Why would a loving God have allowed suffering to occur

  “Why would a loving God have allowed suffering to occur?”

As will be seen, there are several reasons why God would allow suffering to occur in the world, but if God is unconditional love, then all of them would have to be linked to the advancement of love. Thus, if God allows human beings to cause suffering to one another, He does so for reasons of advancing the free appropriation of love; and if God created an imperfect world with natural laws which indirectly cause suffering He would have done so for the same reason. In this view, God does not directly cause suffering (except to impede those headed toward imminent self-destruction), and if He allows suffering, He does so to advance love and to strengthen His invitation to eternal unconditional love.

If God does not directly cause suffering and is therefore only an indirect cause of suffering, what or who are the true direct causes of suffering? There are two major sources beyond ourselves: Other human beings and Nature.

God should be likened to the most compassionate and affectionate of parents who would gladly suffer in the place of his/her child, but realizes that this child must make her own decisions and must deal with the challenges of life as a free human agent. It seems that an unconditionally loving God would suffer with everyone who suffers, and would redeem every scintilla of suffering through His providence for all eternity. It seems that an unconditionally loving God would allow suffering to occur if it could lead to our choice of a more authentic love and life which could last for eternity. The key thing to remember is that God has an eternal perspective. He also has an unconditionally loving perspective.

So why would an unconditionally loving God allow human beings to cause suffering to one another? Because love requires the freedom to be unloving and “unlove” frequently causes suffering. In other words, without the capacity to cause suffering (through choices of unlove), human beings could not be truly loving.

If God were to create a creature incapable of unlove, He would also have to create a creature incapable of love, because the very powers of self-consciousness and imagination enabling one to envision one’s self in the future can lead equally to jealousy or magnanimity, egocentricity or altruism, arrogance or humility, greed or generosity, anger or kindness, hatred or love. To render a being incapable of jealousy is to render it incapable of magnanimity. To render it incapable of egocentricity is to render it incapable of altruism. Ultimately, to render a being incapable of hatred is to render it incapable of love.

If God is to create a loving being, He must create that being with the capacity to create a loving action; and if He is to create a being with that capacity, He must create a being with the capacity to choose love or unlove; and if He creates a being with that capacity, He creates the very possibility of unlove leading to suffering.

God does not create the actuality of suffering in the world, but only the possibility of suffering, by creating agents who have the real choice. God must create this possibility; otherwise, He could not create a free agent, and therefore, could not create a loving being – that is, He could not create a beloved with the freedom to love others with a love that is its own.

Could God Eliminate Human Evil through Continuous Miraculous Intervention?

There can be little doubt that God does intervene in our lives through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (in our own lives and the lives of people around us), in little and great conspiracies of providence, and even in outright miracles. But these occasions are rare – very rare – because they truly represent interruptions in the free action of human beings.

In this scenario, God becomes the giant behavior conditioner in the sky. He so frequently lowers the boom on anticipated evil that He conditions most people (out of fear or desperation) to avoid evil. Unfortunately those people did not choose to avoid it, but rather reacted to the continuous negative stimulus of attempting it. In the end, God would only have succeeded in creating people who treat their boss with respect even though they utterly hate him; or treat their coworkers with respect out of fear of the dreaded boss. Whatever this is, it is not love. If God wants us to choose love, He has to allow us the real possibility of unlove, a real possibility which is not cloaked in fear, hindrance, and retribution.

The problem with God eradicating only some really terrible people is that human ingenuity will discover it, and when it is discovered, the process of conditioning (on the basis of fear) will begin. People of common sense will not approach the line even though they desire it; and the ones who would approach the line wouldn’t have a chance. They’d be dead or rendered incapacitated before they knew what happened to them. God must avoid this kind of behavioral conditioning in all its forms; for it interferes with our freedom for unlove in all its forms, which ultimately interferes with our freedom to love in all its forms.

God so loves the world, and God so wants us to love one another, that He will respect our freedom, and restrain Himself from interfering with that freedom, even in the most egregious situations and with the most egregiously offensive people. The price of love is not only the capacity for unlove, but the real possibility of unlove. Only God can give a truly satisfactory answer this Why. We must ask God and He may have a unique answer for each one who asks like a child.

