Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!topaz!christian
From: manis@ubc-cs.UUCP (Vincent Manis)
Newsgroups: mod.religion.christian
Subject: Re: God's use of his power
Message-ID: <6524@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Mon, 27-Oct-86 00:57:09 EST
Article-I.D.: topaz.6524
Posted: Mon Oct 27 00:57:09 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 27-Oct-86 05:42:21 EST
Sender: hedrick@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science
Lines: 41
Approved: christian@topaz.UUCP

It may be presumptuous of me as a non-Christian to post to this newsgroup,
but I felt I had to reply to the posting which discussed God's fomenting 
of racial hatred.  

[There is no requirement that authors must be Christians, just that the
subject matter must be relevant to Christianity.  --clh]

Anyone who accepts the principle of God's omnipotence is indeed driven to 
see God doing evil things, ranging from the confounding of the builders of
the Tower of Babel through the Holocaust to the spreading of AIDS. All of
these miseries are the work of God or God's creations, and surely an
omnipotent, loving God would act to stop these.

One possibility is that God does these things for some greater good. For
example, God afflicts a baby with Down's syndrome so that its parents can
learn to love. God does not prevent a drunk motorist from killing a
fourteen-year old girl so that her sister can repent of her alcoholism.
God gives a gay man AIDS to punish him for his violation of the Law as
expressed in Romans. 

This view of God as a utilitarian is internally consistent, and has
widespread, if selective, approval. Yet I personally find it so repulsive
that I would rather not believe in a God at all than to believe in one
who would choose to kill a million Kampucheans in order to demonstrate the
evils of totalitarianism.

The only other alternative has to be that we must deny God's omnipotence.
God would prevent evil if it were possible, but for reasons both within and
beyond our understanding, God is unable to do so. This then imposes a
tremendous obligation upon us not only to take responsibility for our
actions, but also to accept those situations where grief and pain occur
unavoidably, and to call on God for help in enduring such situations. 

A non-omnipotent God is one who needs our help: in making ourselves one with
God we attempt to determine as best we can the nature of good and evil, and 
we endeavour to choose the good. Sitting back and waiting for God to act is
guaranteed to fail; not because "God helps those who help themselves", but 
because God *cannot* help someone who chooses not to act.

Now, once I reconcile this with the Book of Job, I'll really have
something...