Sunday Thoughts

Random Bible verse thoughts again this time. This coming week I'll try to get some non-Sunday posts up, too, but in the meantime:

I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.—Isiah 45:7

It is quite possible that the most-asked question by people about the Christian God is this: How could a loving God allow bad things to happen to His creation? I've certainly asked it myself, and a lack of answer certainly figured into my falling away from Christianity. But these days, I think I understand a little better.

There's two ways to look at it, really. The first is: the only way to know if an experience is good or bad is to compare it to other things. You can't know what darkness is if you only experience light. Loneliness only feels lonely because we know what it's like to have someone's company. Comparing and contrasting is just how humans tend to think. Naturally, if that's how we think, it makes sense that all of those things have to be in Creation. It allows us to appreciate the good times when we understand there are also bad ones.

There's also the fact that we have free will. Free will is meaningless if there are no choices, and choices aren't choices if there aren't different outcomes. Sure, God could make it so that those choices always led to the best outcomes for everyone, but would that really be free will anymore?

Free will may not always be a blessing, particularly when it's exercised by people who aren't inclined to regard their fellow humans with charity or love, or by those who have been hurt and therefore choose to be selfish. That sort of human suffering is the part of it we question. Why should some poor toddler lose their life because someone else felt a need to avenge some perceived wrong her family did to him? (To name a not-so-random example from the news recently.) It seems unfair. Capricious. Why would a loving God allow that?

But would the lack of free will really be a blessing? If we didn't know what it was like to suffer loss or hardship, how could we ever appreciate our needs or desires being met? Life would be simple and pleasant, but would we even realize that?

I admit life with no pain and no conflict sounds wonderful, but only because I know what pain and conflict are like. If I did not, it would have no meaning.