Is God Good?

[Harry Dresden]

Why did God stick us with Trump?

Is God testing us?

because he did not want to stick us with hillary.....he doesnt like her either...

 

[Pogo]

The toughest question Religious folks must answer of skeptics is, "Why does God allow this to happen?"

Whether you are talking about human-engineered genocide, natural catastrophes, mass murder, or some other apparent injustice, "God" appears to have permitted it to happen (or commanded it to happen), and Why does God allow it to happen?

On the other side of the coin, we have evil people who are born wealthy, talented, beautiful, handsome, or are wildly successful - sometimes BECAUSE they are evil. They live their entire lives in the lap of luxury and die happy. How does God allow THIS to happen?

The core of the response is in life after death. We are taught to believe that the totality of human existence is not bounded by conception and natural death; that in some vaguely-defined way Evil is punished in the afterlife and Virtue is rewarded. The balancing effect of the "just desserts" of the afterlife excuses the obvious injustices (and this word is insufficient, certainly) of the life that we see.

If there is no afterlife, then God, if he does exist, is Evil.

Manifestly.

The question presupposes that "God" exists in the first place, and thus has the wherewithal to "allow" anything.

If that premise is not assumed, then by definition "God" cannot be either 'good' nor 'evil'.

 

[Blackrook]

By Pogo's logic, God is an asshole since he made Pogo, who is an asshole.

 

[Pogo]

By Pogo's logic, God is an asshole since he made Pogo, who is an asshole.

Did God make butthurt? Because "he" seems to have blessed you with it since you can't counter my point.

Checkmate.

 

[Gracie]

Oh knock it off Pogo. You are allowed to not believe in God, but to pounce into a thread where He is being discussed by those who DO believe is just plain mean and rotten.

 

[alang1216]

The toughest question Religious folks must answer of skeptics is, "Why does God allow this to happen?"

Whether you are talking about human-engineered genocide, natural catastrophes, mass murder, or some other apparent injustice, "God" appears to have permitted it to happen (or commanded it to happen), and Why does God allow it to happen?

On the other side of the coin, we have evil people who are born wealthy, talented, beautiful, handsome, or are wildly successful - sometimes BECAUSE they are evil. They live their entire lives in the lap of luxury and die happy. How does God allow THIS to happen?

The core of the response is in life after death. We are taught to believe that the totality of human existence is not bounded by conception and natural death; that in some vaguely-defined way Evil is punished in the afterlife and Virtue is rewarded. The balancing effect of the "just desserts" of the afterlife excuses the obvious injustices (and this word is insufficient, certainly) of the life that we see.

If there is no afterlife, then God, if he does exist, is Evil.

Manifestly.

Is God evil for creating Satan even though he knew what Satan would do?

The angels had free will. 1/3 chose to rebel. God knew they would. And look at the havoc they bring every day.

What’s Gods options?

1. A perfect world where no one can do evil because they’re mindless robots.

2. A world filled with choices and contrasts.

God chose #2.

Limiting God's choices? He created Mother Theresa and Stalin, both had free will. He could have created more Mother Theresas and fewer Stalins but chose not to.

 

[Weatherman2020]

The toughest question Religious folks must answer of skeptics is, "Why does God allow this to happen?"

Whether you are talking about human-engineered genocide, natural catastrophes, mass murder, or some other apparent injustice, "God" appears to have permitted it to happen (or commanded it to happen), and Why does God allow it to happen?

On the other side of the coin, we have evil people who are born wealthy, talented, beautiful, handsome, or are wildly successful - sometimes BECAUSE they are evil. They live their entire lives in the lap of luxury and die happy. How does God allow THIS to happen?

The core of the response is in life after death. We are taught to believe that the totality of human existence is not bounded by conception and natural death; that in some vaguely-defined way Evil is punished in the afterlife and Virtue is rewarded. The balancing effect of the "just desserts" of the afterlife excuses the obvious injustices (and this word is insufficient, certainly) of the life that we see.

If there is no afterlife, then God, if he does exist, is Evil.

Manifestly.

Is God evil for creating Satan even though he knew what Satan would do?

The angels had free will. 1/3 chose to rebel. God knew they would. And look at the havoc they bring every day.

What’s Gods options?

1. A perfect world where no one can do evil because they’re mindless robots.

2. A world filled with choices and contrasts.

God chose #2.

Limiting God's choices? He created Mother Theresa and Stalin, both had free will. He could have created more Mother Theresas and fewer Stalins but chose not to.

You have no clue what free choice means.

