Hi,

I have a question that I'd like to see answered by people with varying viewpoints on this forum. Let me set it up with the following scenario:

Somehow you are given knowledge that exactly ten minutes after you read this post a child in front of your house will be struck by a car and die unless someone intervenes. I think that we would all agree that if you did not act to save the child's life, you would at some level be responsible for the child's death.

But let's take this analogy to 9/11 and use it with God. According to both Calvinism and Armininism God foreknows everything that will take place. If God foreknew 9/11 and did not act to stop it, is He not in some way responsible for the deaths that took place? How does God's foreknowledge of evil not include responsibility on God's part to stop the evil deed from taking place? If we, as humans, would be responsible in the scenario painted above, how could God be less responsible?

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001

Answers

Response to Is God Ultimately Responsible?

First time contributor to this forum.

To compare human reaction to God's reaction would be foolish to say the least. God may know what is going to happen in the future, but to blame him because he does not stop it is not the way things work. We have been given the gift or curse of freedom of will. We are the one making the choice to do evil. What we do is what we do, not because God has made us do it.

God is not responsible for what we, as evil people, do. I am sure he is not happy with what is going on in the world, but he is not intervening at this time. I think that this may be an object lesson for us, if we can only see it that way, instead of passing the blame to God.

To compare yourself with God has to be the ultimate sin no matter what religion or belief you hold. You need an ego a little bigger than Texas to pull that one off.

Talk to you later.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001

Response to Is God Ultimately Responsible?

Barry,G

God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts so it is completely in vain to ask such a question.

More to the point is the fact that even though 9/11 was a shocking tradgedy it doesn't compare to the estimated 28,000 unborn babies that were aborted in the US in a one week period 9/11 to 9/18. Sometimes we get our priorities a little mixed up.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001

Response to Is God Ultimately Responsible?

Ditto to what Bob & Sam said.

It is beyond presumptuousness to 2nd guess God's decisions & actions.

God is not, has not, and never will be "responsible" for man's actions. When He created man as a free moral agent, He basically took Himself out of that equation. In times past, He has put into motion, or allowed numerous things to happen, but again it is presumptuous of us to think or expect Him to act in a way that WE think is right.

And remember, "all things work together for good to those who love the Lord". Has any good come from 9/11/01? Sure, it was a horrible tragedy, but look for the good in the situatuion. The USA as pulled together as a nation; the Liberal, anti-God agenda has be religated to a back seat for the moment; families have been drawn closer together; and people have had to come to grips with their own mortality and many have sought God for the answers they need. And it could have been worse.......if you compare the number of 9/11 fatalities to number of possible fatalities (if the planes had been full & if the Towers were not partially evacuated before their collapse), you find that there was actually a 93% survival rate.

So don't blame God................instead, see His concern for awakening America & the world, and His mercy in the number of survivors.

God IS Good!!!

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001

Response to Is God Ultimately Responsible?

Hi All,

Let me clarify: I am not blaming God for 9/11 or any other evil action. I just want to know how we respond to this theologically??

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001

Response to Is God Ultimately Responsible?

Barry,

I really didn't think you did blame Him.

But most people who would ask that type of question typically would be in a frame of mind of wanting to place blame somewhere. So the above responses would probably be appropriate replys.

-- Anonymous, November 26, 2001

All of the above replies to Barry's question are perfect examples of the sort of evasive, point-swerving doublethink that continues every day to dissuade thinking non-Christians from sympathising with them.

Bob in WI: "God is not intervening at this time". So when DID he intervene, Bob? As Woody Allen said, "My God, my God, what have you done...lately?" The notion of God's intervention is picked up and put down as it suits Christians. The notion of a grand divine purpose that we cannot see is easily the least impressive of the Christian justifications for Evil. It is plain and simple laziness, evasion of difficulty, a refusal to see things through with courage and reason. Do you imagine God the Almighty would want you to give him such a pathetically convenient (and suspiciously human) get-out clause? 6 million Jews die by gas, shooting, fire, disease and starvation, and He does nothing. "Oh, but it could have been worse" is not an adequate response: it could also have been BETTER! The original point still holds: Why, when he knew it was going to happen, did he do nothing? It's not enough to invoke our Free Will. God is either involved or he is not. Either leave him on the sidelines, as a Creator then as an ultimate Judge, with humans battling it out in the intervening aeons, or accept that he has the power to stop whatever evil he chooses.

If he does not have the power to stop evil, then he is not an all-powerful God.

If he has the power to stop evil and yet he does not, he is not a loving God. On the contrary, he could only be called evil.

Any deity worthy of the name wouldn't sit back and let this carnage go on.

Any Christian who believes God gave him a healthy brain, free will and the capacity to think for himself should honour that gift by refusing to indulge in such intellectual cowardice and self-serving cant.

And please, before you're tempted, have the decency and guts not to dismiss this out of hand as the simple ravings of the unenlightened. I spent many, many years in the Church and within Christianity (not necessarily the same thing), but I left it behind for a very good reason.

I wanted to pursue the spiritual life.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2001

steve,

You said, "Any Christian who believes God gave him a healthy brain, free will and the capacity to think for himself should honour that gift by refusing to indulge in such intellectual cowardice and self- serving cant."

That applies to yourself as well!

How is it, that you are "pursuing a spiritual life" if God is either not All-Powerful or All-loving? If that is true - WHAT'S THE POINT IN PURSUING A "SPIRITUAL" LIFE??????

You also said, "God is either involved or he is not. Either leave him on the sidelines, as a Creator then as an ultimate Judge, with humans battling it out in the intervening aeons, or accept that he has the power to stop whatever evil he chooses."

