You may be an agnostic/atheist but this post is very insightful from a religious perspective. Good job.
You’re very kind.
I would just point out that in the past people tended to be even more religious about everything.
They prayed every 10 friggin’ seconds and thanked god for every tiny, miserable aspect of their lives.
“Let us thank god that our noble lord has opted not to rape my youngest daughter this day, yeah, and that our dear lord has deemed my youngest son worthy of living past child birth unlike the 5 other children who did not live, and let us thank him for my wife is now beside him after dying from childbirth, veritably! And also, thank you lord for allowing my oldest son to march to greatness in your name, please guide his sword that he may strike with it a deathly blow against your enemies on earth! Amen.”
And as any history book will tell you, life was an unpleasant affair for most back then. Disease was rampant and claimed millions of lives.
Fast forward to today, in a far more secular world where our quality of life, and the length of our lives is MUCH greater.
Science and the scientific method heals.
Prayer? Not so much. Just ask any medieval peasant.
You’re assuming (as are they) that a god of some kind exists. There is no proof that one does.
So ny your logic, prior to the 20th century when we had proven treatments for cancer, God didn’t care enough to “give” us medical personnel? I’d think he could have thought ahead a bit more and sped up medical breakthroughs.
I’ll try to give you a biblical answer, since nothing I’ve read seems to have given any hope at all.
I will begin by clearly stating I am a believer and as such I believe the Bible. If you don’t believe the Bible is God’s Word, then this post will mean absolutely nothing.
Now, on to the answer. The biggest problem with almost everything that has been stated here is everyone is beginning upon a wrong premise, that being “if God exists, then He can do anything He wants.” This wrong premise is one of the biggest hinderances to people understanding “why does God allow bad things to happen.”
The problem is people are confusing God’s ability with His authority. God has the ability to do anything, He does not, however, have the right or authority to anything.
If you study the Bible, you will find one of the most unique characteristics about man, compared to any other creature, is that he has a free will, including the right to go against God’s will. In the Garden of Eden, God gave man authority it the earth (Gen. 1:26) with only one stipulation "don’t eat of a certain tree. It was man’s free will that disobeyed that command and listened to the devil. In doing so, man gave his authority in the earth to the one he obeyed (Rom. 6:16).
With man choosing to obey the devil over God’s command, now the devil has certain legal rights in the earth. Not only that, but now there is a curse in this earth. Not because God allowed the curse in the earth, but because man used free will to obey the devil.
Because of this, God cannot just do anything He wants to do. God is a just and righteous God, if He gives authority to man to over the earth, then if man chooses to give that authority over to the devil, God can’t rightfully stop man from doing it.
Why do bad things happen? Bad things happen because this earth is cursed. Why doesn’t God stop bad things from happening? Because without man using his free will to agree with God, He is limited in what He can do.
The whole point is, God is limited in what He can do in the earth without man’s agreement. That is the whole idea of faith. Faith is man using his free will to agree with God’s plan. Faith (believing God’s Word) is the connecting of man’s free will with what God desires to do on the earth. Faith is what gives God the authority to use His power.
Clearest example I know of in the bible is found in Mark 9:14-23. A man brings his son to Jesus and asks, “If you can do anything… help us.” Look at Jesus’ reply (verse 23). He said to the man, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes.” Basically, Jesus was saying, “It’s not about my ability, it’s a matter of what I am able to do. I need you to believe.” The man believed and Jesus healed him.
To sum it all up, if you believe the bible, then you’ll see that bad things happen not because God is testing you or because it’s part of His plan, but because the world is cursed and there is an enemy that does these things. However, if you will believe what God has said in His Word, you give Him a right to use His power to keep you out of these things and deliver if they come on you (like the healing of cancer). It is absolutely God’s will to heal your friend, but she has to believe God. And sometimes, others can believe for them as well. However, you’ve already stated what you believe, “I’ll be straight up and bet money that she dies” that means you aren’t going to be any help to her at all. (Please, whatever you do, don’t talk like this in front of her. It will rob her of her ability to believe). But if she will believe, she can be healed. If she doesn’t believe God will heal her, then she may die. It will be tragic, but even in that, she will be in heaven.
