Bad Things Happening To Good People

[farglefeezlebut]

I don't understand.
Children get raped.
Innocent people get murdered.
People get cancer.
All these evil things happen.
I've just watche don TV about people trying to excape Nort Korea, because they are oppressed and starving. Most of them die on the journe. Or get deported back and put in labour camps until they die. Or are forced to be sex slaves, because if they don' they'll be turned in to the chinese authorities and sent back and executed.
These people are good and brave.
And there are people in CHina, good Christian people who help them. ANd if they get caught they could die.
And Jim Kong Il is living in a palace.
This lovely woman from my church died recently. She was in agony. She was only 31. She was born with a heart problem.
Herparents are lovely too. They suffer so much. I don't understnad.

[saintwannabe 777]

[quote name='farglefeezlebut' post='1838726' date='Apr 17 2009, 03:59 PM']I don't understand.
Children get raped.
Innocent people get murdered.
People get cancer.
All these evil things happen.
I've just watche don TV about people trying to excape Nort Korea, because they are oppressed and starving. Most of them die on the journe. Or get deported back and put in labour camps until they die. Or are forced to be sex slaves, because if they don' they'll be turned in to the chinese authorities and sent back and executed.
These people are good and brave.
And there are people in CHina, good Christian people who help them. ANd if they get caught they could die.
And Jim Kong Il is living in a palace.
This lovely woman from my church died recently. She was in agony. She was only 31. She was born with a heart problem.
Herparents are lovely too. They suffer so much. I don't understnad.[/quote]

That question is a question that only God Himself has answered. Here's something to get you started though. [url="http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/suffering.htm"]http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/suffering.htm[/url] To make the answer short though, this world is like this because of the Fall. The Fall plunged humanity into a state of misery and suffering. But Himself has come to set things right. He is the Good God who let bad things happen to Him to make things fair and to make good things happen to us.

[Noel's angel]

Even bad things happened to Jesus and He was perfect. But God allowed those things to happen because He knew good would come from it in some way. Without Christ's suffering and death, we would not have His resurrection.
We see only a tiny speck of what is happening in the world. God sees everything and he sees the effect each action and experience has on others. Trust that He is loving-He will never stop loving us, and that love is not just a kind of 'oh He loves everyone so His love for me isn't all that special'. God loves you and He knows us each better than we know ourselves. If He allows us to suffer, there must be a reason for it because I am sure nothing would hurt Him more than to see one of His beautiful children suffer for nothing.

[CatherineM]

With evil in the world, bad things can happen to anyone. We just seem to notice more when a bad thing happens to a child, or an innocent. When bad things happen to bad people (Jeffery Dahmler getting stabbed in jail comes to mind), we tend to think that it is God's justice.

[Dr_Asik]

The most difficult thing to understand, for me, is that God is responsible for much of that evil. When a [url="http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-news/26-12-2004-indonesia.html"][b]tsunami submerged the coast of Indonesia on Christmas 2004[/b][/url], it wasn't because of the mafia or any particular sin. It was nature being what it is, and nature is the visible expression of God's will. So God really wanted to submerge tens of thousands of Indonesians that day, where we celebrated the birth of Jesus. I was startled, and I still am.

Edited April 18, 2009 by Dr_Asik

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Dr_Asik' post='1839419' date='Apr 18 2009, 12:39 AM']The most difficult thing to understand, for me, is that God is responsible for much of that evil. When a [url="http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-news/26-12-2004-indonesia.html"][b]tsunami submerged the coast of Indonesia on Christmas 2004[/b][/url], it wasn't because of the mafia or any particular sin. It was nature being what it is, and nature is the visible expression of God's will. So God really wanted to submerge tens of thousands of Indonesians that day, where we celebrated the birth of Jesus. I was startled, and I still am.[/quote]
That's not the way we look at it. We don't say that God wanted those people to die.

[Dr_Asik]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' post='1839435' date='Apr 18 2009, 02:48 AM']That's not the way we look at it. We don't say that God wanted those people to die.[/quote]But it's no accident. If God doesn't know what He's doing, no one does. When you direct a monster tsunami on a densely populated country, that's going to hurt a lot, and God knows that.

So you might not want to say God wanted to kill these people, but that's the reality nonetheless.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Dr_Asik' post='1839460' date='Apr 18 2009, 01:10 AM']But it's no accident. If God doesn't know what He's doing, no one does. When you direct a monster tsunami on a densely populated country, that's going to hurt a lot, and God knows that.