The problem of evil

The problem of evil:   “Evil” seems incompatible with perfect Goodness and inclusivity. Since evil seems to be evident, it seems to mean either that God is not perfectly good or that a perfectly good God does not exist.

If God were to disallow all human evil, then God would have to disallow the free choice to act in an evil way; and if God disallowed the free choice to act in an evil way, He would not allow our good actions to be self-initiated. He would essentially have programmed us for good behaviors, but not allowed us to choose good behaviors over and against the option of choosing evil ones; therefore, He would have foreclosed the possibility of our good actions truly being self-initiated, and therefore truly being our own.

Furthermore, acts of human evil can purify our freedom toward perfect Love, for when evil actions are perpetrated against us; we are challenged to respond with a gift of self (love) in forgiveness, mercy, and compassion. These selfless actions (which are frequently undeserved by the perpetrators) are the highest manifestations of human generosity and love. Ironically, they are elicited by evil. The story of my life, as well as world history and literature, are replete with examples of how forgiveness of evil has led to the intensification of goodness and love. Would the great ideas of human rights and economic rights have occurred without the forgiveness of centuries of oppression?

Evil elicits vengeance, and vengeance begets vengeance, unless a free agent intervenes and lets go of the just offense in a recognizable act of compassion. This act not only stops the cycle of vengeance begetting vengeance, but also calls collective human consciousness to a higher ideal, a higher sense of collective self, which is at once intrinsically beautiful, while allowing the real possibility of peace. Ironically, this greatest of human choices can be induced by evil.

If God is perfectly good, He must exclude evil. This views “evil” as something positive – as something existing in itself.

A brief summary of the volumes which have been written on this since the time of Plato shows a more comprehensive view of “evil” which does not view it as something positive or existing in itself. Evil is seen to be a negation of a free being’s power to love. Obviously, the free being exists, and his power to love exists (and is positive). But evil does not exist apart from this free being and his positive capacity to love. Evil occurs when the existing free agent negates (ignores or undermines) his positive power to love.

Now, these evil actions could have angry feelings embedded in them. But these feelings are not identifiable with evil itself; they are the result of evil (that is, a free agent’s choice to ignore or undermine his capacity for love). Furthermore, destructive (evil) behaviors may come from this free agent, but these behaviors are also not identifiable with evil itself; they are the result of evil (i.e., a free agent’s choice to ignore or undermine his capacity for love). Thus, the occurrence of evil is not something which exists in itself; rather, it is the result of a free agent’s choice to ignore or undermine the capacity for affection, empathy, compassion – love.

In sum, evil can occur through an existing free agent, and it arises out of the ignoring or undermining of an existing capacity for love. It can give rise to feelings and destructive behaviors which have ontological status. However, the evil of the free agent, of the feelings, and of the destructive behaviors does not exist of itself. It occurs through the negating of the positive power to love in the free agent. If this definition of evil is correct, then it is not excluded by God; for it has no existence which can be excluded. God’s perfect goodness and perfect inclusivity remain completely compatible.

There are other kinds of atheism not connected to the notion of “God,” and therefore not concerned with incompatibility between God and a particular phenomenon (suffering or evil). For example, socio-political atheism generally tends to be more irreligious than atheistic. It objects to religion because it an “opium of the people” (a distraction from needed socio-political change). Philosophers who proffer these claims frequently do not offer any argument against the existence of God, but rest their case on their sense of religion as antithetical to human progress.

Many such philosophers frequently ignore the fact that religion is responsible for social progress in many arenas, such as the initiation and advancement of laws, legal systems, social welfare systems (prophets who exhorted the populace to care for widows and orphans), schools and educational systems, hospitals and health care systems, etc. This makes those philosophers’ selective view of history quite suspect.

