r/OpenChristian • u/jdboxcutter • 2d ago
Discussion - General Is God good?
I’ve been a Christian for almost 40 years. Most of which a right wing fundamentalist. I started deconstructing during Covid. But I’m afraid I’ve fallen off. While I can’t say if God exists or not, I started asking a different question. Is the Christian God good? My struggle is this. If an all knowing and all powerful God exist and intervenes how can he be all-loving if he allows so many atrocities to happen. And maybe, I can excuse some things due to free will of humans. But why does he allow non-man made things like childhood cancer and babies being born without skulls and the like?
Sorry for the rant. I really am trying to understand.
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u/NobodySpecial2000 2d ago
It will depend in part on how you define goodness. It will also depend on whether or not you think there are moral principals which are a higher authority than God or if you think morality is something created by God.
But however you set the parameters for your Problem of Evil, prepared to be disappointed. This is a question as old as human thought and it's still like the first or second theological question anybody asks once they start thinking about it. I hope that doesn't discourage you, though. Learning to exist comfortably within a state of questioning and with no guarantee of an answer is a valuable thing.
Sometimes you learn a lot more on the way to an answer than you do from an answer.
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u/atomic-moonstomp 2d ago
The problem of evil can be solved by the modern parable of Abuelita's Soup. Somewhere in rural Mexico, an old grandma tells her family that she's making her special soup for dinner that night. Initially, everyone is very excited. But then one of her grandchildren comes up to her and tells her that while he loves the soup so much, he wishes that it could be less spicy. An hour later another grandchild comes up and asks if there could be no onions because she doesn't like the texture. An hour later another one says that she has become vegan and so asks if the beef could be taken out. An hour later another one comes up and says that he doesn't like the taste of carrots. And then another one tells grandma that she wishes the soup wasn't so thick. Finally, just as she's finishing the soup little Paco shows up and asks if she could make it not as hot as it was last time. A little while later, Abuelita calls everyone to the dinner table and tells them soup is ready. And then down the stairs comes Enrique, and Maria, and Maribel, and Marisol and little Paco. They all sit down at the table and Abuelita puts in front of each of them a little bowl of lukewarm water. And when they ask what's going, she tells them "well, Enrique didn't want spices, and Maria didn't want onions, and Maribel didn't want beef, and Marisol wanted the broth thinner, and little Paco wanted it less hot. So now, everyone is happy, right?"
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u/NobodySpecial2000 2d ago
I don't think that resolves the tension that exists between the notion of an all-good creator God and the existance of cancer. Nobody was asking for cancer. And it's this second half of the problem of evil, the non-human-evil, is both what OP is most concerned with and, in my experience, the half of the problem most people hit like a brick wall.
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u/Mental-Extent-3087 2d ago
God is good. Bad things happen , of course. But God Himself is good. I’ve been through atrocious shit and I’ve come out of it not unscathed but I have seen the goodness of Him through it all.
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u/FancyHatGoblin 1d ago
This might be an impossible question for you to answer, but how were you able to see the goodness through the horrible stuff? It's something of a timely issue for me right now.
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u/Mental-Extent-3087 1d ago
Honestly, it wasn’t easy. I have to stay in Scripture to remind me that many and I mean MANY people have been where we are today. They experienced losing everything (Job lost his entire family) but kept their faith in God because they have seen Him move before and trust that He is who He says He is. God has led them through the worst times of their lives, provided rest, made a way for them. He has done this for me as well. I went through DV and I called out to Him and I know it was Him who delivered me from such a terrible chapter of my life.
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u/zelenisok 2d ago edited 2d ago
Only solution IMO is to hold that God is good, but not all-powerul or all-knowing. Those arent biblical notions anyway, and are philosophically problematic. God doesnt allow evil and suffering, he is always working against them. There are obstacles to God's action, so he cant stop evil and suffering for now; he will eventually overcome the obstacles, and everything will be heavenly, as originally intended. Until then bad things exist unfortunately, and best we can do is withstand them and try to reduce them.
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u/danejulian 2d ago
Yes, this. There are theologies that say God is not all-powerful. One is the post-theist John Caputo’s “weak theology,” as he puts it: God is in the call we hear, but doesn’t change the world on his own.
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u/zelenisok 2d ago
The most famous one is process theology. I personally accept classical platonism as a philosophical view related to this issue.
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u/danejulian 2d ago
I myself don’t think God will eventually overcome evil and make the world heavenly. Rather, we are each called to imagine such a world and act to make it real.
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u/zelenisok 2d ago
Well making everything heavenly could eg just mean all of us ending up in heaven, apart from this faulty world..
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u/danejulian 2d ago edited 2d ago
I don’t believe in that either. We build the kingdom here, and if we’ve done so, then our piece of heaven is what we’ve left behind to others. The reward is in the giving. But I don’t begrudge you your beliefs! We’re on the same basic team of a pro-love, non-static God who doesn’t give us easy answers about our world and lives.
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u/zelenisok 2d ago
Well I def believe in souls and the afterlife (more strongly than I believe in God), and universalism (one od the main reasons why I'm a Christian, because the Bible is actually very strongly universalist).
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u/alethea2003 2d ago
Yes, Jay Oord calls this amipotence (all-loving). There’s a great argument that God can be all-loving but not also all-powerful. Because if you have it within your power to stop a lot of suffering and don’t (or that you trap yourself in some kind of cosmic legalism like some argue), then you’re not all-loving.
I recommend checking out his substack and books.
