From: conditt@tsd.arlut.utexas.edu (Paul Conditt)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Does God intervene?
Date: 13 Dec 92 04:53:04 GMT
Organization: Applied Research Laboratories, University of Texas at Austin

In article <Dec.11.02.08.03.1992.13588@athos.rutgers.edu> sungho@crhc.uiuc.edu (Sungho Kim) writes:
>Hello,
>I would like to hear from Christians on the following problem.
>I see innocent victims suffer and die all over the world and see that 
>God does not do anything about it.  So I conclude he does not intervene 
>and therefore does not respond to prayers either.  What I am saying is
>he is aware of everything but decided leave everything to us.
>So, I see no point in asking God for mercy when one is sick.
>Does anybody disagree with me?
>
>Thanks in advance
>Sungho Kim

Sungho,

You've raised one of the most difficult questions that we have to deal with.
Many people who are agnostics or atheists use what you have pointed out
above to "prove" that God doesn't exist, and if he does, then he no longer
cares about us.

Let me point out a couple of things that I think relate to this issue.
1)  Just because things happen doesn't mean that's what God would want.
I don't think God intends for children to be killed or abused or neglected.
I don't think he intends for people to die of terrible diseases or suffer.
We often fall into the trap of thinking that since God is omniscient and
omnipotent, that everything that happens in the universe must be somehow
orchestrated by him.  God gave us all free will.  I'm not going to try to 
analyze how this might work on a global level, but I think it's pretty 
obvious that I have the power in and of myself to disobey God.  Does this
mean that he's any less powerful?  No, it just means that I have free will.

2)  God does answer prayer.  I could give you a long list of scriptural
references, but I don't have a concordance here at work and I'm not sure
that's what you want, either.  I could also relate several personal 
experiences of how God has answered prayers in my life.  But let me also
point out that the answers I received were not always what I had asked for.
I thank God that I most often get what I really need instead of what I 
ask for.

3)  Getting back to what I perceive as the orignal question, I think the 
important thing here is to realize a little about how God works.  Again, 
he is al-powerful and all-knowing.  This means he could miraculously heal
anyone, even by having them place their hands on the television :).  But
usually God works *through* us.  We are Christ's ambassadors.  I dare say,
and this is getting out there a little, that many of the kinds of problems
that we see that you mentioned are not having anything done about them
because we're not willing to act.  I don't mean at all to discount the 
power of prayer.  Obviously we can't all cook a bunch of food and hand-deliver
it to Somalia.  All we can do is pray about that situation.  But we can take
food to a hungry neighbor, or lend a helping hand to a sick brother, or 
give a coat to a cold child.  James talks about these kinds of things in his
letter.  He says that anyone who says to his brother, "be warm and well-fed"
but does nothing to help him is a hypocrite.  Often, for our prayers to "work",
action is required of us.

I know this doesn't answer all of your questions and doesn't directly
address many of the problems we face.  It sounds shallow to say, "just have
faith."  But faith is very important.  Faith, accompanied by our willingness
to act on our faith (which is the only "real" faith, anyway), can move
mountains.  It won't necessarily end all of the hunger in the world, or
cure all the diseases, but this world was not meant for that.  Our lives
after this one will have no disease, no suffering, no tears.

I hope this offers you a little hope.  I'd encourage you to not give up
praying, but to have your eyes opened more fully to where the answers to
your prayers might lie.  May God bless you.


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