As we attempt to translate our deepest emotions and experiences into concepts, we will want to remember that the more nuanced and complete the definitions, the more they will correspond to the truth; and the more they correspond to the truth, the more they will present the path to healing and deliverance within the horizon of unrestricted Love, Goodness, Justice, Beauty, and Home

Suffering

 “Why would a loving God have allowed suffering to occur?”

As will be seen, there are several reasons why God would allow suffering to occur in the world, but if God is unconditional love, then all of them would have to be linked to the advancement of love. Thus, if God allows human beings to cause suffering to one another, He does so for reasons of advancing the free appropriation of love; and if God created an imperfect world with natural laws which indirectly cause suffering He would have done so for the same reason. In this view, God does not directly cause suffering (except to impede those headed toward imminent self-destruction), and if He allows suffering, He does so to advance love and to strengthen His invitation to eternal unconditional love.

Well, then, if God does not directly cause suffering (except to impede those headed toward imminent self-destruction), and is therefore only an indirect cause of suffering, what or who are the true direct causes of suffering? There are two major sources beyond ourselves:

1. Other human beings

2. Nature

God should be likened to the most compassionate and affectionate of parents who would gladly suffer in the place of his/her child, but realizes that this child must make her own decisions and must deal with the challenges of life as a free human agent. It seems that an unconditionally loving God would suffer with everyone who suffers, and would redeem every scintilla of suffering through His providence for all eternity. It seems that an unconditionally loving God would allow suffering to occur if it could lead to our choice of a more authentic love and life which could last for eternity. The key thing to remember is that God has an eternal perspective. He also has an unconditionally loving perspective.

The Intrinsic Relationship of Freedom and Love

So why would an unconditionally loving God allow human beings to cause suffering to one another? In a phrase, because love requires the freedom to be unloving, and “unlove” frequently causes suffering. In other words, without the capacity to cause suffering (through choices of unlove), human beings could not be truly loving..

If God were to create a creature incapable of unlove, He would also have to create a creature incapable of love, because the very powers of self-consciousness and imagination enabling one to envision one’s self in the future can lead equally to jealousy or magnanimity, egocentricity or altruism, arrogance or humility, greed or generosity, anger or kindness, hatred or love. To render a being incapable of jealousy is to render it incapable of magnanimity. To render it incapable of egocentricity is to render it incapable of altruism. Ultimately, to render a being incapable of hatred is to render it incapable of love.

If God is to create a loving being, He must create that being with the capacity to create a loving action; and if He is to create a being with that capacity, He must create a being with the capacity to choose love or unlove; and if He creates a being with that capacity, He creates the very possibility of unlove leading to suffering.

God does not create the actuality of suffering in the world, but only the possibility of suffering, by creating agents who have the real choice. God must create this possibility; otherwise, He could not create a free agent, and therefore, could not create a loving being – that is, He could not create a beloved with the freedom to love others with a love that is its own.

Could God Eliminate Human Evil through Continuous Miraculous Intervention?

There can be little doubt that God does intervene in our lives through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (in our own lives and the lives of people around us), in little and great conspiracies of providence, and even in outright miracles. But these occasions are rare – very rare – because they truly represent interruptions in the free action of human beings.

In this scenario, God becomes the giant behavioristic conditioner in the sky. He so frequently lowers the boom on anticipated evil that He conditions most people (out of fear or desperation) to avoid evil. Unfortunately those people did not choose to avoid it, but rather reacted to the continuous negative stimulus of attempting it. In the end, God would only have succeeded in creating people who treat their boss with respect even though they utterly hate him; or treat their coworkers with respect out of fear of the dreaded boss. Whatever this is, it is not love. If God wants us to choose love, He has to allow us the real possibility of unlove, a real possibility which is not cloaked in fear, hindrance, and retribution.

The problem with God eradicating only some really terrible people is that human ingenuity will discover it, and when it is discovered, the process of conditioning (on the basis of fear) will begin. People of common sense will not approach the line even though they desire it; and the ones who would approach the line wouldn’t have a chance. They’d be dead or rendered incapacitated before they knew what happened to them. God must avoid this kind of behavioral conditioning in all its forms; for it interferes with our freedom for unlove in all its forms, which ultimately interferes with our freedom to love in all its forms.

