I’m looking for a Christian to explain to me why they believe that people killed in recent flooding (or in the Indian Ocean tsunami for that matter) are not sinners who deserved to peril. I’m not interested if you believe that they are, I can follow the derived logic in this case, regardless of my views. I’m not looking to provoke or receive reactionary knee-jerk responses either. I’m just genuinely interested in people who feel able to override their biblical morals on a case-by-case basis.
maybe he couldn’t avoid taking out some good ones on the way to the bad ones, but the extreme sins of the few justified it.
or
maybe this was just the best he could come up with to avoid something worse occuring.
I’m not sure the first reason can be religiously justified (or can it?), but maybe your second is an incarnation of this textbook moral dilemma?
“Most people think it is permissible to divert a train so that it will kill one innocent person instead of five, but most people think that it is not permissible to push a stranger in front of a train to save five people.”
But then the obvious response is to ask how Yahweh let things get so out of control, that he was forced into such a decision?
I actually forgot about this. It’s Rev. Tom Honey (Canon Pastor of Exeter Cathedral, UK) talking about how he discussed the topic of the tsunami with his congregation. It seems like he’s approaching pantheism, which is a great progressive step for a religious community.
To paraphrase monday 30th’s Thought for the Day “god is primarily concerned with us, and the elements are simply part of the way the world works”
Is that a thinly disguised pro-pantheism comment? i.e. we are ‘god’, the elements are out of our control, or is it just another i-can-always-come-up-with-an-excuse approach?
I was barely an excuse, simply a brushing aside of the point.
It was Canon David Winter, he’s done a couple about natural disasters, but i’m yet to see what Canon Honey has to say about it.
I like how Tom seems so miserable.
Well, everyone in the world is a sinner. We all sin everyday, whether we consciously think about it or not. When such disasters happen God either has plans to see people turn to Him in time of need or He is wanting people to realise exactly what’s important to them in life…making them review their situation and how they’ve been living. That is what I honestly believe…
Hi Joanne. Thanks for your comment. So, you believe that God has set rules so strict that they make everyone a sinner by default – therefore he is entitled to kill anyone he likes at any point. But rather than just doing away with everyone, he just takes a few now and again, in the hope that the rest of us will learn how to live better lives?
God set rules so that we could see that we are imperfect and have a need for him. In the old testament the Israelites asked for the law and God provided the 10 commandments so that we may see how we have fallen short of God’s perfect standard, and become more aware of what life apart from God (a life of sin) looks like. His perfect world did not include pain or destruction, the human race brought that upon themselves when we chose a life apart from God. God allows raging storms, and brokenness in our world because that’s the life that we as humans have chosen when we didn’t choose him.
If you want a solid philosophical answer I would really suggest reading CS Lewis’s The Problem of Pain.
Here’s some of what he says
Pain removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul.
Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.
If God is a nice being then why did he build the possibility of imperfection into his creations and then torture them when they don’t live up to his expectations? Your description appears to be of somebody with sadistic, murderous and power-hungry tendencies. I certainly wouldn’t want him as a boss. I guess that’s the part that confuses me – how people are prepared to jump to his defence (or rather a defence of their beliefs) and justify behaviour that they wouldn’t tolerate from anyone else. Thanks for your comments though, I’m enjoying reading them.
Thank you also for the book recommendation. I read The Screwtape Letters a few years ago and have been meaning to read his other similar books for a while now and you’ve just reminded me :)
I understand and appreciate your argument.
I think it comes back to the idea that God created us to love Him, but real love is derived from a choice. Real love isn’t creating drones who worship him.
I don’t think God is murderous and power hungry. We chose to worship self when given the free will to do so. God, therefore, deserves to punish us because he is a just God. He chose to instead in his grace offer a sacrifice for our transgressions in the life, death, and resurrection of his son. This demonstrated his justice and love and gave us a way back to him.
Paul addresses the same questions from people in Romans chapter 9, and I have wrestled with the passage myself. He states that
Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’. Does the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? What if God , choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath – prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory?”
That’s a tough one, super tough, but it’s the same question you’re asking. I guess just know that one of the disciples themselves asked the same question. The conclusion he came to was that if God is what he says he is, just, good, perfect, and love then who am I to tell him he’s wrong. That’s probably just adds some fuel to your argument, but that’s what the Bible says.
I don’t know Paul…what if?
May I suggest the following resource:
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/ConferenceMessages/ByDate/1476_Is_God_Less_Glorious_Because_He_Ordained_that_Evil_Be/
or
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2005/223_Where_Is_God/