I don't know if anyone here is familiar with the B.C. Johnson philosophy. We were discussing it in my philosophy class today and it brought up an interesting topic. Its basically the battle between good and evil, and Johnson presents the common argument, if God is all-powerful, all-loving, and all-knowing, why is there evil?
Johnson uses an interesting example:
"A house catches fire and a six month old baby is painfully burned to death. Could we possibly describe as "good" any person that had the power to save this child and yet refused to do so? God undoubtedly has this power and in many cases of this sort he has refused to help. Can we call God "good"? Are there adequate excuses for this behavior?"
I have developed my own critic of this argument and I think I have enough info about God to respond, but I was wondering what everyone else thought. Esp. those with a more mature relationship and understanding of God........ How would you respond to this?
The example of the baby dying needlessly is a great example of one of the sins that separates from God and that is doubt. Now I say that simply because God is incapable of doubt. Doubt is a negative and there is no such thing as negative in God's perfect being.
God in his infinite perfection at all levels is complete; so complete is his perfection that we can't possibly understand it at this point. Look towards the end of 1 COR 13 and see what St. Paul says about our knowing or understanding, it is imperfect.
Most humans, Christians or who ever, are pained about the injustices that happen to others in our world, so much so, that we ask how can this happen from a loving God?
I have an explanation why these things happen and why God does not often step in during these situations. Now I have no direct scriptures that support this definitively, but a confidence from reading and knowing God's word as a whole.
Our physical world, this human plane that we currently exist in has nothing to do with the "other realm" where God and others are, except that God created it. And in this creation of his, are natural laws that exist. With airplanes, it is not so much that engine stopped, it is that there was a violation of the law of gravity.
Often what confuses us is that we know that God does intervene, there are many stories in the Bible that support this, but all can be attributed to his greater purpose.
Although it is a very wonderful and beautiful, this is a hazardous and imperfect world we live in, we are subject to all it's natural laws, and I don't believe that God is some grand puppeteer in the sky; we happen to live in this world and subject to it's flaws.
But, I do know this with all my heart. God will look at every difficulty in our lives and see how we react. We can doubt and will. Jesus said that we can blasphemy him and God but we can't blasphemy the Holy Spirit, meaning we can't commit apostasy, rejecting God's full grace and rejecting the saving power of the Holy Spirit.
Doubting can subject us to never gaining salvation or causing some saved individuals to live in error, untruth and without all of God's peace.
But, as Paul says: " there will be a day that our perfection will come, we will see God "face to face" and know fully and as fully as he knows us"....think about it!
