Christians: If God Loves Us and Wants Us to Join Him in Heaven, Why Didn't He Put Us There?

[emiliano]

Been there, done that, and don't plan on doing it again. Christianity is not for me. I still believe that Christianity is a good religion, but IMO it is only one of the paths to the divine (still figuring out what that is).

I've read the bible...over and over and over (and plan on doing it again actually) and I have been to bible study after bible study after bible study, but in the end it was all the same. In the bible studies I always ended up shunned because I dared to question things. How horrible is it for a person seeking God to ask questions about him....I was told to read the bible and figure things out for myself. I did that and this is where I am now... I don't believe in a religion because for me all religions and faiths will lead you back to the divine. Like I said earlier in this post..I'm still trying to figure out what I believe the divine to be. I have no hard feelings for Christian or even the churches that shunned me because they help me be the person I am today.

As for these questions...

Where are you getting this from? Maybe I should explain myself a little better. I don't believe in Heaven or Hell for that matter...at least not in the same way Christians do. Basically:
Heaven = reunion with the divine (everyone gets there eventually...no one gets left out)
Hell = being away from the divine i.e. the wheel of life (reincarnation)

Now my beliefs are subject to change because I plan on looking into all religions because not only do I want to know what they believe, but I also want to know the why. You might be right...I may end up being a Christian again, but I don't see it happening.

I hope I haven't come across to harshly because that was not my intention.

Good post thanks for keeping the communication, I believe that many Christians make think too complicated for seeker (I am assuming that you were one once). Now this shunning is interesting, because I have been shunned by Universal Salvation followers, my understanding of heavens is the habitation of God and His family, those that believer not of every soul that ever lived. For us to trust that this is true is necessary that some are purged, that God is move to mercy and give them the gifts necessary and not all will be in God’s Kingdom (it is in the Bible for all to see in several scriptures),
You are right I believe that might have time in the future for your Salvation, with God help and mercy, keep seeking.

Good post thanks for keeping the communication, I believe that many Christians make think too complicated for seeker (I am assuming that you were one once). Now this shunning is interesting, because I have been shunned by Universal Salvation followers, my understanding of heavens is the habitation of God and His family, those that believer not of every soul that ever lived. For us to trust that this is true is necessary that some are purged, that God is move to mercy and give them the gifts necessary and not all will be in God’s Kingdom (it is in the Bible for all to see in several scriptures),
You are right I believe that might have time in the future for your Salvation, with God help and mercy, keep seeking.

 

[cottage]

MSizer has my sympathy. He asked an important question that was very straightforward. It deserves a proper answer, but I fear we're not going to see one. It might also be asked why did God create us?

 

[Katzpur]

MSizer has my sympathy. He asked an important question that was very straightforward. It deserves a proper answer, but I fear we're not going to see one. It might also be asked why did God create us?

Excuse me, but my posts #29 and #55 were, in fact, "proper answers" to the OP. My response was as straightforward as Msizer's question, and while other posters may not have found what I had to say to their liking, I did respond with a direct statement of what I believe and why.

 

[ChristineES]

I've never understood how god supposedly loves us and wants us to join him in his family in heaven, yet he put us on earth first with the capacity to fail, for which we could potentially loose the priviledge of joining him.

I doesn't make sense. Why didn't he just put us right in heaven from the beginning?

What I believe is that what we call Heaven is a union with God. God will have a union with anyone who asks but does not force anyone into this union.

 

[John D]

I've never understood how god supposedly loves us and wants us to join him in his family in heaven, yet he put us on earth first with the capacity to fail, for which we could potentially loose the priviledge of joining him.

I doesn't make sense. Why didn't he just put us right in heaven from the beginning?

