Re:Question for George (was Re: Vast Majorities...)

D. Eric Greenhow, M.D.,Ph.D. (egreenho@mail.med.upenn.edu)
Mon, 17 Feb 1997 08:57:02 -0500

At 05:24 PM 2/16/97 -0800, you wrote:
>I attend Harvest Christian Fellowship, in Riverside, Ca, and my pastor,
>Greg Laurie, just preached on this issue this morning: "If God is a
>loving god, and if God is good, then why is there evil in the world?"
>He had some very enlightening statements. He said that God is Good, and
>God is love, and God is omnipotent and could stop it if he wanted to,
>but that it is our own product, not his. He drew the illustration to a
>man, driving down the highway, who sees a new freeway overpass that
>isn't completed yet. It leaves the freeway and goes about two hundred
>yards and then ends, at a hundred foot drop. He says that if the man
>were to ignore all the dozens of signs that say "road closed," "do not
>enter," "wrong way," or "danger," and drive through them, then ignore
>all the workers who would flag him down and try to tell him to stop, and
>if he were to drive off the end of the bridge and fall to his death, it
>wouldn't be anyone's fault but his own. Greg said, today, "God is
>Good. He has given us guidelines to live by that will keep our lives
>free of harm, and when we break these laws and reap the consequences, we
>have the audacity to blame it on God, who made the rules in the first
>place." Quite profound.
>
>Jason
>
>
>It is important to keep our logic correct. Certainly we are responsible
for the consequences of our stupid and sinful behavior. But there is also
the sinfullness of all of mankind that has a randomness to it in its effect.
Jesus specifically deals with this in Luke 13 where he reflects on two
current events. Certain Galileans who happened to be in Pilate's way had
their blood mixed with that of the sacrifices. A tower fell on eighteen
men, killing them. Jesus says quite unequivocally that none of these
victims were any worse or any better than anyone else. To say that someone
dies or is injured because of his or her own folly or sin is to make a
judgment that I am not sure that we are competent or qualified to make.

Eric