God and Suffering

by AK - Jeff 322 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  BurnTheShips

  First, we do not have to proceed on the basis that God exists. If we do, we must have some evidence not of a creater, but of a personality.

  ATJ. I was just using that as a given for the sake of argument, of course we are free to disagree.

  God is silent.

  How do you expect God to talk, ATJ?

  BTS, you are doing God's talking via your defense, via the raising of doubt in what I think are legitimate questions.

  I am not doing God's talking. As I said at the beginning of the thread, I don't have an answer I will swear to. I have some persuasive arguments, but ultimately, all I have is trust.

  BTS
• 

  cofty

  I was very hopeful for a while that "Open Theism" would provide a way out of the dilema. Greg Boyd's "god of the Possible" is still on my shelf. He agrees with what BTS says about the logical tension between Omnipotence/omniscience and free will. Calvinism is self-contradictory.
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  BurnTheShips

  Yes IF we conclude that. But so far no proof, only a handfull of examples. Here are some counterexamples: If a kid had an innate desire for a cake the size of germany, would there exist such a cake? what about Santaclaus? If and mathematican had an innate desire for a general algebraic solution to 5'th order polynomials, would that mean it existed? (mathematicans did have such a desire for centuries untill Galois came along...) and if i have an innate desire for funny stuff, does that mean there is an ultimate 'funnygod'?

  Would you describe any of these as normal human desires, Bohm?

  Just sayin, that's all, and I don't mean the post you are responding to as proof of anything. It's a relatively weak argument, IMHO. But it's still worth mentioning.

  BTS
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  designs

  The cow gives milk and its a sign the God(s) are blessing the cow, the cow goes dry the God(s) are cursing the cow.

  Now the farmer calls the Vet..........nobody's mad at God.
• 

  AllTimeJeff

  I am not doing God's talking. As I said at the beginning of the thread, I don't have an answer I will swear to. I have some persuasive arguments, but ultimately, all I have is trust.

  BTS, that is reasonable to me, and I apologize to you if I came across poorly.
• 

  zoiks

  Ok, I'll throw in my 2 cents (probably worth less). When I think about suffering, I see that ALL animal life suffers to some extent. The gazelle doesn't WANT to get eaten by the lion. It runs for its life, but doesn't always make it. The fly caught in the spider's web tries frantically to escape, until it is wrapped in sticky silk and its insides are turned to liquid. Ants war with one another, and enslave other ants. People die at the hands of other humans, as well as being killed by animals. Animals also die at the hands of humans.

  Then there are natural disasters. We call them disasters, but, for the most part, they are simply the same natural phenomena that have shaped the earth for millenniums. We call them disasters because people or property get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and pay the price for this. Animals and humans suffer the same fate in these disasters.

  The ONLY difference that I can see between humans and animals in all of this is humans' capacity for abstract thought. That is what seems to truly separate us from our closest animal relatives. With this capacity, we are able to wonder WHY. We are able to give names and identities to phenomena that we do not understand. Even many animals mourn the loss of a mate or child. But only humans have the ability to consider the meaning, if any, behind our experience. That's where god (or gods) comes in. A way to explain, not just natural phenomena like earthquakes, lightning, rain, and sun... but to explain our condition of being. Of course, once god is used as an explanation for these things, this could naturally progress to being a justification for things, with more suffering as a result. The story remains the same. God is used as the reason for suffering, whether at the hands of humans, or because of natural phenomena.

  Now, where did this capacity for abstract thought, this ability so unique to Homo Sapiens Sapiens, come from?

  I don't know.
• 

  Perry

  OTWO says:

  Even if god did not directly create evil, if he is still omnibenevolent (the property of being perfectly good) and omnipotent and omniscient (all knowing, infinitely wise) he is still sovereign and has the final authority in letting evil exist in the first place (no matter its nature or cause – sin, freewill, rebellion, etc) and allowing it to persist for so long. If you argue that he is not omnibenevolent, then call him God but why worship him?

  Things are not so black and white as you describe. Many times we face choices that are bad and worse....or in this case the greater good. Extinguishing evil by eliminating freewill might seem to some to be good, but at what cost? I would have to agree with God that freewill is a greater good than the elimination of evil at the expense of freedom. God has chosen the "greater good." In time that will be born out.

  If we were to have no freewill...what would be the point of existence? We might as well exist as a tortilla. There are other areas where logic comes to an end and faith and trust must kick in for the believer (just as it does for children toward their parents) like BTS mentioned...but I don't think that this particular issue necessarily requires it. Logic alone gets me there personally. There is also just something in the human spirit that screams FREEDOM from the bowels.

