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[Real Greg]

If we assume God exists (which we will for the purpose of this post) then why should we worship Him when he:

•Allows hell to exist
•Lets innocent children die
•Lets hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people die yearly from natural disasters

[jimwalton]

> Allows hell to exist

Why should we respect a judge who sends criminals to jail? Why should we respect the Allies who went war to stop Hitler? Why should we respect a price force that arrests drug dealers? Any judge who is worth his salt recognizes and vindicates good people, and also recognizes and punishes criminals. That's what a good judge does. If you object to hell, you think guys like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Idi Amin should just get away with whatever they want to do. If there's no hell, there's no accountability and no punishment for wrong.

> Lets innocent children die

The discussion about the existence of evil in the world is a long one. Hopefully you'd done a little bit of reading, study, and thinking before you blurted this out. while I can hardly answer your question briefly, essentially evil has its place in the world. If God stopped all evil and suffering, he would have to take control of everything and everybody. We'd all be robots—no feeling, no choices, no life. There would be no such thing as science, because in an earthquake or a tsunami, no one would get hurt, especially innocent children. A building would collapse but the children would (a) fly, (b) the building around them would be suspended in air, or (c) 4 tons of rock would fall on them but they would be unscathed. No child would ever get a disease. Science would be meaningless. Cause and effect wouldn't be a principle. Nothing would be predictable, nothing would be reliable. So our thinking processes would be pretty worthless, too. It's a long discussion, but there is a sense in which evil and suffering are necessary for our humanity.

> Lets hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people die yearly from natural disasters

If a volcano happens in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, it's an interesting phenomenon. If it happens in civilization, now either it's evil or God is?

God made volcanoes to relieve pressure on the earth's surface, or we would explode. They help to remove heat from the interior of the planet so we are more stable for life. We've heard some of the science during this recent eruption in Hawaii. Volcanoes provide nutrients to the soil. Volcanic gasses, I understand, are the source of water on the Earth.

God made earthquakes to relieve pressure on the planet. Without earthquakes, Earth would explode.

People build home on fault lines (hey, welcome to California). Is that God's cruelty? People built expensive homes where there are wildfires. God's fault?

Natural cataclysms are necessary for environmental balance. Sometimes people get hurt. It's a living planet, and stuff happens.

But you want God to intervene every time, so someone could stand in the path of a tornado and, what, no effect on them? What just happened to science and cause-and-effect? People could walk into the lava of that volcano in Hawaii a few months back and not get hurt?

I'm not convinced you've thought through your angst. Let's talk more.

[Real Greg]

Is not believing in someone evil worthy of a punishment?
Do we have no humanity in heaven then?
Why wouldn’t God create the earth without the need of natural disasters then?

[jimwalton]

> Is not believing in someone evil worthy of a punishment?

Yes. If we knowingly follow someone who's evil, thinking he's great and helping him do his evil stuff, that's obviously pretty demented. That's why we believe in God and follow Him instead of some evil being.

> Do we have no humanity in heaven then?

In a sense. 1 Corinthians 15 is pretty clear that we will be dramatically changed. Heaven will be populated only by people who have submitted their wills to God. Remember also that the environment of heaven will have been purged. C.S. Lewis made an interesting observation in “The Last Battle” of The Chronicles of Narnia. As the new residents of Narnia explored what they were allowed to choose and what not, we hear Peter say, “It’s all right. I know what we’re all thinking. But I’m sure, quite sure, we needn’t. I’ve a feeling we’ve got to the country where everything is allowed.”

> Why wouldn’t God create the earth without the need of natural disasters then?

All parts of nature have give and take, input and output. Nature is always in process and is not static. With so many forces at play on the planet (gravitational, electromagnetic, heat, cold, spinning, etc.), Earth has to be able to "breathe," so to speak, with the forces of stability along with the forces of change. Dynamism benefits the planet.

[Nuke-a-new]

You cannot compare hell to a jail

Especially when the crime worthy of eternal punishment is not believing without evidence

B: a world without disease would not make us robots.

C: if you are religious and believe your god is all knowing then yes, the natural disasters are his fault, he created them

D: your god can create the universe but can't balanced Earth without killing people?

E: I'm not convinced you thought through your reply very well

[jimwalton]

> You cannot compare hell to a jail

The comparison was actually with just punishment. "Jail" was just the environmental context of our culture. The true point was that justice is not only fair but beneficial.

> Especially when the crime worthy of eternal punishment is not believing without evidence

First of all, I never said anything about eternal punishment. You've brought your own business to the table with that one. Not all Christians, you should know, believe in the traditional concept of hell (eternal punishment). And no Christian believes in unfair punishment. There are theories labelled reconcilationism, semi-restorationism, modified eternalism, and annihilationism, all with some kind of scriptural backing. In other words, hell isn't necessarily eternal for all who enter it. It may only be eternal for those who absolutely, stubbornly, and persistently refuse to be reconciled.