So you might not want to say God wanted to kill these people, but that's the reality nonetheless.[/quote]
You might want to read some of our Church Scholars' posts about passive will. You're misrepresenting what we believe.

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='Dr_Asik' post='1839460' date='Apr 18 2009, 07:10 AM']But it's no accident. If God doesn't know what He's doing, no one does. When you direct a monster tsunami on a densely populated country, that's going to hurt a lot, and God knows that.

So you might not want to say God wanted to kill these people, but that's the reality nonetheless.[/quote]
God put the forces of nature into motion, and He lets them go about on their way. Not like He just decided to make a tsunami and send it there. It's just the way our weather forces work. So one could argue that it's part of God's passive will, since He set the forces determining weather in motion, but not His active will, since He didn't suddenly created that specific tsunami out of the blue and send it to Indonesia. At least I'm pretty sure about that. If I'm wrong, I'm more than willing to be corrected.

[CatherineM]

It also wasn't God's will that so many people live in coastal areas, or that one of the most seismically active areas in the world had not tsunami detection system. Those were man's doing.

[Dr_Asik]

- [b]God protects and governs by his Providence everything he has created.[/b] [i]De Fide.[/i]
- [b]God's will is infinite.[/b] [i]De Fide.[/i]

[b]3. Divine will and evil[/b]
The physical evil, for instance suffering, disease, death, God doesn't want it per se, that is, for evil in itself or as a purpose. (...) But God wants physical evil, the natural calamities as well as repressive evils, per accidens, that is, as means of a superior purpose of the physical order (for instance for sustaining a higher life) or of the moral order (for instance as a punishment or moral purification). [i]Sirach 11:14 [/i]: "Good and evil, life and death, poverty and riches, are from the LORD."

Source : "Louis OTT, Précis de théologie dogmatique" (my translation).

Archeology cat : yes, unless miracles occur, the world evolves according to its laws. And this tsunami was no miraculous event, it was natural. However, nature inherits its laws from God, who is therefore rightly called governor of the universe. And so, the governor has made the laws of the universe so that such calamities happen. Are you saying God could not have made the world as to prevent such things from happening ? No, they are the object of his will like everything that happens. His will is infinite and all-encompassing.

[quote]It also wasn't God's will that so many people live in coastal areas, or that one of the most seismically active areas in the world had not tsunami detection system. Those were man's doing.[/quote]I'm not sure what to say. I don't want to sound overly harsh, but that's, plainly, a pretty pointless and heartless comment. Are you saying it is somehow the Indonesians fault? Are you saying it is our fault if we don't have the necessary technology to make ourselves impervious to all physical evil (which is a complete utopia, by the way)? Are you saying we should live only in "secure" areas of the world? Where are those "secure" areas, please?

The sad reality is that there's no escape from physical evil: it is everywhere, and technology won't dominate over it, at least not in any forseeable future, and I doubt placing our hopes there is very Catholic.

Edited April 18, 2009 by Dr_Asik

[CatherineM]

[quote name='Dr_Asik' post='1839781' date='Apr 18 2009, 03:14 PM']I'm not sure what to say. I don't want to sound overly harsh, but that's, plainly, a pretty pointless and heartless comment. Are you saying it is somehow the Indonesians fault? Are you saying it is our fault if we don't have the necessary technology to make ourselves impervious to all physical evil (which is a complete utopia, by the way)? Are you saying we should live only in "secure" areas of the world? Where are those "secure" areas, please?

The sad reality is that there's no escape from physical evil: it is everywhere, and technology won't dominate over it, at least not in any forseeable future, and I doubt placing our hopes there is very Catholic.[/quote]

I did not say that it was the Indonesian's fault, and can't figure out how you assume that from my response. I grew up in Oklahoma, and we didn't live in a solid concrete bunker, so we lost a roof or widow occasionally. That didn't make the tornado our fault, but it also didn't make the broken window God's fault. I lived half my adult life in St. Pete, Florida, and survived many tropical storms and hurricanes. None were my fault, or God's. They were a function of the way the planet develops storms in the Atlantic. If I hadn't prepared for storms properly, or refused to evacuate when requested to, then I might be guilty of stupidly endangering myself or my kids, but I certainly wouldn't be the cause of the hurricane. When you live in certain places, you take certain risks, some you are aware of, and some you aren't. You might be prepared for earthquakes if you live in LA, but not in Oklahoma, where they have been having some small earthquakes lately. The Indonesian's had no notice of the tsunami, both by available technology or time.

My point that seemed to escape you, is that God doesn't will bad things to happen. We have bad things happen because of Original Sin. I respectfully suggest that you get to know me better before you judge me heartless again.

