Why would any benevolent creator create Cancer?
>>Why would any benevolent creator create Cancer?
Because every man dies. Cancer is just flawed cells. So is Type 1 diabetes or a lot of other diseases.
Well the creator created you with an immortal soul. That's pretty cool.
Actions have consequences. Adam and Eve chose poorly. We would do the same.
Your question is a common and quite normal question- one wonders how a loving God could sit by and watch people suffer- But IF we are to look at the question logically and completely objectively, we can’t go into the question with out minds made up that God can not exist because evil and pain exist- Doing so is biased- no objective, and reveals a mind that is set in it’s own conclusions and won’t accept any explanations that contradict that preconceived conclusion
Concider the following site (Christianthinktank dot com)
“The standard form of the PoE (PROBLEM OF eVIL)(a non-technical statement) looks like this:
a. God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good, and therefore should have the will and the ability to eliminate evil and/or suffering.
b. Such a god would be obligated by His/Her/Its/Their ethics to eliminate evil and suffering (i.e. there is no adequate reason for it to be allowed to eventuate/continue);
c. Evil and suffering ostensibly occur.
Therefore, the god described in proposition A does not, in fact, exist.”
http://www.christianthinktank.com/gr5part1.html
He then goes on to analyze why such arguments fall apart- in a deep but logical manner- and presents a case that shows there can indeed exist evil and suffering and a loving God
It basically comes down to two factors- one- WE invited this upon ourselves- We had a perfect life, but threw it in God’s face and decided we wanted to die- God warned us- We chose a life of death
Two- We tend to only focus in on ‘the bad’ aspect of suffering, and we often overlook that much good comes out of suffering very often (not always- but often) We forget that God uses everything, in a sovereign and purposeful manner- ways we don’t see- The suffering situation has far far reaching ramifications that only an all knowing God can see- but we as finite beings can see soem ramifications/results- ie the sick person obeys God DESPITE the pain and suffering, becoming an inspiration to others who are healthy- their testimony helps others who suffer have greater faith, a young person seeing someone suffer may decide to take a different road in life later in life in order to try to be a blessing to others etc etc etc- on and on it goes-
While suffering is indeed bad, it has a way of revealing the true character of a person- because it is they who CHOOSE how they are going to respond to it- either out of love and acceptance, or bitterness and rejection of God, but the choice is fully the person’s-
That site- has reams of articles examining the problem of pain and evil- some of it is quite deep- but some is readable enough- and he has a very down to earth unvarnished way of getting to the root of questions in ways we didn’t even realize we were asking- because we don’t see as deeply as he does-
It’s well worth soem time spent on there if you really wish to know why a loving God would allow evil
your question: “Why would any benevolent creator create Cancer?”
answer: God didn’t. Man in his pride demanded that Cancer (interesting that you cap’d that) exist. God gifted man with freewill. God doesn’t take back His gifts.
another good point is that God allows suffering because suffering has a way of taking a hard heart, and softening it to the point where a person turns to God because there is no other course of action to take- Bitterness doesn’t help, anger doesn’t- resentment doesn’t- there is no other way to turn but to Him - Not everyone will CHOOSE to turn to Him of course- but God gives them enough time to make up their mind
Glen Miller says it well:
“God has made the human personality resilient, adaptive, and in most cases, able to transform situations of personal suffering into experiences of growth. “
“7. If a loving and powerful God really exists, why doesn’t He do something about all of the evil in the world?
“Actually, He IS doing something about evil—not the least of which is being patient with you and I about OUR evil! Even though He gets a lot of slander for not judging evil quickly, nevertheless many of us appreciate the fact that He didn’t judge us too early, and that He gave us time to ‘get right with Him’! “
http://www.christianthinktank.com/thumbs.html
Glen talks about our lives having a ‘group effect’ (IE: Our actions affect the ‘whole group’ (those around us that we are connected to) in ways we will never know- A simple smile or compliment from a suffering person for instance can so affect a young person that years later, faced with their own problems, remembers the kindness of the suffering person, and so decides to help humanity in ways that this person never would have even begun to conciser had that sick person not been kind to them earlier in life-)
“Group Effect” Is a powerful concept- our actions have ramifications far out into the future- and affect more people than we will ever realize-
Of course that brigns us to the person who is sick but bitter and rejects God- what good can possibly coem from this? There are many- and the site goes through those in several articles-Basically the bitter person was never going to accept Christ no matter what- but God will use it just as He used Pharaoh’s hardened heart to bring about good ultimately-
the problem of pain and suffering is a common issue that has been pondered all down through the ages- and there are a great many examinations of it by many prominent philosophers and theologians etc- There are answers- if we are objective enough to get beyond any preconceived personal finite, incomplete moral regulations we impose on God-
The ‘Group Effect’ is an important concept to study and learn- when trying to understand the presence and effects of evil, and the concept of hell and eternal suffering (Some people argue that the punishment outweighs the crime of rejecting Christ and living a life of sin- however, this ‘Group Effect” comes into play even here because crimes committed have far reaching affects that aren’t readily seen or known- for instance a murderer may murder a person and think they just affected the immediate family, but not so- the affects will carry on down through the ages, affecting distance relatives, affecting people who knew them- affecting national laws- affecting society as a whole- etc etc- so that ‘single act of murder’ wasn’t as limited in scope as first thought- and the seriousness of the crime is multiplied many times- this is just a quick eample0 there ism ore of course- but got to run-)
Maybe to keep wicked creatures like humans from living forever.
He didn’t. Cancer is one of the results of sin in the world.
The Russians created cancer
He didn’t.