We are not joining Him in Heaven, He joined us here on Planet Earth. The potential to fail is only the shadow, You also have the potential to succeed. The question is : Do you have the WILL to succceed.
a Door was opened and anybody,no, everybody, may enter. But if you don't want to use the door but rather the nailed down window, it is up to you to struggle yourself to spiritual death. Man can use his free will as he sees fit, where it leads you is entirely you own doing and choice - so don't complain. But know this - You can turn around at anytime, no questions asked!
Jesus said that the Kingdom of God are inside of us. And somewhere else: "You know the way."
Find the door,WALK THROUGH IT and then stroll down your inner path towards the Kingdom.
WARNING: Be prepared to be changed. But that is nice!
Enjoy

 

[John D]

From: Demonic Kitten:"I've read the bible...over and over and over (and plan on doing it again actually) and I have been to bible study after bible study after bible study, but in the end it was all the same. In the bible studies I always ended up shunned because I dared to question things. How horrible is it for a person seeking God to ask questions about him....I was told to read the bible and figure things out for myself. I did that and this is where I am now... I don't believe in a religion because for me all religions and faiths will lead you back to the divine. Like I said earlier in this post..I'm still trying to figure out what I believe the divine to be. I have no hard feelings for Christian or even the churches that shunned me because they help me be the person I am today."

You are on the right track, yes, read the bible again, but try a different approuch this time: If the Word that you are reading are alive as the Bible states, talk to it as to a another Person. Mark my words, you are going to get answers right out of that Book.
Sometimes we must learn a hard lesson and that is to stay away from any "form religion". It is a soul killer for sure.
Don't let people stop you from seeking LIFE.
It is yours for the taking
Enjoy

 

[Bware]

I've never understood how god supposedly loves us and wants us to join him in his family in heaven, yet he put us on earth first with the capacity to fail, for which we could potentially loose the priviledge of joining him.

I doesn't make sense. Why didn't he just put us right in heaven from the beginning?

And if he created every living thing on this earth, then why did he create diseases and organisms that make us sick and kill us. This sounds kinda sadistic to me.

 

[Demonic Kitten]

Good post thanks for keeping the communication, I believe that many Christians make think too complicated for seeker (I am assuming that you were one once). Now this shunning is interesting, because I have been shunned by Universal Salvation followers, my understanding of heavens is the habitation of God and His family, those that believer not of every soul that ever lived. For us to trust that this is true is necessary that some are purged, that God is move to mercy and give them the gifts necessary and not all will be in God’s Kingdom (it is in the Bible for all to see in several scriptures),
You are right I believe that might have time in the future for your Salvation, with God help and mercy, keep seeking.

Well to me it looked as if you were asking questions and IMO it is only proper to answer. ^_^

Yes, you are right, but only partly. To me I am still a seeker. Now I may have wondered away from the Christian path, but I am still a seeker. This reminds me of a quote I once saw.."Not all who wander are lost." I can't remember were I saw that, but it is true for me. The only time I have felt separated from the divine is when I was a Christian. Since I have wandered away from that path I feel more in touch with the divine. One of these days I'll figure out where I'm going. I don't know what the future will hold, but I am okay with that. I like taking things at my own pace and not having things forced upon me.

 

[Demonic Kitten]

You are on the right track, yes, read the bible again, but try a different approuch this time: If the Word that you are reading are alive as the Bible states, talk to it as to a another Person. Mark my words, you are going to get answers right out of that Book.
Sometimes we must learn a hard lesson and that is to stay away from any "form religion". It is a soul killer for sure.
Don't let people stop you from seeking LIFE.
It is yours for the taking
Enjoy

Yes, it is my life and who knows I may find a religion that suits me....or I could come up with a believe system all of my own.

hmmm...Now there's an idea. ^_^ The religion of the Demonic Kitten...has a nice ring to it, no?

 

[Willamena]

MSizer has my sympathy. He asked an important question that was very straightforward. It deserves a proper answer, but I fear we're not going to see one. It might also be asked why did God create us?

I sincerely hope that you do not see one. It was not a question that can be taken seriously. It parrots an understanding of "God."

 

[NGerty]

The Bible is one source for reference. I am not trying to disparage it, but do you trust and follow it unquestioningly? If so, why? To me, the Bible seems like a pretty unreliable source seeing as it was written over a thousand years ago by many different people you never knew. The people also could have had motives for writing drastically different than the ones you might think. Secondly, when backing up claims of a god and heaven and all other related things, is the Bible the only source for reference?