Well........we could "leave Him on the sidelines", but since we're told to pray and ask His help - the sidelines is definitely not a Scriptural place to place God.

And OF COURSE God has "the power to stop whatever He chooses". That's the point we were trying to make! And it is only logical that since God DIDN'T STOP the attack, there was a reason why - and our comments addressed that issue, not His ability to stand in the way IF He so chose.

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2001

Hi Mark,

Couple of points:

First off, why do you seem to presume that the spiritual life is only liveable as a Christian? I am most definitely NOT a Christian. If God is neither All-powerful nor All-loving, sure, we're in trouble. But as far as I'm concerned, he doesn't exist in the first place. In the absence of a God figure the only ethical thing to do IS live a spiritual life. In my terms this is living to the highest ethical, loving,compassionate and wise degree. There are many other paths(religions), older than Christianity, that teach this. Christianity doesn't have a monopoly on it.

Secondly, if he's not to be left on the sidelines, but to be present as a god of intervention in human affairs, then you believe that he can directly influence the everyday world. This puts him firmly back in a position of responsibility. Unfortunately, I sense that nothing I can say will dissuade you from the bizarre belief that due to some larger 'plan', God is allowing bad things to happen. If I was to ask you what exactly this plan could be that it must involve the painful, excruciating deaths of children, I suppose you will respond with the old Job argument: Who are we to know the mind of God? How dare we, mere insects that we are, challenge the creator of the universe? I hope you can see my problem with this, Mark: this reply stops the discussion in its tracks; it would not be tolerated in the most basic philosophy group; it simply does not permit of any rational discussion.

-Why does God let evil happen? -Because it's part of His plan. -What kind of crazy plan could possibly require such suffering? -Hey, don't ask questions of God. He's the Boss. He'd get REALLY mad if he thought you could possibly doubt his all-loving benevolence!

See my problem? My experience of discussing these matters with Christians is that they are plain lazy in matters of intellectual rigour. So much of a premium is placed on having faith - unsurprising really, as this is all it comes down to.

"And it could have been worse.......if you compare the number of 9/11 fatalities to number of possible fatalities (if the planes had been full & if the Towers were not partially evacuated before their collapse), you find that there was actually a 93% survival rate. "

Mark, please. Please please please. How can you SAY these things? I'm all for optimism, but...god. What are you trying to say?

a) God allowed 9/11 to happen because it's part of his plan. He could have stopped it, but hey, it really needed to happen, can't say why right now, okay?

b) He allowed it to happen but, because he's merciful, he sorta let a lot of people escape. But AT THE SAME TIME he had to make sure a lot of them DID get burned/crushed/blown to pieces, otherwise it wouldn't have made much of an impact on us, would it?

c) But ACTUALLY it was all a result of Free Will: it was all just a bunch of evil human beings, right? God had nothing to do with it. No sir. Nothing at all. I mean, yeah, it was part of his Great Plan and all, but hey, He didn't have to lift a finger! Osama did it all FOR Him! Cool!

So which is it to be, Mark?

What happened on September 11 wouldn't have anything to do fanatical, misguided,and downright evil actions prompted by America's treatment of the Arab world, would it? Or is that just not in the scriptures?

Best wishes,

Steve

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2001

I found the following analogy that might be of some help here, from Greg Koukl:

"Before you had children did it occur to you that your children would disobey and do bad things? You had the option to have children. You knew the children would do bad things, some could turn out very, very bad. Yet you still decided to have children. Why? There are some ineffable kinds of motivations that one has for creating life. If that's true of human beings, it strikes me that it's true of God as well. From our perspective God has some inexplicable motive to create, to make children, to create someone in His image though He knows that they will go bad at some point in the future, just as you know that those that you create out of your love for each other will go bad in the future.

"When your children do go bad are you as parents responsible for the bad that they do? You are not morally culpable because human beings are free moral agents. If that is true for you, it's true for God as well."

-- Anonymous, November 30, 2001

"God has some inexplicable motive to create, to make children, to create someone in His image though He knows that they will go bad at some point in the future,"

You make him sound like a bad absentee father: "Hey man, I just put the seed there, I didn't raise the kid or nothing, don't blame me if he growed up wrong."

Unlike God, my parents were AROUND to raise me. They took RESPONSIBILITY for my ethical education. True, they are not ultimately responsible for my actions, I am. That's something else they taught me. Unlike God, they intervened when I was in danger. Unlike God, they answered when I asked questions. Why do you all feel the need to take things out of the human realm? Love is indeed the answer, but it is all ultimately to be found within the world of living, breathing, interacting human beings. Bad things happen - let's deal with it ourselves, not just pass it off as part of some Divine Plan. If there IS a divine plan, I'm pretty sure it involves taking responsibility for our actions, for accepting our mortality with courage, realism and love, for using the time we have constructively, for being as happy as we can be, for supporting one another, and for fighting for the truth no matter how much it shatters our carefully protected illusions.

Good luck to you all. I won't be writing here again, I don't think we're really on much the same wavelength, guys.

Steve

-- Anonymous, December 01, 2001

Steve, I knew there was still one or two rational people left in the world. It's nice to know that I'm not alone with just brainwashed God Squad members. I was raised in the rat's nest of Christianity and for those who still by "The Greatest Story Ever Sold," let me suggest a good book, totally documented, a biblography to back up every statement and a lot of great good sense; it's "Forgery in Christianity," by John Wheless. I didn't even know it existed until I found it on Amazon.com when I was looking for "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom," by A. D. White-- another excellent book.

-- Anonymous, December 11, 2001