  God has a two-prong solution to the problem of evil, which is the ultimate cause of all suffering. Number 1, all sin will be punished on Calvary Hill or at the Great White Throne. NOBODY is getting away with anything. Number 2: Through the finished work on the cross a unique freedom was wrought for man....the freedom to choose God and allow him to take away sinful desire through the process of sanctification, while at the same time affording us the opportunity to prove to ourselves what is that good and perfect and acceptable will of God.....without the fear of punishment.

  God is rebuilding his family from the spawn of Adam and adopting them as his very own.
• 

  BurnTheShips

  Jesus busted the prison open and set us free. He paid the bond. Hallelujah!!! Was listening to the Taj on the way into work today while thinking on this thread. Big lift on a Monday. It's a crazy world. Thank God for the Music.

  You're gonna need somebody on your bond child

  You're gonna need somebody on your bond

  When it's late 'round midnight and old man death comes slippin' into the room

  You're gonna need somebody on your bond

  You take Mary and Martha standin' up in the hillside

  Mary explainin' to Martha, "Darlin', look at the river deep and the water wide"

  Here comes ole Moses, faithful Moses carryin' big ole stones up the hill

  Tellin' everybody they're gonna need somebody on their bond

  Whoa, you take Maivus Staples and ole Corn Cheevers(?),

  they got the good side on their bond

  Oh I been listen to the music people ever since the day I was born

  My momma raised me in a room across from the church by the tree,

  and that sweet gospel music, oh how it used to comfort me

  Tellin' everybody they're gonna need somebody on their bond

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgVI65rYDU8

  BTS
• 

  designs

  Some may find the study of progressive Jewish thought on Good and Evil of benefit to this discussion on God and Suffering. The Book of Jewish Knowledge, Jewish Encyclopedea, The Jewish Times.

  Yetzer Tor and Yetzer Ha-Rah were developed in the Post Exilic period. Notice which ideas become personified, which remain abstract. Notice how Zealots, Conservatives, and Progressives viewed the subject differentily.

  The age of enlightenment came to Judaism many centuries before it came to Christianity. The power of reason applied to difficult problems is addressed by a second century Rabbi in one academy- 'When the Evil Inclination comes to seduce you- drag him to the House of Study. If he is made of Stone, your study of the Torah will wear him down like the steady drip of water. If he is made of iron, your study of Torah will melt him like a flame.'

  New ideas and new ways of thinking help us to progress beyond our fears and superstitions.
• 

  AK - Jeff

  Good arguments. Good points.

  When our forebears created God in their image and likeness much confusion was bound to occur to us, the descendants of such superstitious belief. Ignorance among those ancients set us up. We have not disengaged entirely from triggers and delusions caused by holy writ transcribed by tribal men in fear of the unknown.

  Just as the Greeks were able to dissolve attachment to it's flawed cosmogony and it's view of of the necessity of mythological distortion to it's national pride and acculturation, so will we make such adjustments as time moves forward. Much like Christianized [indeed those attached to all the Abrahamic cultures] men cling to superstitious explanations that defy logical examination, so did the Greeks. In time, the cynics and philosophers and rationalists began to override the simplistic poets. Mythical superstition was overturned by Socrates, Plato and Xenophon. Now, 25 centuries forward, no one truly accepts this ancient mythology as truthful. It is viewed as literature of the period. The Bible's similar fantastic explanations were written to satisfy superstitious minds. Over time the enormity of honest evidence against accepting a fanciful legend of God created in man's image [precisely like the Greeks ] will also dissolve.

  Logical minds do not concur spontaneously. Legends, heroes, mythical gods dissolve slowly in culture, relatively speaking.

  Socrates is reported to have said, "I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others." We may be largely unaware of our personal attachment to superstitious and mythical explanation. Only by deepening our thoughts to include ideas that normally range far out of the box in which we have nailed ourselves, can we dislodge thinking that robs us of reality in favor of fantasy.

  As alluded by ATJ in an earlier post, I am at that point personally. Radical reshaping of my worldview is underway. Threads like this one are a significant part of that reshaping. The Socratic method is essential to finding the endpoint at which satisfaction resides, though that endpoint is never fully achieved I think, nor should it be fully achieved.

  This matter of suffering is at the heart of that method for me personally. If God is not love, then he is not lovable to me. If he is love, then he must be close enough to be lovable. I don't see him yet.

  Jeff