> a world without disease would not make us robots.

You took one point and chose to make a straw man out of it. Look at the total picture. If God were to prevent all suffering and pain, think about what he would have to control to do that. Think about what would have to change for no one to get hurt or sick in any circumstance. Think about that such control of us would have to even enter our minds and affect the way we think, not just our bodies and what we do, and not just the natural world and physical realities. As I said, there would be no science because nothing would be regular or predictable. Therefore we would have no reasoning power, because our reasoning requires us to be able to play through probabilities, possibilities, expectations based on the orderliness and regularity of nature. So our thinking processes would be worthless. But think also that if you said "I love you" to someone, they would know you didn't mean it. You said it because you were forced to say it. Love would be absolutely meaningless, as would kindness, forgiveness, or even good deeds. We wouldn't be human at all. If we're going to get rid of all pain and suffering, we get rid of our humanity in the process. Disease and even death has to be included in that picture.

> if you are religious and believe your god is all knowing then yes, the natural disasters are his fault, he created them

A dynamic world is better than a static one, and even necessary for life as we know it. The natural world is dynamic, capable of change and adaptation, with a large number of systems that interact, balance, and even depend on each other. Some of those systems exhibit characteristics more like chaos (though that is a scientific category of a dynamical system) and others more like order and purpose. It is within these two categories that natural systems cause what is commonly regarded as natural evil (natural disasters).

If you have ever tried to balance something on the palm of your hand, you have discovered that you can do it for a while but eventually something (distraction, wind, your movements) causes it to become less stable and it falls. This principle was posited by a meteorologist in the late 60s, who wrote a paper titled, “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wing in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?” This thought was so significant we now know it as the Butterfly Effect. Even if we had delicate sensors in every square foot of the globe and its atmosphere, we would still not be able to reliably (100%) predict the weather. The “Butterfly Effect” would always be present.
Our world is infused with a huge number of interacting chaos systems: weather patterns, electrical impulses, the firing pattern of neurons in the brain, ecosystems, etc. And they behave occasionally in wild ways (the Zika virus). And they result in natural evil: drought, earthquakes, volcanoes, disease.

I contend that God should not stop all that because a dynamic world in which free creatures can exercise genuine creativity, thereby bringing about truly novel effects, is a better world than a static world. Therefore God would want to create a dynamic world. For instance, since both our circulatory system and nervous system are beneficial chaotic systems, there is strong scientific evidence to conclude that dynamical systems are beneficial to life. The heart can recover from occasion arrhythmias and even blockages by creating new patterns; our brains can recover from some injuries. In addition, if the brain were static, creativity wouldn’t be possible. If the natural system were just linear and static, natural processes (trees, snowflakes, clouds, shorelines, faces) couldn’t produce
novel outcomes.

Hopefully it’s obvious that while God might have created a static world, such a plan would have eliminated all reason, creativity, and scientific inquiry. And while He might have created a world where his sovereignty overrode all possibilities of evil, in the process He also have overrode the matching possibilities of good. This would not be a desirable world. Natural science, engineering, and education would be vapid, courage and excitement would be absent. Careful structural design would be meaningless (no earthquake or tornado would ever be allowed to hit a building, and God would stop any building from ever collapsing on a person). Medical arts wouldn’t exist, since disease would never harm or kill.

Therefore, God should not have made a dynamical world in which natural evil can’t occur or where cause and effect are meaningless. It’s essentially self-contradictory, and ultimately intensely undesirable as a form of existence.

> your god can create the universe but can't balanced Earth without killing people?

There's no reason to assume that God controls the weather and environmental forces of the planet. We live on a dynamic planet much to our benefit. God is not killing those people.

> I'm not convinced you thought through your reply very well

Thanks for your concern, but I'm pretty sure I have.

[Belloch]

For now we jail people because we don't have a better way of handling things. Perhaps in the far future things are good enough that people have a very much lower chance to get into a situation where they end up committing a crime, and even if they do so they might get rehabilitation instead of straight up jail time.

We can change, but hell and god apparently can't. Unless we change them.

[jimwalton]

I was referring to jail only as the expression of our particular cultural expression of justice. My true point was that real justice exists to reward the good and punish the bad. We shouldn't fault God when we see him exercising good justice.

> We can change, but hell and god apparently can't. Unless we change them.

There is no reason for God to change when the system has created is perfectly fair. The Bible is clear that God knows everything, so he can't be tricked; he is perfectly righteous, so he won't make a mistake; everyone will be fairly treated, so there won't be any unfairness, and everyone will get exactly what is just considering every factor at play. We shouldn't be so quick to condemn God for setting up a good system just because we might not understand it thoroughly.

[Shape Shifter]

> Why should we respect a judge who sends criminals to jail?Maybe, maybe not. Respect ≠ worship.