Obviously, this is a whole study that goes through the entire Bible, but I’ve tried to give you the basics in as short an answer as possible. Only other thing I can say is don’t blame God when bad things happen, and don’t let people (even Christians that don’t know any better) tell you God is the one that gave her cancer or that He doesn’t care and is indifferent. If you study the Bible, it’s simply not true. He wants to heal and help, but people have to believe.
So only people who don’t believe in God die of cancer? I’d love to see some statistics backing that up.
Alternatively, you could just accept that shit happens randomly without any divine creator involved, and you will be relieved of having to come up with tortured logic for an explanation of why God allows bad things to happen.
And you think this story does? You’ve put a great deal of blame on the victim here. I don’t know anything about her, but the OP says she has faith. I have no idea how Biblically grounded your views are (it doesn’t really matter to me - either this is a story you made up or it’s a story someone else made up). Whether jtgain’s friend improves or not, it’s cruel to suggest she’s in this situation because she hasn’t had enough faith. And of course at the end of the post, you admit she may die tragically young even if she has enough faith. But it’s not a crapshoot.
It sound like she already does. Now what?
Apparently they already do.
What gives you the nerve to say this kind of thing? What on earth makes you think it’s fair or compassionate to chide jtgain for a totally understandable expression of grief and frustration? That’s repulsive. He can help her whether he prays or not.
And if that wasn’t enough, apparently you think the OP is a tactless idiot.
That’s where this discussion started.
This is nonsense in multiple ways. First of all, the idea that God would have any reason (or even right) to “test” anybody makes no sense. God can derive no information from any “test,” and cannot logically impose unnecessary suffering while still being “good.”
Secondly - God gives people the “strtength” to endure suffering. What the hell does that mean? What would be an example of somebody not having the strength to endure suffering?
Well, obviously, if they die, it’s because they’re too weak to endure the suffering. And, by extension, they lack faith. God doesn’t bother giving strength to non-believers.
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Does the Devil have free will? If only humans have free will, then the Devil’s will is God’s will because the Devil can’t choose otherwise.
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People who get cancer have given authority to the Devil? What? Does that include little kids who get Leukemia? How about babies who are born sick?
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What does free will have to do with natural “evils” like tsunamis or earthquakes?
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Why is free will is so important (and I will ignore the fact that fre will is a logically incohernt and impossible concept in the first place)?
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If free will is really so important, then why doesn’t God only create people who will freely choose good? For an omimax God, all evil is God’s own choice. There is no way out of that, including blaming a “Devil” which God created himself with full knowledge of what that devil would do, and to whom he did not give free will. If only humans have fre will, then the Devil’s will is God’s will.
CJE-MO, you are certainly correct that the theology you describe has some Biblical support (cf. the ransom theory of atonement). It’s not the only theory that can be derived from the Biblical narrative, and it doesn’t have much currency in modern theology, but I think it’s safe to call it orthodox, if not exactly mainstream.
The biggest question it raises, however, is who determines God’s authority? Who makes these rules and what would happen if God acted without authority? There are three possible answers that I can see. The first is that God for some reason can’t act without authority, that he lacks the ability. You don’t seem to be proposing that, and it would be a pretty definite denial of God’s omnipotence.
The second possible solution is that God’s reliance on these rules is pragmatic, not legalistic; in other words, that God isn’t bound by these rules, but that he knows that the world will turn out better if he follows them. This implies that this is the best of all possible worlds, and that “better” worlds in which God acts to save people who don’t believe him are logically impossible. This makes the whole legal aspect of the theory rather superfluous, and it requires some rather large assumptions about what is and isn’t logically possible without actually showing the logic.