God so loves the world, and God so wants us to love one another, that He will respect our freedom, and restrain Himself from interfering with that freedom, even in the most egregious situations and with the most egregiously offensive people. The price of love is not only the capacity for unlove, but the real possibility of unlove.

http://magisgodwiki.org/index.php?title=Suffering_Caused_by_Humans

Suffering

Suffering

Could God Eliminate Human Evil through Continuous Miraculous Intervention?

 “Even if God had to create the possibility of unlove (and suffering) in order to enable us to love, couldn’t He situationally prevent some human evils by a little miracle, or by a little conspiracy of providence? Couldn’t He have seen how awful Hitler was going to be? Couldn’t He have, well, caused Hitler an early demise by some means that at least looked natural? Couldn’t He have anticipated the effect Stalin would have on history and allowed at least one of those assassination attempts to ‘hit home? And while I’m thinking about it, couldn’t He have also caused a car to hit that man who kidnapped that little girl? And couldn’t He have prevented me (in some very gentle way) from hurting that person who was my lifelong friend? And while I’m at it…. I don’t expect God to make these interventions every day; just on really urgent occasions.”

There can be little doubt that God does intervene in our lives through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (in our own lives and the lives of people around us), in little and great conspiracies of providence, and even in outright miracles. But these occasions are rare – very rare – because they truly represent interruptions in the free action of human beings. If God interrupted occasions of unlove or evil every time we would like Him to, none of us would have any sense about the efficacy of our actions (or anybody else’s actions, for that matter). We would never know whether, on this particular occasion that I am contemplating unlove, the bolt of lightening would come from the sky in the form of an interruption – say, an inability to speak, a sudden lapse of intellection, a pain in the heart, or getting hit by a car. The whole world would be waiting for a sword of Damocles to drop on them because the frequent occasions of God “stopping evil at the times we would like Him to” would interrupt the flow of human action, and would cause a fear of performing unloving actions. Needless to say, this last point would not only interfere with the freedom for unlove, but also the freedom to love which is inextricably tied to it (as seen above).

In this scenario, God becomes the giant behavioristic conditioner in the sky. He so frequently lowers the boom on anticipated evil that He conditions most people (out of fear or desperation) to avoid evil. Unfortunately those people did not choose to avoid it, but rather reacted to the continuous negative stimulus of attempting it. In the end, God would only have succeeded in creating people who treat their boss with respect even though they utterly hate him; or treat their coworkers with respect out of fear of the dreaded boss. Whatever this is, it is not love. If God wants us to choose love, He has to allow us the real possibility of unlove, a real possibility which is not cloaked in fear, hindrance, and retribution.

But it may be objected, “Well, okay, skip the idea of God preventing evil every time we want Him to. Couldn’t He just make an exception for really terrible cases, like Hitler and Stalin? Couldn’t He just have eradicated them?” Unfortunately, He cannot. Because if Hitlers and Stalins always met an early demise, human beings would eventually figure out that there was a line which cannot be crossed, and an entire science would arise to predict where that line is. We would be like frenzied lawyers attempting to find the precise point at which one crosses the line from legal to illegal – locating excusability and deniability, mounting up the case law to prove that one can go to the very edge without crossing it. When does one become Hitler or Stalin? When does one become a tyrant? Aren’t there many Hitlers and Stalins who just never had the right historical opportunity to put their plans into practice? Or should God lobotomize only those Hitlers and Stalins that do have historical opportunities? Would other Hitlers and Stalins not follow in the old ones’ wakes?

And what about Hitler and Stalin, themselves? Wouldn’t God want to hold out the possibility of their redemption (even though their actions are evil and hateful)? If God’s love is unconditional, then He could not reject even really terrible people if there were even a glimmer of hope for conversion.