 

[alang1216]

Limiting God's choices? He created Mother Theresa and Stalin, both had free will. He could have created more Mother Theresas and fewer Stalins but chose not to.

You have no clue what free choice means.

Or maybe it's you who have no clue what free choice means.

 

[Weatherman2020]

Limiting God's choices? He created Mother Theresa and Stalin, both had free will. He could have created more Mother Theresas and fewer Stalins but chose not to.

You have no clue what free choice means.

Or maybe it's you who have no clue what free choice means.

Well, your position that people are just born bad people and can never be good is interesting to say the least.

 

[alang1216]

Limiting God's choices? He created Mother Theresa and Stalin, both had free will. He could have created more Mother Theresas and fewer Stalins but chose not to.

You have no clue what free choice means.

Or maybe it's you who have no clue what free choice means.

Well, your position that people are just born bad people and can never be good is interesting to say the least.

Is it your position that everyone is a blank slate and they choose what they become?

I think genetics play an important role and has a major impact on our 'free choice'. Do people choose to be gay or are they born that way? Do people choose to be sociopaths or are they born that way?

 

[Weatherman2020]

Limiting God's choices? He created Mother Theresa and Stalin, both had free will. He could have created more Mother Theresas and fewer Stalins but chose not to.

You have no clue what free choice means.

Or maybe it's you who have no clue what free choice means.

Well, your position that people are just born bad people and can never be good is interesting to say the least.

Is it your position that everyone is a blank slate and they choose what they become?

I think genetics play an important role and has a major impact on our 'free choice'. Do people choose to be gay or are they born that way? Do people choose to be sociopaths or are they born that way?

So everyone in prison had no choice in their life. They’re just criminals and always going to be criminals?

 

[DGS49]

Regarding the trials and tribulations coming out of Mother Nature, God's role can be understood as the creator of a universe in which everything is in balance, but maintaining that balance can require violent events. There are storms, earthquakes, floods, droughts, lightning strikes, volcano eruptions, movement of the tectonic plates, and so on...and these are part of the overall system that remains more or less in balance. The same can be said of infectious diseases and cancers. They are a part of nature that we don't understand, but so be it. And if these things impact humans - God's ultimate creation - that cannot be avoided, and the "unfairness" of it is rectified in the afterlife. As stated above.

As for humans' inhumanity, it is explained by free will, without which there can be no virtue or evil. Mother Teresa's free will was used in her way, Hitler's was used in his way. Most of us fall somewhere in between, but it is our choice, individually. God does not interfere; he merely balances the scale in the afterlife. Virtue is rewarded; Evil is punished. In the afterlife.

But again, if there is no afterlife (assuming there is a god), then God is evil.

And if there is no afterlife, we have cause to be ethical, but no reason to be "moral." Morality is based on the presumed existence of a Higher Authority, which/who teaches us the "best" way to live. Without that Higher Authority, it's simply up to us.

Don't get caught. If you can pull off the Perfect Crime, good on you.

If there is no God and if there is no afterlife.

 

[ding]

309 If God the Father almighty, the Creator of the ordered and good world, cares for all his creatures, why does evil exist? To this question, as pressing as it is unavoidable and as painful as it is mysterious, no quick answer will suffice. Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question: the goodness of creation, the drama of sin and the patient love of God who comes to meet man by his covenants, the redemptive Incarnation of his Son, his gift of the Spirit, his gathering of the Church, the power of the sacraments and his call to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to consent in advance, but from which, by a terrible mystery, they can also turn away in advance. There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil.

310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better.174 But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world "in a state of journeying" towards its ultimate perfection. In God's plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.175

311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.176 He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:



For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.177
312 In time we can discover that God in his almighty providence can bring a good from the consequences of an evil, even a moral evil, caused by his creatures: "It was not you", said Joseph to his brothers, "who sent me here, but God. . . You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive."178 From the greatest moral evil ever committed - the rejection and murder of God's only Son, caused by the sins of all men - God, by his grace that "abounded all the more",179 brought the greatest of goods: the glorification of Christ and our redemption. But for all that, evil never becomes a good.

313 "We know that in everything God works for good for those who love him."180 The constant witness of the saints confirms this truth:



St. Catherine of Siena said to "those who are scandalized and rebel against what happens to them": "Everything comes from love, all is ordained for the salvation of man, God does nothing without this goal in mind."181
St. Thomas More, shortly before his martyrdom, consoled his daughter: "Nothing can come but that that God wills. And I make me very sure that whatsoever that be, seem it never so bad in sight, it shall indeed be the best."182

Dame Julian of Norwich: "Here I was taught by the grace of God that I should steadfastly keep me in the faith. . . and that at the same time I should take my stand on and earnestly believe in what our Lord shewed in this time - that 'all manner [of] thing shall be well.'"183

314 We firmly believe that God is master of the world and of its history. But the ways of his providence are often unknown to us. Only at the end, when our partial knowledge ceases, when we see God "face to face",184 will we fully know the ways by which - even through the dramas of evil and sin - God has guided his creation to that definitive sabbath rest185 for which he created heaven and earth.