 

[cottage]

Excuse me, but my posts #29 and #55 were, in fact, "proper answers" to the OP. My response was as straightforward as Msizer's question, and while other posters may not have found what I had to say to their liking, I did respond with a direct statement of what I believe and why.

Indeed you did!

But it seems to me that if an omnipotent God loves us unconditionally he wouldn't make us jump through hoops to get to heaven.

 

[Katzpur]

But it seems to me that if an omnipotent God loves us unconditionally he wouldn't make us jump through hoops to get to heaven.

I don't know if you are married and have children, cottage, but I would say that any parent who loves his child unconditionally establishes certain ground rules for behavior, expects obedience to those rules and is justified in punishing a child for being disobedient. A parent who did not love his child would arbitrarily punish that child, having given him no guidelines to follow in the first place. The punishment would be excessive and the purpose of it would be to appease the parent's anger and not to help the child become a better person. A parent who didn't care about his child one way or the other would probably make rules (mostly to make his power and authority evident) but would turn a blind eye when his child disobeyed. Essentially, the child could get away with anything and know that there would be no consequences for misbehavior.

By the way, according to by religious beliefs, virtually everyone who has ever lived will end up in Heaven, even those who are unwilling to "jump through any hoops" at all. That doesn't mean that everyone who enters Heaven will be blessed to the same degree, because that's not going to be the case. That has nothing to do with unconditional love. It doesn't mean He is going to simply disregard the fact that some people lived truly depraved lives, feeling no remorse for their behavior. They will have to pay the price for their behavior before being allowed to enter Heaven, but the fact there are consequences for bad choices in no way makes God less loving.

 

[cottage]

I don't know if you are married and have children, cottage, but I would say that any parent who loves his child unconditionally establishes certain ground rules for behavior, expects obedience to those rules and is justified in punishing a child for being disobedient. A parent who did not love his child would arbitrarily punish that child, having given him no guidelines to follow in the first place. The punishment would be excessive and the purpose of it would be to appease the parent's anger and not to help the child become a better person. A parent who didn't care about his child one way or the other would probably make rules (mostly to make his power and authority evident) but would turn a blind eye when his child disobeyed. Essentially, the child could get away with anything and know that there would be no consequences for misbehavior.

The Parent/Child analogy is frequently used to defend the existence of evil. Here it is said that God is like the parent who may have to subject a child to an element of punishment in order for it to learn and be aware of life’s pitfalls. But this analogy makes two misleading assumptions: it assumes that the world, as it is, must exist, and that God is like man. In one respect a misbehaved child is no different to its parent: both are error-prone and imperfect. But God is all powerful, all knowing and perfection itself. Unlike the rest of us, he is never at his wit's end or confounded by his children's behaviour. He is always aware of his creation's actions, not least because he is responsible for them. If/when God created the world he deliberately created evil in man. The inescapable truth is that it was entirely within his power not to do so.

By the way, according to by religious beliefs, virtually everyone who has ever lived will end up in Heaven, even those who are unwilling to "jump through any hoops" at all. That doesn't mean that everyone who enters Heaven will be blessed to the same degree, because that's not going to be the case. That has nothing to do with unconditional love. It doesn't mean He is going to simply disregard the fact that some people lived truly depraved lives, feeling no remorse for their behavior. They will have to pay the price for their behavior before being allowed to enter Heaven, but the fact there are consequences for bad choices in no way makes God less loving.

Others, Catholics I believe, argue that only the 'Elect' will see heaven, regardless of a person's moral goodness - or otherwise. So heaven means different things to different believers, it would seem.

I'm not sure what it means to say some people will have to pay the price for their behaviour before they enter heaven, because entering heaven under any circumstances is to receive God's blessing, isn't it?

 

[Katzpur]

The Parent/Child analogy is frequently used to defend the existence of evil. Here it is said that God is like the parent who may have to subject a child to an element of punishment in order for it to learn and be aware of life’s pitfalls. But this analogy makes two misleading assumptions: it assumes that the world, as it is, must exist, and that God is like man.

