God's Omni-Benevolence

[steve]

What does it mean that not one sparrow is "forgotten" by God? Does it mean that, even though God has no control over their earthly well-being, He won't forget them in the resurrection?

Or does it mean that, in terms of their daily needs and such, God does not forget that they are there and in need of sustenance?

If the latter, would this be worth saying, if it was not to suggest that God, who does not forget them also meets their needs on a daily basis? This would seem to be saying that God's remembering them translates into God's taking care of them.

Isn't this the very point that Jesus makes elsewhere?

"Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them." Matthew 6:26

[Jill]

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[Paidion]

Yes, Steve. That is correct. The ways in which God created the world and "nature", ensures that the sun shines, rains fall, sparrows get fed, and people receive sustenance. Oxygen, comprising 21% of the atmosperic gases, is suitable sustaining life for mammals through breathing. Yes, God provides all of this. Of course, even the sparrows which God feeds must search for their food, and we humans must work for ours, or grow it and harvest it. It's all God's provision. (I won't comment on the resurrection of sparrows)

Notwithstanding, this kind of provision is different from God's interference with the "laws of nature" which He set up. His miraculous intervention in specific individual cases is rather rare. He didn't intervene in the atrocities against the Jewish race during the holocaust. This is not to suggest that "He had no control over the well-being" of the Jews, had He chosen to exercise such control --- and so with the many current atrocities committed against people in our day. In no way do I blame God for non-intervention in the horrible things some people do to their fellow humans. It's just that I think we must face the reality that He usually doesn't intervene in man's actions, whatever they are. I know it is comforting to suppose that God has a reason for "allowing" these atrocities, a deeper purpose. For with that supposition, comes the confidence that God is in control. But the trade-off is that we never learn of that deeper purpose, and that people begin to blame God. "Why did God have to kill my little girl, and in such a painful way? Couldn't He have fulfilled that deeper purpose in some other way? Why can't He at least tell me what the deeper purpose is?" And so, with this kind of thinking, people get very angry at God, even to the point of hating Him.

With my belief that God had nothing to do with the painful death of the little girl, or with the horrendous suffering of the Jews during the holocaust, I have no reason to blame God and become angry with Him.

It would be no comfort at all to me to believe that He has some mysterious deeper purpose for "allowing" such atrocities, especially since the supposed deeper purposes are never revealed. If I should hold such a belief, I, like so many other people, would feel inclined to resent God for fulfilling His own mysterious purposes at the expense of great suffering for humanity. Of course, if I am wrong, and God actually has deeper purposes for His non-intervention, my feelings of resentment would serve no useful purpose, and would only harm me, and so I would make every effort to repent and be delivered from my ill feelings. For God does what He wishes! Who can resist Him?

[Jill]

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[RFCA]

I came across these lines of thought...

Is God willing to prevent evil but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.

He is able but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.

He is both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God.
-- Epicurus

I believe that God is able and willing so I only need to answer the 3rd question and my answer is that evil came as a result of man's fall.

Let me know your own thoughts as well. God bless!

[Paidion]

I have been thinking more about this issue since my last post.

1. Jesus taught that God's character is loving.

You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Matthew 5:43-45 NASB

We show ourselves to be true children of the heavenly Father, by loving people as He does!

John taught that God is LOVE (I John 4:8,16) and that in Him there is no darkness (I John 1:5)

2. God would not be loving, but malevolent if He actively tortured children and other innocent people in order to achieve some hidden purpose of His own. In that case, there would indeed be darkness in Him.

3. There is no essential difference in God actively carrying out these heinous acts to fulfill higher purposes, and His allowing others to do the dirty work for Him in order that these purposes be fulfilled.

4. Since God is omniscient, then He is able to fulfill these deeper purposes without having to cause or allow unspeakable suffering of people as a means of doing so.

5. If God either actively or passively uses terrible suffering to achieve higher purposes, then He is less than all loving, and we would be sons of the Father, if we too, instead of loving and praying for our enemies, caused them to suffer horrible pain in order to fulfill some hidden purpose of our own.

Conclusions:
Since God is not malevolent, but fully loving, then the atrocities which occur in this life are not the results of God's doing, either actively or passively. To believe that such atrocities are, in fact, God's doing is tantamount to ascribing moral evil to God's character, and that is blasphemy. We are to praise God for Whom He is ----- total LOVE.

Thus, there must be another explanation for the existence of the excruciating pain and suffering which is forced upon innocent people, including children, by evil men and women.

I regret now that in my last post I actually speculated about there being a possibilty that God actually has deeper purposes for His non-intervention in the matter of man's cruelty to man.

