Posted on 09/17/2001 12:48:19 PM PDT by RnMomof7
WHY DOES GOD ALLOW EVIL?
Pastor Rick Warren
Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, CA.
Tuesday’s horrific mass murder of innocent Americans leaves all rational people shocked, angry, grief-stricken, and numb. Our tears flow freely and our hearts carry a deep ache. How could this happen in our nation?
As mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors, and co-workers begin to share their stories of the horror, this tragedy will be become even more personal. As this tragedy becomes more personal, it will become more painful and as our pain deepens, so will the questions. Why does God allow evil to happen? If God is so great, and so good, why does he allow human beings to hurt each other?
The answer lies in both our greatest blessing and our worst curse: our capacity to make choices. God has given us a free will. Made in God’s image, he has given us the freedom to decide how we will act and the ability to make moral choices. This is one asset that sets us apart from animals, but it also is the source of so much pain in our world. People, and that includes all of us, often make selfish, self-centered, and evil choices. Whenever that happens, people get hurt. Sin is ultimately selfishness. I want to do what I want, not what God tells me to do. Unfortunately, sin always hurts others, not just ourselves.
God could have eliminated all evil from our world by simply removing our ability to choose it. He could have made us puppets, or marionettes on strings that he pulls. By taking away our ability to choose it , evil would vanish. But God doesn’t want us to be puppets. He wants to be loved and obeyed by creatures who voluntarily choose to do so. Love is not genuine if there is no other option.
Yes, God could have kept the terrorist from completing their suicidal missions by removing their ability to choose their own will instead of his. But to be fair, God would also have to do that to all of us. You and I are not terrorists, but we do harm and hurt others with our own selfish decisions and actions.
You may hear misguided minds say “This must have been God’s will.” Nonsense! In a world of free choices, God’s will is rarely done! Doing our own will is much more common. Don’t blame God for this tragedy. Blame people who ignored what God has told us to do: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
In heaven, God’s will is done perfectly. That’s why there is no sorrow, pain, or evil there. But this is earth, a fallen, imperfect place. We must choose to do God’s will everyday. It isn’t automatic. This is why Jesus told us to pray “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”
The Bible explains the root of evil: “This is the crisis we're in: God’s light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness...because they were not really interested in pleasing God.” ( John 3:19 Message Translation) We’re far more interested in pleasing ourselves.
There are many other questions that race through our minds during dark days. But the answers will not come from pollsters, pundits, or politicians. We must look to God and his Word. We must humble ourselves and admit that each of us often choose to ignore what God wants us to do.
No doubt this weekend houses of worship across America will be packed.
In a crisis we cry out for a connection with our Creator. This is a deep-seated, universal urge. The first words uttered by millions on Tuesday were “Oh God!” We were made for a relationship with God but he waits for us to choose him. He is ready to comfort, guide, and direct us through our grief. My prayer is that you will attend a house of worship this weekend and reconnect with God. But it’s your choice.
Dr. Rick Warren is founding pastor of America’s second largest congregation, Saddleback Church, in Lake Forest, CA.
It may help you to see where I am coming from if you go to a post I made on another thread:
The Reformers and Church Fathers on Nature, Grace, and Choice, #66
At the bottom line, it is obvious that man is a free agent. He chooses freely. Another way to say this is that man has free will in that he is free to do as he will. But the notion that man has the moral ability to choose contrary to his moral nature is false by the very definition of will.
The will always follows the nature. Unfortunately, people can't seem to keep this idea straight. This is why the Reformers opted for the free agency language over the free will language. (They discovered that every time they talked about free will, folks assumed that they were talking about the power of contrary choice--which doesn't exist anywhere in the universe. Even God doesn't have the power of contrary choice. He cannot lie, for example.)
Again, an evil nature automatically, i.e., by definition, produces an evil will.
We would not even need the Bible to tell us this, since it is just a matter of surprisingly simple definitions. However, the Bible does go to the trouble of explicitly teaching that an evil nature produces an evil will. And this teaching has staggering implications in theology-- including implications for the things which seem to be disturbing you in the topic (for example, the "force" idea).
[Snicker-snack, by the way!]
