Continued Discussion of Suffering...

At http://gordon-feil-theology.blogspot.ca/2017/01/why-all-suffering.html we explored the question of why Christianity has done so much harm, and we did so in the context of the value of freedom. Then we asked whether freedom is worth the suffering. Today we extend the discussion to ask…

If God knows the future, and if men are the prime doers of evil, why doesn’t he look ahead and see who will do the great evils and prevent them from being born?

1.     We are not in a position to judge what good comes out of what evil. God has a plan he is weaving.  He knows what has to happen.  Romans 8:20: “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope”².  

2.     While I think God knows the future, I can make a contrary argument: if our premise is that a prime value is freedom, then God does not know before we are born what we will choose and what evil we will bring.  This means we create our own futures.  This is not what I believe though.  I think that we can be choosing and that God knowing what we will choose does not determine our choice.  In fact, him knowing the choice to which we tend can assist him in knowing what intervention to make to deter us from ultimately disastrous choices. There are a number of passages² in the Bible that some read to infer that God doesn’t know what we will do.

a.     Exodus 32 ¹⁴ So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.

b.     1 Samuel 15 ^11a I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following Me and has not carried out My commands.

c.     Jeremiah 18 ⁷ At one moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to uproot, to pull down, or to destroy it; ⁸ if that nation against which I have spoken turns from its evil, I will relent concerning the calamity I planned to bring on it. ⁹ Or at another moment I might speak concerning a nation or concerning a kingdom to build up or to plant it; ¹⁰ if it does evil in My sight by not obeying My voice, then I will think better of the good with which I had promised to bless it.

d.     Jeremiah 26 ¹⁹ … Did he not fear the Lord and entreat the favor of the Lord, and the Lord changed His mind about the misfortune which He had pronounced against them?...

I think it is plausible too that God can operate at multiple levels.  On one level he can tell us to choose right over wrong and say that if we choose the one then something will happen, but if we choose the other then something else will happen, and then tell us that since we have now chosen this way, then the something will no longer happen.  At another level he can simultaneously know the outcome, and this doesn’t predetermine it. 

Yet, our question is why doesn’t God prevent the worst monsters from being born.  He may very well have!  There could have been worse than Hitler and Stalin who did not have a chance to occur.  As to the ones whom he has allowed, they served a purpose in the weaving of the tapestry of personal histories.  The day is coming when all tears will be gone and all will know that all things had a purpose.

How does God get off the hook for evils that do not arise from anyone’s decision (such as famines)?

Many have had their faith in God shipwrecked over this issue, but yours does not need to be. Consider the following.

1.     Much of what we call “evil” works out to good in the long run.

2.     Many of the “natural disasters” such as plagues and famines are man-made.  These arise from evil hearts.  Even many cases of deformed babies are from decisions taken by humans.

3.     Human freewill is not the only freewill. There are also Satan and demons --- malevolent spirits bent on hate and harm.

These arguments will sound to some skeptics like grasping at straws.  God has set things so that we have enough sensory and intellectual evidence to support our faith, yet with sufficient deficiency in that evidence to require faith as the real evidence.