[steve]

Paidion,

I don't see how you can, in light of our discussions at the other thread ( http://www.theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=67&t=2771 ) still make such statements as the following:

2. God would not be loving, but malevolent if He actively tortured children and other innocent people in order to achieve some hidden purpose of His own. In that case, there would indeed be darkness in Him.

You assume that "some hidden purpose of His own" would be something other than the intention of eternally benefitting the sufferer and the rest of mankind. Why assume such libels against God? Would not every purpose of God, hidden or otherwise, be for the benefit of His creatures?

As has been repeatedly pointed out, a father may understandably choose to subject his child to painful surgery, which the child is incapable of understanding or appreciating, because the father has "some hidden (that is, hidden from the child) purpose of his own." But if that "purpose" is to save the child's life, how is this an act of malevolence on the father's part?

You keep using the word "torture" (apparently as a rhetorical device to prop up an otherwise weak thesis). Torture is indeed malevolent, and no Christian should think God capable of lowering HImself to such criminal activity. However, the pain of surgery (especially in the days before anesthesia) might be indistinguishable from that of torture, to the patient—and it may be so for God's children under the knife. The difference between the pain of surgery and that of torture is not its intensity, but its purpose. One is loving; the other is malevolent. Since God is a Healer, not an inquisitor, it seems disingenuous to introduce the word "torture" in what would otherwise be a serious inquiry into the theological causes of suffering.

3. There is no essential difference in God actively carrying out these heinous acts to fulfill higher purposes, and His allowing others to do the dirty work for Him in order that these purposes be fulfilled.

Many fathers have used surgeons to do the "dirty work" of saving their children's lives. Why aren't you able to see this?

4. Since God is omniscient, then He is able to fulfill these deeper purposes without having to cause or allow unspeakable suffering of people as a means of doing so.

This is an assumption that no human being is competent to make. How do any of us know whether there is a way to purge sin from mankind that is less painful than the method God chooses to employ? Do you know of such a method? Perhaps God knows of none because there is none.

5. If God either actively or passively uses terrible suffering to achieve higher purposes, then He is less than all loving, and we would be sons of the Father, if we too, instead of loving and praying for our enemies, caused them to suffer horrible pain in order to fulfill some hidden purpose of our own.

What has this discussion to do with treatment of our (or God's) enemies? The subject of God's judgment of the wicked has not entered this thread previously—though, when it comes to that subject, you even believe that God has a "higher purpose" in judging the lost (their redemption), don't you? Why see such a higher purpose in the fires of hell, but not in "the fiery trial with is to try you"?

In this thread, we are not talking about treatment of enemies, but we are inquiring what a father may do to save those whom he loves. We should do exactly as our father does—namely, never subject another (e.g., our children) to any suffering that is not absolutely necessary for their ultimate benefit. This is so basic to morality that I am amazed to find any controversy surrounding it.

[steve]

Consider this:

God sometimes heals, delivers from injury and death, etc., but sometimes does not do so.

Take the case of Jesus Himself (a model for us all in terms of suffering—Hebrews 12:1-3). There were several times when His enemies fully intended to kill Him, but His "hour" was not yet, so they were not permitted to carry out their intentions. Later, the same enemies, with the same evil intentions, were permitted to kill Him, because His "hour" had come. Was this "hour" one determined by God's "higher purpose" for Christ's life, or was it determined by sinful men, and God had no power over it?

Acts 4:27-28 gives the answer, in case the question is difficult.

Now take an average person, whom God loves. On Monday, thieves try to break into this man's house to rob and kill his family. However, an angel of God strikes the thieves dead outside the house (an example of such a thing may be seen in 2 Kings 19:35). However, on the following Thursday, another band of thieves comes, breaks into the man's house and kills his family (an example of this kind of thing may be seen in 2 Kings 25:1-7). How shall this man view the situation? It seems that he has only three options:

1. God had more awareness and power to rescue on Monday than He had on Thursday; or

2. God's higher purpose allowed for delivering the family on Monday, but did not allow for such deliverance on Thursday; or

3. Neither God's power nor His purposes were involved, but merely His caprice.

Which option fits the general theology of the Bible, and the specific example of Jesus' case, more admirably? Or is there a fourth alternative that I am missing?

[darinhouston]

A thought occurs that the suffering of the faithful (possibly for eternal benefits) and the unfaithful (possibly to bring them to faith) only make sense to the Arminian -- the suffering of the unfaithful (assuming to be unelect) seems to maintain some of Paidion's objections -- to the Arminian, that could simply be God's grace unreceived to try and give them an honest chance to come to faith. That puts the Calvinist in a tricky spot, philosophically, no? (as if they don't have other problems).

[Jill]

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