Judah -- When someone walks around with notions like these, it's our job to put him on the right track, I think. Even if he puts things very aggressively.
New Guy -- I wouldn't press the 'free will' issue. I would press 'responsibility'. In the case of murder, who would be responsible for the murder -- God, or the direct murderer?
Why does God allow evil? Simply because 1) it's a result of the Fall and 2) we need to get a sense of responsibility. If God would interfere whenever something bad was about to happen (and what is bad? death? blindness? a broken leg? dirty underwear?), we would get very careless. We would remain immature children. Just step onto the road, traffic won't hurt you...God will interfere.
Another example: the famous writer John Bunyan, when still in his 'blasphemous days', was very shaken by the deaths of two people close to him. These experiences contributed to his salvation and his zeal for spreading the Gospel. His books have been used by God to draw countless people to salvation; it was the means of saving these people. Would it be better if these deaths had not happened and all the readers who were saved because of reading the book would spend eternity in Hell?
Also note what
JP Holding says on the subject:
JP Holding wrote:For any thoughtful person, there will not be emotional questions like, "why does God allow this or that disaster to happen?" The obvious answer to any thoughtgul person is that God has no obligation to fix our mistakes, especially when we spend so much time telling God, via our own disobeying of His rules, that He can take a flying leap. If someone wants to complain about this, then why are they spending so much time writing and complaining about it? Why aren't they counseling possible future offenders? Why aren't they out feeding starving children? The end of the argument is the idea that if you are able to help and don't do it right now, you must be depraved (or in God's case, not exist). But intelligent Christians will aver that God WILL someday judge the world and that evil people WILL get what they deserve. That they don't get it RIGHT NOW because some mush-for-brains fundy atheist wants to throw a temper tantrum is not an argument against God or prayer at all.
About the Babel 'skyscraper': the sin wasn't building the tower, the sin was an excess of pride. Man wanted to be God, and man needed a lesson. He got 'wound up because everyone on earth was working as a team'
when he had specifically stated they were to 'fill the earth' (Genesis 1:28.).
About the son of David and Bathseba, this is what...well...
JP Holding says on the subject:
JP Holding wrote:David was king, and set an example for his nation. A visible judgment was required to set against any idea that others could blithely follow in David's steps in sinning. We can hear the rising whine at once: "Who cares? Is God an egotist?" No, God is holy, and God is concerned that the greatest number of people will come to Him for their eternal salvation. Skeptics who tend to think only of the moment have no conception of the out working ripple effect of individual actions (or inaction). If having no effect at all meant that thousands who otherwise would have come to God and found eternal life instead went to eternal condemnation, is that worth the physical (not eternal) life of one person? For Christians this is a no-brainer: The death of one man paid for the salvation of billions. Visible judgment upon a very public offense as the means to accomplish the same, though to a lesser extent. Let the skeptics gnaw on their sound bite; they are time out of mind and thinking in two dimensions as usual.
I never said Holding would give soft responses.
About the census (information from
Christian Thinktank):
- Israel had been naughty, and was under God's judgement
before David took that census. The census was only the direct cause of God's punishment; Israel had been disobedient for a longer time.
- God allowed Satan to stir up David to take a census.
- Taking a census was not forbidden. However, there were rules, described in Exodus 30:11-16: every counted Israelite (of 20 years and older) had to pay a ransom of a half shekel. This 'atonement money' was donated to the tabernacle. Vs. 12 stated very clearly that a plague would come if people did not hold to this rule.
- General Joab knew that David ordered the census out of pride, which indicated that the rules were not going to be followed. In other words, the sin was not the census, but pride and resulting disobedience.
- A plague that killed 70,000 people and lasted only 3 days was rather light, compared to other plagues of the day. In the Hittite kingdom, there was a plague of 20 years. In Greece, during the time of Pericles, pestilence killed at least a third of the population, possibly two thirds. In the Roman Empire, there was a plague that lasted a century and killed 10,000 people in Campagna only. Another plague took away somewhere between 25%-35% of the entire Roman Empire. A century afterwards, 5,000 people died each day in Rome alone...and this plague lasted at least 16 years.
'What kind of loving God is this? He does not immediately pass judgement on every sin we commit, but is lenient and merciful, and only punishes when it is necessary. He goes to great lengths to show wicked humans that sinful behaviour will never be rewarding in the end. And he makes great lions that shake their manes in a very impressive way. That's some kind of aesthetic God...'
Here's a poser for the atheist: God never came down to kill a family member, and certainly never out of spite. Murderers regularly kill someone's family members, which is why God is God and they are not.
In fact, the most tragic, disgusting, horrible death in history was a case of God killing His own family member, His Son Jesus Christ, 'so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life'. What does that tell you about God's love for humanity and the caution we should apply in making negative statements about God too quickly? I know my answer!