[Dr_Asik]

Hello Catherine,

I did not judge you as a person, but one of your previous comments. I did not just say it was heartless, I also said it was pointless, and that didn't imply you are a "pointless person" (which wouldn't mean anything) any more than a heartless one. That said, I apologize for having been overly harsh in my tone, but your comment made me react quite strongly. And I stand by what I've said, inappropriate etiquette aside.

You said you survived several hurricanes: that's certainly an example of prudence. But what's your point? Prudence can't protect you from nearly every physical evil. How do you prevent Down's Syndrome? How would have survived the indonesian tsunami if you've had been living there, probably locked there due to poverty?

God doesn't simply create hurricanes and gives us the means to avoid them. God puts us in an extremely dangerous world where it's only through generations of sweat and blood that we'll slowly acquire some degree of security, and again, security is always very precarious.

Now I'm sorry, your point was about the responsibility of the Indonesians. You said "Those were [u]man's doing[/u]." What were "those"? (1) living in coastal areas; (2) not having a tsunami detection system. Surely, (1) and (2) are factors that contributed to the calamity; and they are man's doing; not any men, but the ones living there, Indonesians. And you say you didn't imply it was the Indonesian's fault? I don't see how I'm supposed to read your post, honestly. It really reads like "these 13000 people were there at the wrong place and at the wrong time, God can't control that. God sends his tsunamis where he pleases and it's our job to avoid them."

Finally, calamities are not caused by the Original Sin. First, they happened well before Adam and Eve ever could have existed. Second, there's no clear doctrine on the consequences of the Original Sin on creation. I don't see any article of faith about it, and the CCC merely mentions a "harmony between man and creation" that was broken; but this most probably had to do with man's state of grace, and not some miraculous prevention of all tectonic, viral and cosmic activity. Third, the doctrine of God's will regarding physical evil is clear: see my previous post. It derives directly from articles of faith that God is the cause of physical evil. CCC 310 makes it very clear: God, in his infinite wisdom, has created this world in a "state of journeying", that is, containing both physical good and evil.

[indent]310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better. But with infinite wisdom and goodness [b]God freely willed[/b] to create a world "[b]in a state of journeying[/b]" towards its ultimate perfection. [b]In God's plan[/b] this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, [b]both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil[/b] as long as creation has not reached perfection.[/indent]and 314:
[indent]314 [b]We firmly believe that God is master of the world and of its history.[/b] But the ways of his providence are often unknown to us.[/indent]

The CCC does not link physical evil with the Original Sin, but with God's plan.

Edited April 19, 2009 by Dr_Asik

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='Dr_Asik' post='1839419' date='Apr 18 2009, 02:39 AM']The most difficult thing to understand, for me, is that God is responsible for much of that evil. When a [url="http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-news/26-12-2004-indonesia.html"][b]tsunami submerged the coast of Indonesia on Christmas 2004[/b][/url], it wasn't because of the mafia or any particular sin. It was nature being what it is, and nature is the visible expression of God's will. So God really wanted to submerge tens of thousands of Indonesians that day, where we celebrated the birth of Jesus. I was startled, and I still am.[/quote]
NO God is not responsible for the tsunami. Nature And the fault lines were. God made nature and nature made the fault lines, God did not sit and say I'm going to kill those people today.
Similarly my daughters fiancee drowned in an accident two weeks ago. God made the river and the snow, God did not make Claudio loose his footing and die. God did not cause the accident but God IS there to pick up the broken pieces of our hearts. Please understand the difference.

[Dr_Asik]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' post='1840006' date='Apr 18 2009, 11:10 PM']NO God is not responsible for the tsunami. Nature And the fault lines were. God made nature and nature made the fault lines, God did not sit and say I'm going to kill those people today.
Similarly my daughters fiancee drowned in an accident two weeks ago. God made the river and the snow, God did not make Claudio loose his footing and die. God did not cause the accident but God IS there to pick up the broken pieces of our hearts. Please understand the difference.[/quote]...well, according to Catholic doctrine, he is. God does not will evil for itself, but he wills it for some greater good. [url="http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1019.htm#article9"]http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1019.htm#article9[/url] . So yeah, God wills evil.

And yes, nature is the cause of the tsunami. But God is the cause of nature. Hence, God is responsible for the tsunami. Nature is a secondary agent through which God acts.
[indent]308 The truth that God is at work in all the actions of his creatures is inseparable from faith in God the Creator. [/indent]I don't see how tsunamis can be exluded from that.

Edited April 19, 2009 by Dr_Asik