I'm not using the parent-child analogy to defend the existence of evil. I'm using it to explain that what we interpret as evil is not necessarily evil at all. It may simply be that we are incapable of seeing the entire picture. You can't possibly think that any of us are in the position to be able to understand things the way the one who created them does! I'm definitely not suggesting that most parents simply subject their children to pain, to suffering, to disappointment or to punishment so that they'll "be aware of life's pitfalls." I think most parents try to protect their kids from unnecessary pain. I know that when my kids were little, I would tell them not to do certain things because they would likely get hurt by doing them. They did them anyway, got hurt, and learned a lesson from the experience. Adults aren't all that different. God tells us not to do certain things because they're not going to be good for us. We do them anyway and reap the consequences. It's not a matter of God inflicting punishment on us. It's simply that our choices have consequences. Of course not all pain and suffering is a result of our disobeying God. Some of it has nothing to do with disobedience. Back to my original example (from my prior post), I had my kids vaccinated because I knew what would likely happen if they were not to get vaccinated. At six months old, they could not possibly understand how someone they trusted, someone who had always been loving towards them would -- for no apparent reason -- allow someone else (the doctor) to hurt them. I'm sorry if I'm not making myself clear, but to me it is simply an obvious fact of life that we stand to benefit from many of the negative experiences we endure as part of mortality. Anybody who has conquered a truly big challenge will tell you that he has grown from the experience and is stronger in many ways than he was beforehand.

And yes, I do believe that God is like man, or rather that man was created in God's image, after His likeness. I interpret that quite literally. I have no reason to believe otherwise.

In one respect a misbehaved child is no different to its parent: both are error-prone and imperfect. But God is all powerful, all knowing and perfection itself. Unlike the rest of us, he is never at his wit's end or confounded by his children's behaviour. He is always aware of his creation's actions, not least because he is responsible for them. If/when God created the world he deliberately created evil in man. The inescapable truth is that it was entirely within his power not to do so.

According to my belief, God created us with the capacity to become like Him -- to become perfect. In Genesis (you must understand that, as a Christian, I am going to base my understanding of God at least in part on what the Bible has to say about Him), we are told that after Adam ate the forbidden fruit, God noted that "the man has become as one of us, knowing good from evil." The first step towards becoming like God is to be able to distinguish between good and evil.

Others, Catholics I believe, argue that only the 'Elect' will see heaven, regardless of a person's moral goodness - or otherwise. So heaven means different things to different believers, it would seem.

Undoubtedly. It's obviously a place that all Christians hope to find themselves at some point, though.

I'm not sure what it means to say some people will have to pay the price for their behaviour before they enter heaven, because entering heaven under any circumstances is to receive God's blessing, isn't it?

Of course it is, but I believe that those who are willing to accept Jesus Christ's Atonement on their behalf will not be punished for their sins. Those who refuse to do so will be made to endure the punishment He took upon Himself. After having been punished (I believe this will be primarily a mental torment as opposed to some sort of a literal lake of fire), the demands of justice will have been met and they will be permitted to enter Heaven to receive at least a portion of the blessings they could have received had they been obedient, or at least recognized the One who was sent to redeem them. (Incidentally, if a person did not have the opportunity to do so during mortality, they will have the chance to do so prior to being judged.)

 

[cardero]

Katzpur writes: I don't know if you are married and have children, cottage, but I would say that any parent who loves his child unconditionally establishes certain ground rules for behavior, expects obedience to those rules and is justified in punishing a child for being disobedient.

The moment the word "expect" is used, condition is implied.

 

[cottage]

I'm not using the parent-child analogy to defend the existence of evil. I'm using it to explain that what we interpret as evil is not necessarily evil at all. It may simply be that we are incapable of seeing the entire picture. You can't possibly think that any of us are in the position to be able to understand things the way the one who created them does!

