Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!mcgill-vision!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!wuarchive!uwm.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: st0o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Steven Timm) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Random thoughts on free will, etc. Message-ID: Date: 19 Dec 89 07:45:03 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 18 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu The moderator (clh) made some interesting thoughts on the topic of who is responsible for sin in a message earlier in this thread. While I don't believe that God necessarily intended sin to happen, a vital point was raised on the responsibility of God. If you look, you will see that the devil is not mentioned in the Bible between Genesis and Chronicles. Whenever any plague happens, or any wickedness is punished, invariably the Bible says "the LORD smote them with a plague...etc." Suffering was not part of God's original plan. We know that God can overrule suffering if He chooses to. If we believe that God is the supreme Being of the universe, and yet suffering still occurs, we see that the buck stops with God. My idea is that sometimes God is willing to take the blame for suffering He did not cause in order to avoid giving the devil any more press than necessary. Furthermore, God, unlike other people, grieves with us when disaster happens, and is willing to help us fix things up afterwards. Do we dare deny him our forgiveness and hold a grudge against Him, thus shutting out our one sure source of help? Just a thought.