The third possibility (and the one I imagine you support) is that it would be morally wrong for God to act without authority. The problem is that these rules about what God can and can’t do don’t seem to follow any reasonable moral principle. Under what moral theory would it be wrong for God to heal someone who asks for it just because the devil wouldn’t approve? And what is it about belief that suddenly makes it ok? And why does it have to be a certain kind and degree of belief that a lot of people who consider themselves good Christians can’t seem to achieve?
The hope I was trying to give is that any person who believes God will heal them can be healed. I find a lot of hope in that. There’s hope in it, because you are not just left to chance or to things out of your control. You have the ability to believe and receive from God.
I’m not talking to those who are not believers. I am not ignorant. I completely understand that if you don’t believe the Bible is the Word of God then you won’t believe what it says is true. And I do know that many people on this site don’t believe. I’m okay with that. I wasn’t trying to convince anyone to believe what I said, I was trying to show what the bible says. It’s up to individuals to believe or not. There are, however, a lot of Christians who believe the bible is true, but then have been taught untrue things about the bible, such as God can do anything He wants. Reading the OP’s post, it seemed they genuinely believed in God, but had never been told correctly why bad things happen. It seemed, and I apologize if I read into it, that she had been told “God can heal your friend, but who knows if He will. Or maybe He has a reason for it.” If I believed God was like this, like many other people I wouldn’t love or serve a God like this. I wouldn’t love or serve a God that for no rhyme or reason makes people sick and lets them die or lets bad things happen. But when you study the bible, you find God isn’t like that at all, that is what I was trying to get across.
Now, I do apologize that I could not take the time to reference every point I made with a scripture verse. A study on God’s will to heal and why sometimes people do not get healed is a big study. It’s not something I can clearly state in a handful of paragraphs. I was trying to give the OP an understanding that there are reasons why these things happen, that it’s not God’s fault or will, and that there is a way to be healed. If I failed to do that, I apologize to the OP. And people may think that it’s wrong that I have essentially placed the responsibility of healing on the person and not on God, but the bible plainly teaches “All things are possible to him that believes.”
jtgain, I apologize if I offended you, that was not my intention. I particularly apologize for quoting what you said, the way I did. I do pray, as I am sure that you and your friend have already, that your friend will be healed. And I will leave it at that.
Are you saying that anyone who dies of cancer is a non-believer?
Also, if God really needs people to believe in him, why doesn’t he bother to prove his own existence?
Sorry if this ends up being posted twice, I hit post but it did not show up and I’ve waited and refreshed my browser a number of times.
Though I think forums are obviously not the best place for “theological” discussions, I will do my best to answer a few of the questions that arose from my post since the posters seem to genuinely desire my opinion and are not just attacking my beliefs, thank you for that.
Diogenes, here is what I believe the bible teaches concerning your questions.
- Does the Devil have free will? I apologize for this, I should not have implied that only humans have a free will, which my post does imply. Obviously, the devil had a free will to rebel against God in the first place. Because a thorough explanation would take a long time, I probably shouldn’t have brought up the “uniqueness” of man’s free will. I incorrectly stated that man was unique in having a free will, what I meant to get across was his free will is unique. Hopefully, I can be a little clearer by saying the devil does have a free will, but his authority in the earth is also limited, just like God’s. The devil was given a measure of authority when Adam sinned, but man still retained the ability to choose God’s way, so what happens in a person’s life is still up to man’s free will which I will explain further in the next question.
