[secret garden]

Good find and perspective.

[mcg1969]

If He can prevent evil but does not, then he is not good.

As the good Reverend points out, this is the flaw in the argument. He has good reasons for not preventing evil: because doing so would require the elimination of our ability to make decisions independently of Him.

[Overtaxed]

I don't suppose Mary Magdalene's faith went wobbly when she heard of the massacre of the innocents.

Huh? He's got his Mary's mixed up.

[SedVictaCatoni]

A loophole in the Problem of Evil:

- If God is omniscient, then He knows the solution to every problem...
- ...including the Problem of Evil.

Therefore, a God could exist who understood how he himself could exist, even if we could not!

[Semper Paratus]

Archbishop Williams wouldn't have lasted the first few months of WWI.

[mewper]

This seems to be the appropriate story for this: A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many things and various subjects. When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: "I don't believe that God exists."

"Why do you say that?" asked the customer.

"Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can't imagine a loving a God who would allow all of these things."

The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop. Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt.

The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber: "You know what? Barbers do not exist."

"How can you say that?" asked the surprised barber. "I'm here, and I'm a barber. And I just worked on you!"

"No!" the customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside."

"Ah, but barbers DO exist!" answered the barber. "What happens is people don't come to me."

"Exactly!" affirmed the customer. "That's the point! God, too, DOES exist! What happens is people don't go to Him and don't look for Him. That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world."

[onedoug]

One guesses The Holocaust never troubled this cleric's "faith".

[Malesherbes]

The world is divided between those who believe that mankind (humankind if you prefer) has a fallen nature prone to evil, and those who believe that human beings are innately good. If you are in the first group, then you may also reasonably believe that we must continually struggle against our own worst impulses and the worst impulses of others.

[Jaysun]

To die is to gain. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

[APFel]

Suffering is part of the human experience. Just like the wide range of emotions are, whether good or evil, that constantly wash over us.

These things, whether it is pain, remorse, depression, despair, or anything that bring us displeasure, is all part of the human experience. We would not be human without them.

While I feel all sorts of emotions when I have bad things happen to me, whether it is a terminal illness or death in the family, hard financial times and so forth, I realize that it is these things and the way I react to them that gives me my humanity.

And I am grateful.

APf

[valkyrieanne]

Liberal Anglican. Feh.

[mmartins]

I listened to this interview and what struck me hardest was the firm insistence by the Archbishop that the killers "deserve life imprisonment"

Yes, Rowan, that'll frighten them...

[Just mythoughts]

For every positive there is a negative, but the positive will have the victory.

[freeangel]

Uh, I believe that is satans' goal and it seems to be working with you Mr. Williams.