> Any judge who is worth his salt recognizes and vindicates good people, and also recognizes and punishes criminals. That's what a good judge does.

Debatable. I don't believe "punishment" for its own sake is ethical.

> If you object to hell, you think guys like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, and Idi Amin should just get away with whatever they want to do. If there's no hell, there's no accountability and no punishment for wrong.

Nope. There's accountability in the here and now.

> If God stopped all evil and suffering, he would have to take control of everything and everybody.

I'm good with that. Can you ask whatever version of God you believe in to please make that a reality?

> We'd all be robots—no feeling, no choices, no life.

I'm fine with that if it means that no more toddlers are raped/burned/cancered to death.

> There would be no such thing as science, because in an earthquake or a tsunami, no one would get hurt, especially innocent children.

I'll use my free will to give up "science" if it means innocent children won't get hurt.

> God made earthquakes to relieve pressure on the planet. Without earthquakes, Earth would explode.

So the version of God you believe in isn't omnipotent?

> But you want God to intervene every time, so someone could stand in the path of a tornado and, what, no effect on them? What just happened to science and cause-and-effect?

Sure. I stand in the path of countless neutrino bombardments each second and I'm none the worse for wear. Tornado could be the same way.

> I'm not convinced you've thought through your angst. Let's talk more.

Indeed.

[jimwalton]

> Maybe, maybe not. Respect ≠ worship.

Of course worship is deeper than respect. We worship God for a lot more than just fairness as a judge.

> Debatable. I don't believe "punishment" for its own sake is ethical.

I agree with you that punishment for its own sake is not an ethical practice. In contrast, the Bible says that some punishment is reformatory (Rev. 9.20, as one example). Other punishment fits the crime (the lex talionis: eye for an eye). You are in error if you think God is punishing unfairly or just to get his licks in. That's not a position the Bible advocates or teaches.

> There's accountability in the here and now.

I disagree. Hitler did what he did and then suicided. That's not a fair punishment for his atrocities. Stalin died at the ripe old age of 74, having lived out his full life after executing up to 20 million Russians. What accountability and punishment was that? Idi Amin was exiled to Saudi Arabia and lived out the rest of his life in comfort, dying in his late 70s. His only accountability and punishment was being removed from his own country, but he never got justice for his atrocities.

> I'm good with that. Can you ask whatever version of God you believe in to please make that a reality?

You're making light of a terrible reality. No ability to think, no ability to love or receive love, no human traits available for you to even appreciate how painless life is. You wouldn't even know. We'd all be robotic morons with no semblance of personality, thoughts, or emotions.

> So the version of God you believe in isn't omnipotent?

Omnipotence doesn’t mean there are no limits to what God can do (Mk. 6.5). It means God is able to do all things that are proper objects of his power. It is no contradiction that God is able to bring about whatever is possible, no matter how many possibilities there are. The omnipotence of God is all-sufficient power. He can never be overwhelmed, exhausted, or contained. He is able to overcome apparently insurmountable problems. He has complete power over nature, though often he lets nature take its course, because that’s what He created it to do. He has power over the course of history, though he chooses to use that power only as he wills . He has the power to change human personality, but only as individuals allow, since He cannot interfere with the freedom of man. He has the power to conquer death and sin, and to save a human soul for eternity. He has power over the spiritual realm.

What omnipotence means is that God’s will is never frustrated. What he chooses to do, he accomplishes, for he has the ability to do it.

There are, however, certain qualifications of this all-powerful character of God. God can't just "do anything." That's not what omnipotence is. He cannot arbitrarily do anything whatever we may conceive of in our imagination.

* He can’t do what is logically absurd or contradictory (like make a square circle or a married bachelor)
* He can’t act contrary to his nature. Self-contradiction is not possible. He can only be self-consistent, and not self-contradictory.
* He cannot fail to do what he has promised. That would mean God is flawed.
* He cannot interfere with the freedom of man. If God can override human free will, then we are not free at all.
* He cannot change the past. Time by definition is linear in one direction only.

Leibniz & Ross philosophically state omnipotence in what’s called a “result” theory: theories that analyze omnipotence in terms of the results an omnipotent being would be able to bring about. These results are usually thought of as states of affairs or possible worlds: a way the world could be. A possible world is a maximally consistent state of affairs, a complete way the world could be. The simplest way to state it may be, “for any comprehensive way the world could be, an omnipotent being could bring it about that the world was that way.” Ross formulated it as “Since every state of affairs must either obtain or not, and since two contradictory states of affairs cannot both obtain, an omnipotent being would have to will some maximal consistent set of contingent states of affairs, that is, some one possible world.”

In other words, the existence of earthquakes are not a denial or negation of God's omnipotence.

> Tornado could be the same way.

Tornado, by definition, can't be the same way. A tornado is centripetal wind force, not neutrino bombardment. Ah, diversity in nature.