How Can A Loving God . . .

Have you noticed how people start the question, “How can a loving God,” and then they fill in the blank with the latest tragedy or loss or pain that they've experienced?

Been there.

Done that.

I've wondered how God, how a God of love (that's an important point) can sit and observe tragedy both in the lives of others and in my own life without intervening.

If you're an atheist, simply asking the above question is good enough to keep you from thinking any deeper. Like Richard Dawkins has said, “There's no point in asking questions of why, only questions of how.” That's because questions of why imply meaning and purpose and atheists most certainly don't want to go there. Simply throwing out the challenge is enough to keep atheists skimming the surface of life.  Yet the use of evil to bring about good, versus a passive observing of evil is how God works.

For example Jeremiah 29:10,11 – "This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised. For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for peace and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”

God sat back and watched His chosen people be led away into captivity / slavery in Babylon. This was no safety-net slavery commanded by God and common to Hebrew society. Instead they were led away with hooks placed through their lower jaws. It was an experience so horrible and filled the captives with such rage that in one place the Psalmist fantasies about utterly destroying his captors and in doing so dashing Babylonian babyies heads against the rocks.

Notice how, from God's perspective (the only one that really counts) the terror and loss and pain does not happen in isolation. It is part of God's plan to bring good out of the horror.

No doubt, God allowing satan (notice how atheists never blame satan?) to wreak havoc in our lives is a difficult issue. Although, it's no more difficult than an atheist explaining the evolutionary purpose of pointless suffering. After all, we're no less barbaric today than humanity was in Babylonian times. Still and all, asking, “How could a loving God . . .?” is a good question.

An even better question, I think, is to ask the atheist, “So what do you think God should have done differently in order to prevent us from doing violence and harm to one another?

What should God have done differently so that He wouldn't have to sit back and watch us destroy this jewel of a planet?

What should God have done differently so that He wouldn't have to sit back and watch us allow 25,000 children to needlessly die – every single day?

What could God have done differently so that He wouldn't have had to sit back and watch us torture to death His own perfectly innocent Son?

What do you think? When God was creating this universe, what should He have done differently?

If you were God, how would you have set things up?