Life sometime sucks, and people ask, (a) Why does God allow this to happen? or (b) Why does God allow this evil person to do what he does?
Three things to remember:
(1). In nature, God was simply the Prime Mover. S/he does not interfere with natural processes, and does not control things on a day-to-day basis. The natural world was created to last "forever," and that requires a dynamic universe where things act and interact, sometimes violently. Volcanoes MUST erupt, the wind MUST blow, the seasons and climate MUST change, in order for the universe to keep plodding along. If any of this harms humans, that's just the way it is. Why is there cancer and disease? These are naturally-occurring phenomena that a strictly-ordered universe would not include, but our universe is dynamic and changing. We have intelligence to protect ourselves to a certain extent, but the dynamic world is going to do what it must do in order to perpetuate. Don't blame God for natural phenomena; they happen for a purpose that is greater than human lives or wellbeing. We have the tools to adapt. Sometimes. But Mother Nature is a bitch.
(2). EVERYONE has Free Will. Good people, bad people, indifferent people, stupid people...all of us. God doesn't know what will happen in the future because of Free Will. Sometimes we do shit that is unpredictable, even to God. God doesn't intervene to stop bad people from doing bad stuff, because Free Will is what make our lives entertaining to him. God will never strike someone dead because they are evil, or create a miracle for someone because they are good. We make our own lives, and sometimes we ruin other peoples' lives or make them better. That IS life. It is a test.
(3). We don't know the final result. Some good people die a miserable death. Some bad people die rich and happy. If that were THE END, then life would be incredibly unfair. But we only see the first part of the story, the part between birth and death. We DON'T see the afterlife, and God has seen to it that we CAN'T see the afterlife; we have to take it on faith. If we could see it, if we had PROOF that good people are rewarded and bad people are punished in the afterlife, then that would impact our Free Will, which is a fundamental reality.
Why does bad stuff happen? There you have it. It is either natural phenomena or bad people exercising their free will. We have been given the tools to adapt to most natural phenomena, and we have God's message to influence evildoers, but Free Will is the universal reality. Even God won't mess with it.
Three things to remember:
(1). In nature, God was simply the Prime Mover. S/he does not interfere with natural processes, and does not control things on a day-to-day basis. The natural world was created to last "forever," and that requires a dynamic universe where things act and interact, sometimes violently. Volcanoes MUST erupt, the wind MUST blow, the seasons and climate MUST change, in order for the universe to keep plodding along. If any of this harms humans, that's just the way it is. Why is there cancer and disease? These are naturally-occurring phenomena that a strictly-ordered universe would not include, but our universe is dynamic and changing. We have intelligence to protect ourselves to a certain extent, but the dynamic world is going to do what it must do in order to perpetuate. Don't blame God for natural phenomena; they happen for a purpose that is greater than human lives or wellbeing. We have the tools to adapt. Sometimes. But Mother Nature is a bitch.
(2). EVERYONE has Free Will. Good people, bad people, indifferent people, stupid people...all of us. God doesn't know what will happen in the future because of Free Will. Sometimes we do shit that is unpredictable, even to God. God doesn't intervene to stop bad people from doing bad stuff, because Free Will is what make our lives entertaining to him. God will never strike someone dead because they are evil, or create a miracle for someone because they are good. We make our own lives, and sometimes we ruin other peoples' lives or make them better. That IS life. It is a test.
(3). We don't know the final result. Some good people die a miserable death. Some bad people die rich and happy. If that were THE END, then life would be incredibly unfair. But we only see the first part of the story, the part between birth and death. We DON'T see the afterlife, and God has seen to it that we CAN'T see the afterlife; we have to take it on faith. If we could see it, if we had PROOF that good people are rewarded and bad people are punished in the afterlife, then that would impact our Free Will, which is a fundamental reality.
Why does bad stuff happen? There you have it. It is either natural phenomena or bad people exercising their free will. We have been given the tools to adapt to most natural phenomena, and we have God's message to influence evildoers, but Free Will is the universal reality. Even God won't mess with it.
