In a past blog I pasted a link to an article written by Gregory Boyd answering the question of why bad things happen (terrorists smashing planes into the world trade center, blindness, cancer, rape, etc.) He mentions that these people are victims of a fallen world. He notes that Jesus never suggested that atrocities fit into some divine plan. He actually expressed God's will by coming against these afflictions. I also pasted another link to his website where you can here a sermon he has about why "natural disasters happen." In his sermon he points out how the physicality of the planet was affected due to our fall (sin). Even the laws of nature, to some degree, have been affected by the fall. For example the 2nd law of thermodynamics: Everything tends towards decay. This is why we get older and why we eventually die. In our present world system, it’s totally natural. We have difficulty conceiving what it’d be like if we didn’t wind down and die. Yet, the bible says that death is an unnatural thing. It wasn’t meant to be part of creation. The Bible goes so far to say that the one who is the author of death is the one who has been a murderer from the beginning John 8:44.
Why did I explain all that? Because, chances are that you never went to the link or had time to listen to an entire sermon from the internet. I have the article and the sermon written down, so if anyone, by chance, would like to get the full story then I can email them to you!:)
Following are some excerpts from a document I wrote a year ago or so (which is the culmination of thoughts between myself and a friend of mine).
The full revelation of God’s heart is revealed through the person of Jesus Christ. That is where our “picture” of God must come from.
Yes, there is a reason for everything. And God has a reason for everything He does, how He designs the creation and universe, and for who He passionately and lovingly creates free, and why He risks so much and what His and our ecstatic payoff is for such freedom and love andpower. No, God does not personally have a willful motive for every meticulous (evil) detail that rebellion generates. He does have an over-riding reason (maybe many reasons!) why He creates us with such frightening freedom.
Why does evil occur when we have a holy, sovereign God? We conclude, by binary Greek logic that, "God is either not powerful enough or is not desiring for the issue to be changed.” Sort of like saying, if a thing has color, then it's obviously either purple or chartreuse." I mean, how short-sighted can one be?
Funny how the Calvinist view treats evil as a problem. A logical problem that challenges our faith. Their answer is to resolve the logical problem and be resigned to God's "ordained" future. Sounds uncomfortably Eastern to me. "Accept your place in the world, in the cycle of life, be content." As opposed to the New Testament and early church who treated evil as an enemy to be fought. No resignation, but an active good fight. Doing what Jesus did, "destroying the works of the enemy."
2 Cor 4:4, "...in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God." Do we agree with the Calvinists who (I think) believe that God uses Satan to work His purposes? God wants to keep some people out of His kingdom, so He lets Satan blind them? Again, when confronted by the doomed man on judgment day, will God say, "Well I knew you would reject me anyway."?
God is a creator. Those made in His image can also create. Made free, they can create, from within themselves, choices to do evil (or amazing good or to turn to God and get inspired), without blaming a molecule that God breathed at and caused to bump into an electron thattriggered a neural impulse in their brain that made an emotion that chose evil. Yet, we forget that there is a war going on. We think that God is mysteriously behind everything that happens with some kind of secret plan for an ultimate good.
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