 

[norwegen]

God is not good, per se, to idolaters, who were the Old Covenant people exiled from the Garden.

He is good to those who worship only Him, who are the New Covenant saints in the restored Garden, i.e., the Christians.

 

[alang1216]

Is it your position that everyone is a blank slate and they choose what they become?

I think genetics play an important role and has a major impact on our 'free choice'. Do people choose to be gay or are they born that way? Do people choose to be sociopaths or are they born that way?

So everyone in prison had no choice in their life. They’re just criminals and always going to be criminals?

Lots of absolutes in that reply. I think reality is more nuanced.

Do you have free will if your genes push you in a particular direction? Can you be a marathon runner if you're born without legs?

 

[ding]

God is not good, per se, to idolaters, who were the Old Covenant people exiled from the Garden.

He is good to those who worship only Him, who are the New Covenant saints in the restored Garden, i.e., the Christians.

That would be a horrible worldview in my opinion. Not to mention it ignores forgiveness, redemption and mercy.

 

[norwegen]

God is not good, per se, to idolaters, who were the Old Covenant people exiled from the Garden.

He is good to those who worship only Him, who are the New Covenant saints in the restored Garden, i.e., the Christians.

That would be a horrible worldview in my opinion. Not to mention it ignores forgiveness, redemption and mercy.

It's biblical, and it does not ignore mercy and redemption.

 

[ding]

Is it your position that everyone is a blank slate and they choose what they become?

I think genetics play an important role and has a major impact on our 'free choice'. Do people choose to be gay or are they born that way? Do people choose to be sociopaths or are they born that way?

So everyone in prison had no choice in their life. They’re just criminals and always going to be criminals?

Lots of absolutes in that reply. I think reality is more nuanced.

Do you have free will if your genes push you in a particular direction? Can you be a marathon runner if you're born without legs?

Sure. Free will isn't about what one will be or desire to be. Free will is about the choices one makes. I can't choose to be an NBA player, but I can make choices to do the things that might make me an NBA player.

 

[ding]

God is not good, per se, to idolaters, who were the Old Covenant people exiled from the Garden.

He is good to those who worship only Him, who are the New Covenant saints in the restored Garden, i.e., the Christians.

That would be a horrible worldview in my opinion. Not to mention it ignores forgiveness, redemption and mercy.

It's biblical, and it does not ignore mercy and redemption.

I don't think the Bible says that God is bad to people who don't worship him which is what is implied when you said God is good to those who worship only Him.

 

[alang1216]

Regarding the trials and tribulations coming out of Mother Nature, God's role can be understood as the creator of a universe in which everything is in balance, but maintaining that balance can require violent events. There are storms, earthquakes, floods, droughts, lightning strikes, volcano eruptions, movement of the tectonic plates, and so on...and these are part of the overall system that remains more or less in balance. The same can be said of infectious diseases and cancers. They are a part of nature that we don't understand, but so be it. And if these things impact humans - God's ultimate creation - that cannot be avoided, and the "unfairness" of it is rectified in the afterlife. As stated above.

As for humans' inhumanity, it is explained by free will, without which there can be no virtue or evil. Mother Teresa's free will was used in her way, Hitler's was used in his way. Most of us fall somewhere in between, but it is our choice, individually. God does not interfere; he merely balances the scale in the afterlife. Virtue is rewarded; Evil is punished. In the afterlife.

But again, if there is no afterlife (assuming there is a god), then God is evil.

And if there is no afterlife, we have cause to be ethical, but no reason to be "moral." Morality is based on the presumed existence of a Higher Authority, which/who teaches us the "best" way to live. Without that Higher Authority, it's simply up to us.

Don't get caught. If you can pull off the Perfect Crime, good on you.

If there is no God and if there is no afterlife.

"God's role can be understood as the creator of a universe in which everything is in balance, but maintaining that balance can require violent events."
Doesn't sound like everything is in balance.

"The same can be said of infectious diseases and cancers. They are a part of nature that we don't understand, but so be it."
What's the issue? They are both easily understood in light of evolution but not so easily understood in light of a deity.

"God does not interfere"
There is often a finger on that scale.