I’m sorry but as a sceptic you must understand that I cannot possibly accept that explanation; it is a fallacious argument from ignorance (an appeal to x being true on the basis that it cannot be known to be false). But it doesn’t stand up anyway, since even God is constrained by logic. There is no logically necessary reason for the existence of evil, since we can conceive of the world existing without evil, and we utter an absurdity if we say an omnipotent God lay under any compunction to create evil. My response is that if suffering isn’t necessary, then it is unnecessary. And so if there is no necessary reason for suffering, which there isn’t, then it is therefore proved to be evil.

I'm definitely not suggesting that most parents simply subject their children to pain, to suffering, to disappointment or to punishment so that they'll "be aware of life's pitfalls." I think most parents try to protect their kids from unnecessary pain. I know that when my kids were little, I would tell them not to do certain things because they would likely get hurt by doing them. They did them anyway, got hurt, and learned a lesson from the experience. Adults aren't all that different. God tells us not to do certain things because they're not going to be good for us. We do them anyway and reap the consequences. It's not a matter of God inflicting punishment on us. It's simply that our choices have consequences. Of course not all pain and suffering is a result of our disobeying God. Some of it has nothing to do with disobedience. Back to my original example (from my prior post), I had my kids vaccinated because I knew what would likely happen if they were not to get vaccinated. At six months old, they could not possibly understand how someone they trusted, someone who had always been loving towards them would -- for no apparent reason -- allow someone else (the doctor) to hurt them. I'm sorry if I'm not making myself clear, but to me it is simply an obvious fact of life that we stand to benefit from many of the negative experiences we endure as part of mortality. Anybody who has conquered a truly big challenge will tell you that he has grown from the experience and is stronger in many ways than he was beforehand.

The challenges and negative experiences that are conquered by individuals are nothing more than a side issue, which don't even begin to address the suffering of humanity as a whole. And quite clearly it would be absurd, as well morally questionable, to make a case for evil and suffering simply so that evil and suffering could be overcome!


quote=Katzpur;1833461] And yes, I do believe that God is like man, or rather that man was created in God's image, after His likeness. I interpret that quite literally. I have no reason to believe otherwise. [/quote]

With respect to what you believe I really couldn’t disagree more. God must be totally other. We are finite, changing and ageing, error-prone, physical and therefore contingent. But God is infinite, immutable, perfection itself, non-physical and necessarily existent.

According to my belief, God created us with the capacity to become like Him -- to become perfect. In Genesis (you must understand that, as a Christian, I am going to base my understanding of God at least in part on what the Bible has to say about Him), we are told that after Adam ate the forbidden fruit, God noted that "the man has become as one of us, knowing good from evil."

I’m afraid that doesn’t make sense to me. My understanding is that God is the absolute paradigm of perfection and no thing can be his equal.

The first step towards becoming like God is to be able to distinguish between good and evil.

Here we have a major problem then. For surely God himself is unable to distinguish between the good and the evil, otherwise the innocent wouldn't suffer.

Of course it is, but I believe that those who are willing to accept Jesus Christ's Atonement on their behalf will not be punished for their sins. Those who refuse to do so will be made to endure the punishment He took upon Himself. After having been punished (I believe this will be primarily a mental torment as opposed to some sort of a literal lake of fire), the demands of justice will have been met and they will be permitted to enter Heaven to receive at least a portion of the blessings they could have received had they been obedient, or at least recognized the One who was sent to redeem them. (Incidentally, if a person did not have the opportunity to do so during mortality, they will have the chance to do so prior to being judged.)

The Christian belief sounds very confused to me. This talk of judgement, punishment (‘mental torment&#8217 and ‘obedience’ all seems very harsh and vindictive.
The Old Testament reads like a horror story:
I will bring distress on men, that they will walk like blind men, because they have sinned against Yahweh, and their blood will be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of Yahweh’s wrath, but the whole land will be devoured by the fire of his jealousy; for he will make an end, yes, a terrible end, of all those who dwell in the land." v 14-18

But why should a loving, wise, and just God punish his creation for failing to acknowledge him? What was the terrible crime that those who failed to recognise ‘the one who was sent to redeem them’ had committed? Surely just as the OP asked, if God wanted the best for his creation he would have created them in heaven? Had that been the case there would have been no suffering and no punishment. But none of it makes sense, not even from the beginning when God was thwarted and undermined by his very first created beings: Adam and Eve. If God’s couldn’t get it right with his first project humans it is not surprising that he had to press the abort button, send the floods and start all over again.