We may now draw a general conclusion. The problem with God eradicating only some really terrible people is that human ingenuity will discover it, and when it is discovered, the process of conditioning (on the basis of fear) will begin. People of common sense will not approach the line even though they desire it; and the ones who would approach the line wouldn’t have a chance. They’d be dead or rendered incapacitated before they knew what happened to them. God must avoid this kind of behavioral conditioning in all its forms; for it interferes with our freedom for unlove in all its forms, which ultimately interferes with our freedom to love in all its forms.

God so loves the world, and God so wants us to love one another, that He will respect our freedom, and restrain Himself from interfering with that freedom, even in the most egregious situations and with the most egregiously offensive people. The price of love is not only the capacity for unlove, but the real possibility of unlove.

for more detail:  http://magisgodwiki.org/index.php?title=Suffering_Caused_by_Humans
http://magisgodwiki.org/index.php?title=Why_Believe_in_God%3F#Unit_L:_Why_Does_God_Allow_Suffering_from_Nature.3F

Capacity for Love

The Divine Dilemma in Creating the Capacity for Love

Now, we may return to the divine dilemma with which we began. Given that God can get into dilemmas because of the finitude of His creation, it should not be surprising that God cannot create a creature with the capacity to own its own love (to initiate a loving action anew) without simultaneously creating that creature with the choice (capacity) for unlove (with the consequences of human suffering). If God wants to create a truly loving creature (beyond a mere marionette), He will have to create the very possibility of unlove, and the very possibility of human suffering. Human beings took care of the rest. In their God-given autonomy and freedom, they seized upon the possibility of unlove, and so human suffering entered the world.

We cannot be angry with God for creating the possibility of suffering, for we, in fact, made it actual. Moreover, the reason He created the possibility of suffering was to make us “beloveds with the capacity to own our own love”; with the freedom and autonomy to originate love anew; with the capacity to love originatively as He loves. As implied in UNIT J, this incredibly important capacity to love is our happiness, our creativity, our eternal future, and our highest calling. It therefore seems to me that this precious gift of love is worth the price of suffering – even tragic suffering. I believe that God made the right choice, because I wish not only for myself, but for the whole of humanity, a status beyond that of a marionette – a status commensurate with the very love of God.

God's Dilemma

Can God Experience a Dilemma in His Acts of Creation?

It may seem somewhat unusual that God could be forced into a dilemma. After all, if God is all-powerful (as God is), it would seem that God could do absolutely anything. But the fallacy of this thought is revealed by a dilemma which most of us heard in grade school – namely, “Could God create a rock so heavy that He couldn’t lift it?” (assuming that God has something akin to a physical body with which to lift rocks). The answer is that the question is absurd because it presents a contradiction.

Recall, for a moment, the principle of non-contradiction – something cannot both be and not be a particular characteristic in the same respect at the same place and time. The word “cannot,” here, means “impossible,” which means it is not possible for this to occur under any circumstances – even through divine power. Impossible is impossible in all circumstances, places, times, and universes.

How can we understand this? Let’s take a block of wood, for example. The principle of non-contradiction tells us that the block of wood cannot be in both the shape of a square (four inscribed right angles) and the shape of a non-square (say, a circle, with no inscribed right angles) in the same respect (i.e., the same area) at the same place and time. In other words, our block of wood cannot be a “square-circle” of the same area in the same place and time. But it’s not only the block of wood; it is also in your mind. Go ahead and try it. Envision a square-circle in the same area at the same place and time. Go ahead. Having difficulties? Of course, you can flip back and forth between square and circle, but you cannot conceive it at the same place and time. The principle of non-contradiction would hold that even God cannot conceive of a square-circle with the same area at the same place and time – that even God would have to flip between square and circle.

Why? Because the inability to combine square and circle is not about the limits of human power or the human mind; it is not about the limitations of divine power or the divine mind; but rather, it is about the exclusionary properties of boundaries – the exclusionary properties of anything which is finite. The first thing one learns in elementary logic is that boundaries (finites) which are on the same generic level exclude one another from themselves. The boundary of “four inscribed right angles” excludes the boundary of “no inscribed right angles” from itself in the same respect at the same place and time. That’s what boundaries do. Thus, when God created any boundary or any form of finitude, He simultaneously created the exclusionary property of that boundary. That is, He created boundary A’s exclusion of “all boundaries non-A” from itself. When God created protons, He also created their exclusion of electrons from themselves in the same respect at the same place and time. So also, when God created wave behaviors, He simultaneously created their exclusion of particle behaviors from themselves in the same respect at the same place and time, etc. That’s the nature of finitude – it cannot be other finites in the same respect at the same place and time. If God did not want to create “exclusion,” He could not have created finite realities.