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People who get cancer have given authority to the Devil? No. Adam gave a measure of authority to the devil when he sinned. Specifically, it allowed the devil to work in the lives of man and it opened the door for the curse to come on the earth (sickness, poverty, natural disasters, and pretty much everything we call “evil” is a part of the curse). If Adam had never sinned, these things would never have existed. Now the curse is in the earth, and is a part of the earth. The possibility for sickness is in the earth. Good or bad, young or old, Christians and atheists all get sick and can often die from that sickness. That is the work of the curse. Now the curse is functioning whether we want it to or not, but there is a way to “overcome” the curse. The best way I can explain it is through the laws of gravity and the laws of lift. Gravity functions on the earth and affects everyone. Doesn’t matter who you are. That is what the curse does. However, any person can get in an airplane and, if they apply the right laws, can overcome gravity. Doesn’t mean gravity isn’t there, gravity is just being superceded by another law. That is what faith does. Now just like gravity, if you don’t do anything about the curse it will function. It takes actively believing the Bible to overcome the curse. It’s not enough to believe in God, you have to actively believe what He has said in the Bible and apply it to your life. Just like knowing about lift does not stop gravity from keeping you on the ground, you have to actively do something about it.
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What does free will have to do with natural “evils” like tsunamis or earthquakes? See above. natural disasters are apart of the curse and they are in the earth whether we like it or not.
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Why is free will is so important (and I will ignore the fact that fre will is a logically incohernt and impossible concept in the first place)? Not sure why free will is an “impossible concept” but the importance of free will in the context of my post is that Adam had a free will and he chose to obey the devil and disobey God. That brought the curse on the earth and that is why people get sick. But, free will also gives us the ability to believe the Bible, which can allow us to overcome the curse. To answer one of the questions in your later post, I’ve had loved ones who have died of cancer and they loved God with all their heart, but they didn’t know how to believe the Bible to be healed. The bible says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” To continue my illustration, my loved one “didn’t get in the plane and apply the right principles.”
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If I’m reading your question right, you’re asking why God gave man free will in the first place? God’s entire plan for man was to have people He could pour His love out to. Now, this will probably raise a lot of questions, but for love to be full and fulfill it’s purpose it has to be understood and received. I can have affection for my dog, but it doesn’t understand my affection and really cannot be what I consider true love. It’s purpose is not brought to fulfillment. At the same time, someone could be a stalker and have very strong feelings for another, but that love is not received and therefore is not brought to fulfillment. Angels could not fulfill God’s desire to love, because they are far inferior to God, they could not “understand” God’s love. But the Bible teaches that God made man in His image, giving them the ability to do just that. Also, free will was necessary for God’s love to be brought to fulfillment in the lives of people because they had to be able to receive or reject His love. But with that came the ability to reject God and for all the bad things that have happened on this earth. We could argue if this is “right” of God to do all day, but I believe that is what a thorough study of the Bible bears out.
- Why doesn’t God bother to prove his own existence? Granted I don’t know why God doesn’t except the bible teaches you have to have faith He exists. I do wonder, what in your mind would constitute Him proving Himself. If He shook the earth, people would believe it was a mass earthquake. If He showed up in the sky, you can’t tell me people wouldn’t attribute it to mass hysteria and hallucination. In fact, I personally can’t think of any way that God could prove He existed that people wouldn’t somehow explain away. But when you first choose to believe God by faith, then from my own experience He proves Himself to you daily in the most simple yet profound ways.
Alan, concerning your question about God’s authority, the bible teaches that God is absolutely just. It is His nature and character to be absolutely just as it is in His character to be love. I don’t believe it has to do with rules, legalism, boundaries or any such thing. I believe it has to do with His character. Theology tries to answer what is right and what is wrong, but to God it just is one or the other. There is no outside “force” enforcing rules on God, but His character demands justness. If God gives authority to man, then it would simply be unjust for Him to step in the and take it away the second man did something He didn’t like (which is what Adam did when He obeyed the devil). Authority was given to man as a genuine gift. If I were to give you a gift, it wouldn’t be genuine if I said, “Here this is yours, but you can only do this, this and that with it.” If I have truly given it to you then it is yours to do with as you please. And if I truly gave something to you, it would be unjust for me to step in if you did something I didn’t like. Absolute justness is God’s nature and character, so much so that it even His great love for people will not override it.
