Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: oracle@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Brian T. Coughlin) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: An atheist's question Message-ID: Date: 29 Oct 90 07:01:34 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Lines: 62 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Re: Thomson In article duncant@mbunix.mitre.org (Thomson) writes: >I read a story in the news yesterday about the killing of a politician >and his family in Lebanon. [description of massacre of man and family omitted for space] >My question is this: How can events such as these be reconciled with >the christian notion of a god who is both omnipotent and benevolent? >It seems to me impossible to accept that an all-powerful god could allow >a child to be murdered in such a brutal way. If any person had the power >to prevent such an atrocity, and failed to act, in my opinion such a person >would be completely dispicable. >Is there an answer? ("The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways" does not hack it >with me.) Dear Thomson, My most honest answer is, "No, there ISN'T an answer." There comes a point where faith just can't be tied to worldly affairs. Even if I were ABLE to give good reason for God's choice in this matter, it would not promote your belief in God any more than any other statement would. Forgive me if that sounds weird; maybe I can try to explain. Belief in God is a very un-worldly thing; I, personally, am quite unclear as to HOW someone gets the gift of faith (save that God had SOMETHING to do with it)... but I *do* know that faith is not simply a logical conclusion arrived at by processing facts. The jump to faith, ultimately, has NOTHING to do with logic... or worldly events... at all. This statement might also sound weird... but it is quite impossible to have faith in God without consciously deciding to believe in Him. Circular, admittedly, but true in a very real sense. You cannot just wait around and expect an outside force (God, the world, whatever) to MAKE you believe, or MAKE you WANT to believe, in God. It just won't happen. In order to believe, you have to just jump in; you have to resolve yourself to just believing, despite ALL of your intellectual objections. Believe me, theists also have intellectual trouble with God... at LEAST as much as atheists and agnostics... and maybe MORE so, since the option of "ignoring" God isn't open to them. The only difference between the intellectual "God-struggle" of non-theists and theists is that theists don't let intellectual hardships throw them. I honestly don't mean for the above to sound harsh (my sincere apologies if it did!); I *did* want to make clear that there is NO SUCH THING as "passive" faith. Faith won't get up and walk to you. You have to walk to it. Until you do, all the miracles in the WORLD won't have a whisper of a chance of convincing you. In that context (this is my last topic, I promise! :) ), belief in God appears as a matter of perspective; a theist has the ability to see a Divine miracle in a mundane, commonplace, everyday thing... while a non-theist does not see miracles in even the most grandiose of extraordinary happenings. 'Miracles' don't "prove" God's existence any more than tragedy "proves" His non-existence. Belief in God is internal. If you believe, then you can reconcile yourself to tragedy in many ways. If you do not believe, those ways of reconciliation may not be open to you. I hope this helps, somehow. Sorry for getting on my soapbox!