 

[Katzpur]

I’m sorry but as a skeptic you must understand that I cannot possibly accept that explanation; it is a fallacious argument from ignorance (an appeal to x being true on the basis that it cannot be known to be false).

I’m not asking that you accept it. I was doing nothing more than stating my opinion. Nobody knows the mind of God. All of us make assumptions based on what we believe Him to be. Based on that reasoning, your argument is every bit as fallacious as mine.

There is no logically necessary reason for the existence of evil, since we can conceive of the world existing without evil, and we utter an absurdity if we say an omnipotent God lay under any compunction to create evil. My response is that if suffering isn’t necessary, then it is unnecessary. And so if there is no necessary reason for suffering, which there isn’t, then it is therefore proved to be evil.

The fact that we can conceive of a world without evil does not prove that it serves no purpose. I believe that suffering is, in fact, necessary and that it serves a purpose. Therefore, to me, it’s not evil; it’s just something we are incapable of fully understanding. Since you cannot understand its purpose, you conclude that it’s evil. To me, the greater absurdity is assuming that we are in a position to decide that God’s purposes are evil.

The challenges and negative experiences that are conquered by individuals are nothing more than a side issue, which don't even begin to address the suffering of humanity as a whole. And quite clearly it would be absurd, as well morally questionable, to make a case for evil and suffering simply so that evil and suffering could be overcome!

A side issue? Humanity does not experience suffering; individual people do. Every bit of suffering that has ever been experienced on this earth has been experienced by individual human beings. We don’t experience pain collectively. When we speak of in generalities about the suffering of mankind, we aren’t thinking through the implications of our statements. Even though it may not be what we’re trying to do, we’re minimizing what it actually means to suffer.

With respect to what you believe I really couldn’t disagree more. God must be totally other. We are finite, changing and ageing, error-prone, physical and therefore contingent. But God is infinite, immutable, perfection itself, non-physical and necessarily existent.

That doesn’t surprise me at all. I realize that my belief in this regard is not a common one. Of course we are finite, error-prone and changing. That’s because we’re a work in process. I believe we’re actually gods in embryo. We have the potential within us to become like God. Jesus Christ commanded us to be like God. He told us to be perfect like our Father in Heaven. I don’t believe He would have asked the impossible of us. That doesn’t mean we can do it alone or even during the eighty or ninety years we are on this Earth. It simply means we have been endowed with what it takes to become what God wants us to become.

I’m afraid that doesn’t make sense to me. My understanding is that God is the absolute paradigm of perfection and no thing can be his equal.

The absolute paradigm of perfection? Isn’t that a bit redundant?

Here we have a major problem then. For surely God himself is unable to distinguish between the good and the evil, otherwise the innocent wouldn't suffer.

Okay, I think at this point, I’m simply going to be repeating myself if I even bother to respond. I obviously haven’t done a very good job of explaining myself, but I’ve really run out of ways to say what I keep trying to say.

The Christian belief sounds very confused to me. This talk of judgment, punishment (‘mental torment’) and ‘obedience’ all seems very harsh and vindictive.

It’s confused? Gosh, it’s not rocket science by any means. There are good behaviors and bad behaviors and there are consequences for both. What more can I say?

But why should a loving, wise, and just God punish his creation for failing to acknowledge him? What was the terrible crime that those who failed to recognize ‘the one who was sent to redeem them’ had committed? Surely just as the OP asked, if God wanted the best for his creation he would have created them in heaven? Had that been the case there would have been no suffering and no punishment. But none of it makes sense, not even from the beginning when God was thwarted and undermined by his very first created beings: Adam and Eve. If God’s couldn’t get it right with his first project humans it is not surprising that he had to press the abort button, send the floods and start all over again.