That, to the best of my ability, is what I believe the Bible teaches concerning those questions. Obviously, I may have missed some things but I did my best. Thanks again for seeming to genuinely want to know my opinion and not attacking my beliefs.
What specifically ought they to have done?
If I decide that I am going to believe something (actually I’m struggling with that concept already, but never mind), then I will find ways of justifying that which I have already decided to do?
And if she does not believe, she can be healed. If she believes god will heal her, she may die.
If your claims are true, then so are mine. How are your claims different from what would happen if there is nn god at all?
Thanks, CJE-MO. Couldn’t God have given Adam free will to do what he wanted with his own life, without giving him the authority to sell his children and their children into servitude to the devil for all eternity? What kind of system is this, that says that if Adam disobeys God once, Satan gets a permanent lease on the Earth? Did God set this up? Why?
Regarding what is just, is “just” defined by what God does? In other words, are you claiming that it is God’s character not to undo the curse, and therefore it is just to allow the curse to stand, or are you claiming that there is some other moral principle that demonstrates that it would be morally wrong (unjust) for God to simply wipe out the curse without requiring a sacrifice?
If the latter (it would be wrong for God to lift the curse), why? Who would be wronged by that? What is the moral principle at stake here, and why do you believe it is correct?
If the former (it’s just God’s character, and therefore good by definition), then why can’t I disagree with this assessment. It may be God’s nature to punish us all for something Adam did, but that doesn’t make it right in my book. Why would I want to worship such a God, and in what sense is he good?
Finally, why would it be unjust to give a conditional gift? People do that all the time, especially with children who don’t yet know right from wrong. In fact, God did that when he said that Adam and Eve could have life in the Garden as long as they don’t eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good Evil. Why couldn’t he have said, “You can have free will, as long as you don’t use it to curse all of creation and all your descendants for all eternity. You try that, and I’m undoing it! Sorry, those are the rules. After you’ve been here a while and have some experience dealing with actions and consequences and know how to use your free will, then maybe we can talk about letting you curse all of creation and your descendants. Though really, I’m not sure why you want that ability anyway, but hey, why not, they’re your descendants!”?
The only “test” I mentioned, as far as I can see, was in the last line and that was a test of jt’s faith and friendship. I didn’t mean to imply that it was something God was imposing. And I didn’t say anything about God imposing unnecessary suffering or about being good.
All I said is that this world is shitty and God isn’t going to make it non-shitty just because we’re not happy. I haven’t said anything about why it’s so shitty. Maybe it’s a “best of all possible worlds” thing. Maybe it is a test. Maybe there’s some other reason for it. As a non-believer I just assume it’s shitty because that’s the way it is*. Were I a believer in a Grand Plan for the Universe, I’d assume that there’s a reason but it’s really, really complicated.
Ya know, I once had a nice-but-dim Jehovah’s Witness lady come to my door and attempt to convince me that evolution couldn’t be true because a BMW couldn’t turn into a VW. When I tried to explain the flaws in her argument (starting with “Firstly, cars don’t reproduce”) I very quickly reached a point at which I hit the limits of her ability to comprehend. And that was a simple argument. In the same way that I excoriate stupid people who think that anything that their tiny little minds can’t grasp can’t possibly be true, I try not to assume that anything too big for my mind to handle isn’t possible either. If you start from the premise that there is a master plan for every atom of the universe from start to finish, it’s pure hubris to say “I understand what God’s doing and I don’t like it”.
You’re coming at this too literally. It’s a way of thinking. If you want to be analytical about it you could think of it as a placebo effect - you pray to God for strength, you believe He is giving it to you and hey presto, you feel a little better. It’s more likely to work than praying for your cancer to go away. And if you really believe in God, why not give Him the credit?
*I could give a much longer answer, but this is the short non-digressionary version.