Spot On, Great Post!!
Interesting point.
However, it would be a more accurate description if it said, "Jesus has free will, and Jesus never CHOSE to sin."
When one begins with "free will," in order to carry the argument forward both logically and consistently, then any act afterwards is subsumed to the preexisting free will; i.e., it is at some level a "choice."
That doesn't negate your point that the incarnation was God's plan.
It's probably already been said on this thread, but just in case:
God did not create Sin. God gave Adam & Eve free will. God instructed Adam & Eve that they could eat from any tree in the garden, save one.
Because Adam & Eve exercized their free will and chose to eat from the one tree God instructed them not to, (after some urging and cajoling from Satan in the form of a snake) they (Adam & Eve) sinned. Therefore, Adam & Eve created Sin.
It's all about Free Will. God gave Free Will to all of us. What we choose to do with it, is our own, not God's decision.
Just as Adam & Eve chose to sin in the Garden of Eden by exercising their free will, so too did 19+ terrorists on 9/11 and since that day.
Regards,
No, he is with all of us, but there is a difference.
Those who have CHOSEN Christ's sacrifice, and the gift that was given to us have received forgiveness and God's grace. We live with the comfort and security of knowledge in knowing where we will be when our time here is done.
Those who have NOT CHOSEN Christ's sacrifice have not received the gift of forgiveness or God's grace. That however, does not mean that God doesn't WANT or WAIT for those who haven't chosen him yet.
Those who believe have made the CHOICE. To say that God is only with those who have CHOSEN him would most certainly mean that for some period of your own life, God was not with you. I assure you however, he was. Otherwise, how would you have found him?
God waits for us all, and wants us ALL.
You're making two different arguments here. Free Will does *not* imply that our actions are unknown to God until we we know them first. If that were true, what would be the point of our being born? To suffer? To die? To choose Him? To NOT choose Him?
If it has been pre-determined that we will accept Christ before our birth, then why would we be born in the first place? Likewise, if it was pre-determined that we would NOT choose Him, what would be the point? Free Will is what it is. We are not pre-determined to choose God or to not choose God. If God wanted a guarantee that we'd all choose Him, he could've easily made it so. But God loves us enough to let us CHOOSE for ourselves.
Thus, if He knows what we're going to do tomorrow, we have no choice. It has been decided before we attempted it.
You're arguing fate/destiny here. Because we have free will, our lives are most certainly not pre-determined. We have the freedom that God gave us to CHOOSE his ways or not.
It's that simple. Free Will is what it is.
Slight correction: it would be more accurate to say Jesus specifically chose to obey the Father and not to sin, when Satan offered him all that was in his heart, and more. Jesus rebuked Satan by choosing NOT to sin.
Regards,
Free Will is an illusion. If your suppositions were correct, we'd be able to deny God's own intentions by choosing to accept Grace or reject it. Thus, to believe in free will is to make the creation more powerful than the Creator.
Human beings are hard-wired to look from today to tomorrow and into the future. This is man's timeclock.
God has his own time reference, knowing all past, present and future. He knew from before creation what you will have for breakfast next Monday. It follows then that he knows if you will be with him in heaven or not. That's because HE planned it that way.
While all this may seem futile to modern man, it is really liberating and joyous. Christ tells us that those who live to glorify Him will be rewarded in heaven. And if we're supposed to be in heaven with Him, we will ultimately live a life that is worthy of God's Grace. The rest is known only to God.
The great lie, especially of the 20th century, when the State has presumed all power over our lives, is that free will exists. The State needs you to believe in free will so you can choose the government over the church; expediancy over deliberation; death (abortion) over life; the Bill of Rights over the Bible; group-think over individual conscience; knee-jerk liberalism over righteousness.
And this lie seems to be working quite well. More's the pity.
This illustrates an important point of Reformed theology. Your dullness is something you have no native ability to correct. You can't even choose to be thoughtful in a spiritually meaningful way. Even when I warn you about this, my warnings are like water off a Jabberwock's back.
(I will no go galumphing back to a more profitable thread [grin].)
So you never pray huh? What is it like to have such an unengaged god ?
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