus, can be confident that even if God does not miraculously deliver them from a devastating situation, He is more than willing to walk with them through it.



They only need to keep drawing closer to God and keep inviting them into their lives moment by moment. This is why God allows His children to go through such difficulties – to give them opportunity to draw very close to Him all day long and see how glorious He is no matter what you are going through.



Even though it may feel like “hell on earth” as you are going through it now, in eternity, you will glorify God for trusting you with such an opportunity to grow in Him and love Him more and more right now in your life.



With that in mind, my advice is to grow in love for Jesus as much as you can right now, because in eternity, you will see that the goal of life on this earth is not to avoid difficult situations and/or enjoy God's bounty. It is to grow in our knowledge of, and love for, God's one and only human born Son, who died for us, and three days later, came back to life. We first love Him for that and start getting to know Him personally through that.

Thereafter, the most important thing to learn is to daily be growing in our love for Him, and reflecting His love to those around us.



Then, no matter how difficult, or pleasant, our lives, we accept that God is working in our lives to bring us closer to Him and to become more like His Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus Messiah.


In summary, when difficulty, and even horror, happens, God is not responsible to those who have been rejecting His Son working in their lives. However, for those who have been seeking God's will in their lives, starting with salvation through Messiah Jesus alone, He will use the difficulties, tragedies, horrors and pain in our lives to give us opportunities to grow, and in eternity, we will worship Him all the more because we allowed Him to help us through the terrible situation. (Or, we may be “kicking ourselves” for being so stubborn and small minded that we refused to learn what God was trying to teach us over and over and over again.) Every experience, every moment, in our lives is an opportunity to learn what God wants to teach us, or reject His will for us and do whatever else we want.

Amen. I'd also like to add the video to this song. So many evils are preventable. Hunger for instance. There's more than enough food in the world. It just goes to the richest nations. Why blame God for human selfishness? A consequence of free will is dealing with the consequences and our bad decisions often effect others. No one wants to give up free will, just the bad consequences that come with it. God is good; humans are all too evil. Thank God that He sent Jesus so that we could become righteous.

[video=youtube;b_RjndG0IX8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_RjndG0IX8[/video]

 

[ROSSELLA]

humans sure feel comfortable judging their Creator.

wonder why that is?

The best answer I've heard to that (and I don't know who said it) is that humans are offended that God is God. So true.

 

[Denadii]

Does God send adversity? Yes (2 Cor. 12:7-10)

Adversity is one of God's most effective tools for strengthening our faith.

When God sends adversity in your life, He never sends it to hurt us, but to help us.

We are never alone in our adversity. Thank God! He is always there (Hebrews 13:5 AMP).

Adversity can be a precious gift from God.

- Pastor Charles Stanley

Does God send adversity? NO! And you blamed God for putting this foul thing on Paul? Really? Tell me when God breaks your leg to teach you something. That'll be a first. God did not put that foul thing on Paul...Satan did. It works for Satan. If you're going to preach Word. Use Word and get it right.
John 10:10
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

 

[MessageOfTheCross]

Does God send adversity? NO! And you blamed God for putting this foul thing on Paul? Really? Tell me when God breaks your leg to teach you something. That'll be a first. God did not put that foul thing on Paul...Satan did. It works for Satan. If you're going to preach Word. Use Word and get it right.
John 10:10
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

When you understand the providence of God and His sovereignty, nothing comes to you that does not pass through God's fingers first; without Him knowing about it, allowing it, or sometimes sending it. Romans 8:28 says, "Good and evil works together".

When we as mature Christians understand the sovereignty of God, everything that happens, it happens because He directly causes it or consciously allows it. I repeat nothing happens to you unless it passes through God fingers first. If He allows it we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Do not underestimate the sovereignty of God. If it got to you it pass through Him. Therefore if it pass through Him, allowing it to get to you, He let it get to you for a reason. Words such as lucky and unlucky, or words similar should be deleted from a mature Christians vocabulary. Good and bad is all under Gods control. God is determine that all people will give Him Glory. Christians will give Him glory on earth and in heaven. The bad and the atheist will give Him Glory in hell by continually calling on His name. I guest you can say there are no atheist in hell!