The only being which could be absolutely inclusive (that is, which would not exclude anything from itself) would be one which has no boundary or finitude whatsoever – it would have no intrinsic boundary or extrinsic boundary. It would not be conditioned by space or time. It would not be restricted to any magnitude or quantity; it would not even have a particular way of acting (like a wave, or a particle, or a proton, or an electron). It would have to be pure acting, pure act, pure power, pure existence, without any way, magnitude, quantity, or spatio-temporal condition – just pure Being. We would call that “God.” The moment being has a boundary, it would cease to be purely inclusive, and would begin to exclude other boundaries from itself; just like squares excluding circles, or proton behaviors excluding electron behaviors, or wave behaviors excluding particle behaviors, etc.

God does not exclude anything from Himself because God is compatible with every boundary. Why? Because He, Himself has no boundaries which would exclude other boundaries. We might now return to the idea of God creating a rock which is so heavy He cannot lift it. We can see now that this is an absurd proposition because God doesn’t have a “body” – a finite physical form – which lifts rocks. All rocks are completely compatible with the divine nature. A finite physical body would have intrinsic limits to its rock-lifting capacity, and therefore, there could be rocks that it could not lift.

Nothing is intrinsically contradictory to God, because God is purely inclusive (pure act, pure power, pure being); but anything other than God (which would have boundaries to action, power, or being) would exclude other boundaries (on the same generic level) from itself in the same respect at the same place and time. God cannot force a violation of the exclusionary property of boundaries – He cannot create a contradiction. The only way God could avoid such exclusions or contradictions is if He didn’t create any boundaries or finitude in the first place. Thus, the moment God created finitude, He subjected Himself to dilemmas, that is, He had to respect the exclusionary property of the boundary that He created. The fact that there cannot be a square-circle is not a problem with divine power or the divine mind; it is a problem with the exclusionary property of the boundary of square or circle. As noted above, it really does not matter where that boundary exists – in a block of wood, a human mind, or the divine mind. Boundaries will exclude other boundaries from themselves on the same generic level in the same respect at the same place and time.

Unlove

God Must Allow Loving Beings to Create Their Loving Actions Anew

There is perhaps a simpler approach to seeing God’s dilemma. If God is to create a being capable of love, then He would have to allow this being to make that love its own; otherwise, the being would be like a marionette – only behaving according to a program or cause other than itself. Now, if God is to allow a being to make love its own, He must allow that being to create its loving actions anew, that is, to have the loving action originate with the self, and not merely with a program or cause other than the self. If this being is to create its loving actions anew, it must have a choice either to perform a loving action or not to perform it. If it does not have such a choice, its actions would originate from programs, instincts, causes, or stimuli other than itself. The “loving” action would not be created anew by the self, and hence, the “loving” action would not belong to the “loving” agent. It would not be love but merely an instinctual, caused, or stimulated behavior with beneficial consequences. Just because my computer’s actions are beneficial to me does not mean it loves me.

God’s dilemma now becomes apparent. If God is to create a loving being, He must create that being with the capacity to create a loving action anew; and if He is to create a being with that capacity, He must create a being with the capacity to choose love or unlove; and if He creates a being with that capacity, He creates the very possibility of unlove leading to suffering.

Note, here, that God does not create the actuality of suffering in the world, but only the possibility of suffering, by creating agents who have the real choice, the real power, to act contrary to love. God must create this possibility; otherwise, He could not create a free agent, and therefore, could not create a loving being – that is, He could not create a beloved with the freedom to love others with a love that is its own. God’s purpose in creating “little beloveds who are loving” would be frustrated.