From: marlatt@spot.Colorado.EDU (Stuart W. Marlatt)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Simple Question
Date: 26 Jan 93 09:44:08 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder

In article <Jan.25.00.02.47.1993.3192@athos.rutgers.edu> mjsmith@cac.washington.edu (Martha Smith ) writes:
>In article <Jan.22.03.55.40.1993.6114@athos.rutgers.edu>, cmtan@iss.nus.sg (Tan Chade Meng - with Dan) writes:
>|> Can somebody enlighten me on this question:
>|> 
>|> If God is All Powerful and All Loving, why does He allow sufferings
>|> to exist?  Why did He create humankind with the propensity for
>|> Greed, Hatred and Delusions and then allow us to murder and harm
>|> each other?
>|> 
>|> Thanks
>|> 
>|> C. M. Tan
>
>Good question worth a full course of theology.  Read Job; read Elie
>Weisel's Night ... We as created finite beings cannot understand why
>God created us, let alone why he created us with free will.  But free
>will can exist only if there is choice.  That choice is for or against
>God - and choice against God permits "evil".  Humans were not created
>with a propensity towards evil but with the capacity to choose against
>God; the propensity towards evil is the result of that first choice.

I would echo the sentiments expressed by Martha...we cannot understand
why God does (or allows, if you will) everything He does. I recently
read an excellent analogy which addresses this (if a bit tangentially).
In Darlene Roses' _Evidence Not Seen_ (which I highly recommend!), she
relates her experiences in a Japanese POW camp during WWII. The camp
she was in held only women and children - some of the latter very
young. Disease was rampant, and medicine scarce or nonexistant. To
treat disentary (sp?), they would give doses of epsom salts, followed
by a period of fasting. It worked, but was hard on the patients.
With the adults it was hard enough, but with the children, it was
extremely difficult. The little ones could not understand why, when
they cried and begged for food, that it was withheld. I think
that it must be similar to our relationship to our Father - there
are times when we cry out in anguish and seem to get an unreasonable
'no' for an answer. In these time, all we can do is trust that
God love us and will do what is best.

Hudson Taylor once said something to the effect that 'When He is
the central, most important event in our lives, then we may be
sure that everything else which happens is necessarily the best,
and most gentle, thing possible which will still work to bring 
us into the fullness of His plan for our lives.' (Major paraphrasing
here, since I don't recall the quote exactly.)

We are sheep in our Fathers flock. To the hurt sheep, he is a healer
(a broken reed He will not break, a smoking wick He will not put
out). But what is the purpose of keeping sheep? We are not only
here to enjoy the green pastures and still waters, but also to be
sheared, to be milked, and maybe to be slaughtered. The early
missionaries to China noted that 'this is a hard ground, which
must be watered by the blood of martyrs.' Darlene Rose was put
through hell in the POW camp, and at the hands of the military
police who were convinced she was a spy. She looks upon this as
a trial by fire; as refining into a more purer gold. Probably so,
but if she (who at the start of her trials was far more pure than
I) required such refining, how much more so me? And to what end?
I think perhaps it was not so much to refine her (that is a
byproduct), but more that she was so spent to buy the souls of
those who witnessed her faith through her ordeal (including the
Japanese commander of the camp). 

How can a loving God be willing to allow His people to be so
abused? How can we as parents allow our children to be hurt,
say during a surgery? Paul tells us not to fear those who can
destroy our bodies but cannot touch our spirits. All in all,
this is a temporary life we live - if it is snuffed out too
soon, we have sooner sluffed off this mortal coil.

I know this hasn't directly addressed the question of how
can a loving God allow the innocent to suffer - the baby in
the burning house, the Somalias of the world - except to say,
we cannot understand all His ways. We can trust Him, even when
our senses cry out that this is all wrong.

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Tereu                                                                     
  --T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land                                            
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s.w. marlatt, <><  &  *(:-)               Prov. 25.2
University of Colorado:                   marlatt@spot.Colorado.edu  492-3939
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