That’s an oversimplification of the way God works, but somehow I think that I would be wasting my words to try to explain why.

 

[cottage]

I sincerely hope that you do not see one. It was not a question that can be taken seriously. It parrots an understanding of "God."

I beg to differ. And with respect it is not for you to decide what must be taken seriously. The question is fundamental to the problem of evil, as it immediately strikes down a number of classic apologetics, for example that evil is good or that goodness is intrinsically bound up with evil. For if that were the case then evil would have to exist in heaven.

 

[cottage]

I’m not asking that you accept it. I was doing nothing more than stating my opinion. Nobody knows the mind of God. All of us make assumptions based on what we believe Him to be. Based on that reasoning, your argument is every bit as fallacious as mine.

I’m sorry but it is not fallacious to point out a fallacy. You gave an explanation of why you believe evil is not always evil and sought to defend that view with the argument that nobody is in a position to dispute it. But I gave cogent reasons why it may be disputed.

he fact that we can conceive of a world without evil does not prove that it serves no purpose. I believe that suffering is, in fact, necessary and that it serves a purpose. Therefore, to me, it’s not evil; it’s just something we are incapable of fully understanding. Since you cannot understand its purpose, you conclude that it’s evil. To me, the greater absurdity is assuming that we are in a position to decide that God’s purposes are evil.

My argument isn’t that evil serves no purpose. Indeed, if the world is to be as we know it then evil is necessary for its continued existence. My argument is that worlds don’t have to be as this one, and that God could have created the universe devoid of evil, and it clearly contradicts his omnipotence to say otherwise. To insist that if only we could know God’s purposes we might be mistaken in what we thought was evil, is an appeal to ignorance once more. Evil and suffering exist, and our ignorance of God’s purposes doesn’t change that fact.

A side issue? Humanity does not experience suffering; individual people do. Every bit of suffering that has ever been experienced on this earth has been experienced by individual human beings. We don’t experience pain collectively. When we speak of in generalities about the suffering of mankind, we aren’t thinking through the implications of our statements. Even though it may not be what we’re trying to do, we’re minimizing what it actually means to suffer.

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m speaking of individuals who you say are fortunate in gaining from their challenges and negative experiences, while the majority do not. You can’t make a general case for suffering being beneficial, when for some their suffering will be nothing but misery and wretchedness with no benefits to be had whatsoever.

That doesn’t surprise me at all. I realize that my belief in this regard is not a common one. Of course we are finite, error-prone and changing. That’s because we’re a work in process. I believe we’re actually gods in embryo. We have the potential within us to become like God. Jesus Christ commanded us to be like God. He told us to be perfect like our Father in Heaven. I don’t believe He would have asked the impossible of us. That doesn’t mean we can do it alone or even during the eighty or ninety years we are on this Earth. It simply means we have been endowed with what it takes to become what God wants us to become.

Okay

The absolute paradigm of perfection? Isn’t that a bit redundant?

Is it?

Okay, I think at this point, I’m simply going to be repeating myself if I even bother to respond. I obviously haven’t done a very good job of explaining myself, but I’ve really run out of ways to say what I keep trying to say.

Actually I would say you’ve made the case very well and I understand where you are coming from with it. However there are legitimate objections that aren’t addressed by your arguments.

It’s confused? Gosh, it’s not rocket science by any means. There are good behaviors and bad behaviors and there are consequences for both. What more can I say?

Good and bad behaviour! At first I thought that was a very unsatisfactory summary of a belief system that presumes to explain reality and our part in it. But on further consideration I think it makes complete sense, because that really is all there is to it. The entire thesis is founded upon the imperfection and unworthiness of humankind, for without those things the biblical God has no reason for being. The conclusion is that God is dependent upon humans. This is in the same way that a left-wing ideology needs the poor and dispossessed in order to justify it’s existence, or a mountain rescue team requires the possibility of climbers in difficulty who will need their assistance.

That’s an oversimplification of the way God works, but somehow I think that I would be wasting my words to try to explain why.

As you say, it probably is a simplistic view. Nevertheless, that is how it reads.