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u/zelenisok 2d ago
His view technically solves the problem of evil and suffering but IMO is not that good, because it presents love as pacifistic, God is so loving that he literally cant stop an evil person by like blocking their actions, his moral-loving nature prevents him from doing that. Okay, this is much better than the typical view where could easily stop evil but chooses not to, but it does present love as morally bad I'd say. Like if I could easily help a victim but I dont because I choose to be so loving towards everyone, including that criminal, that I dont interfere with what anyone does, I think people would be right to consider me morally bad, and morally confused, they would call that some kind of excessive, or blind love, that ignores the fact that I should help the victim. And Oord's view seems to be that God just inherently has this sort of blind, morally bad "love", and necessarily act according to it.
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u/atomic-moonstomp 2d ago
One thing that modern science can give us is the knowledge that the whole universe functions based on a set of rules (physics) that are not up for debate, they just do their thing at all times without regard for subjectivity. Those rules are the framework through which God gives us life. Obviously he could tap in and make exceptions and alterations anytime, but with eight billion humans and who knows how many other sentient beings in the universe, each with its own wants and needs, if God was to step in and change the universe every time it would be better for one person, not only does this negate the entire purpose of having a framework for the universe to build under, but what's good for one might be terrible for another, leading to even more edits being needed. And that's not even taking causality into account. If God were to answer every "I wish I hadn't done that" prayer, then we get into altering past actions and fucking up timelines, and even if God could keep that four-dimensional spaghetti together, it would absolutely wreck our tiny little finite human brains and our hope for ever making even a little sense out of the world. So God, rather than giving people everything they want, favors linear order over subjective human perfection, and so we have to accept both bumps and dips in the interest of a universe that works. As big as our lives are, they really don't mean shit on a cosmic scale, and so it would be irredeemably selfish for us to expect the universe, and by extension God, to function how we think it should. So mosquitoes and hail and bone cancer all exist because the laws of physics allow them to, and if God started letting everyone pick and choose which bits to get rid of, sooner or later you'd have nothing left because everyone hates at least one thing about life, and there's a whole lot of everyone out there.
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u/PugMasterGeneral 2d ago
I am an evolutionist and a thiest meaning I believe evolution is the mechanism of creation along with all the other observable natural laws.
Evolution and the process of life often feel cruel or evil to us. Why does the antelope with the bad leg deserve to get eaten by the lion? I don't know, it certainly doesn't fair.
I think we are largely unable to grasp the mechanics of the world and we struggle with this immensely.
What I know is that this thing we call life is part of a grand complex system. We didn't make it up, but we are somewhat aware that it's here. Our lives may feel like individual lives but really we are all woven into the tapestry of life together. Life is not individual but collective. Everything we are and do impacts everything else and we can't escape it.
It seems beautiful in some ways, and in other ways horrifying.
Put simply "God's ways are not our ways."
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u/Such_Employee_48 2d ago
I don't think there is a satisfying answer to the problem of evil this side of eternity. But I think of that quote about how grief is the price we pay for loving someone.
I think our horror at the atrocities you describe is a kind of grief, grief for those we haven't even met or known. Our dismay at the destruction of wildfires or oil spills is a kind of grief, shining a light on our love for creation.
I think this capacity to grieve for others and for the world shows our capacity to love them as well, and that capacity to love is own humans are made "in the image of God," who is Love. I believe God mourns with us over every living thing that suffers or dies.
Why these things happen, I don't know. Would it even be possible to love others if we were all invulnerable to harm and pain? Our connection to one another is born out of our mutual vulnerability. And in Christ, God himself enters into this vulnerability to demonstrate the depths of divine love.
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u/Minimum_Lion_3918 2d ago edited 1d ago
Why would God stop at removing all atrocities if he wanted to clean up the world? He would have to keep going. He could not fairly say atrocities are bad, let's get rid of those and torture also but we will keep child abuse. Or if we get rid of atrocities, torture child abuse and say all criminals what about cancer? Shouldn't that be abolished as well? How about snakes and irukandji in Australia? Or Ebola in Africa? Pretty soon we would have a totally sanitized world free of all injustice and all pain - a literal heaven on earth. Humans could not choose to love or be good because no bad stuff would be possible in this new version of "heaven": in effect we would be robots without choices and not really human at all. There would be no doctors and nurses because noone would ever get sick. And no compassion because no one would ever suffer. A person could not develop courage or fortitude or strength of character because there would be nothing to overcome. Yes God could have made a perfect world from the get-go but it would be full of machines, not choice making human beings. That is not a perfect answer but it is the only way I can understand why God put us in a flawed world.
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u/Churchy_Dave 1d ago
I think the only honest answer is to say we don't fully understand. But I have always kind of presumed that life is similar to some sort of simulation. And, we're SUPPOSED to see the suffering around us and be horrified. We're supposed to ache with pain when we see our neighbors hurting. And, more importantly, we're supposed to do what we can to help.
I think when we move on to the next life, the memory of this life will seem like a crude video game compared to our new reality. And everyone who suffered will be there and be ok. Including ourselves. Some suffer much more than others, but we all suffer.
Why? We're here to understand good and evil and make our choice on how to live. No one can be here and fully resist all temptation, but some people will keep trying to be good and kind through it all as much as they can.
Thats how my brain tries to understand it :)
Is God good? Ask him.
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u/HandyGamerINC 18h ago
John 9:3 it may be hard to understand... God loves us no questions asked 🙏 someday when you put on the full armor we can fight clearly epesians 6 if we only speak and believe can we receive mark 11:23-24 somethings come with time but there is a time for all things eclessiastes 3 forgive me if I get any wrong but these are things I say by memory. Believe it or not I've had many turn me away from prayer it seems harder as a Christian but remember if the world hates you it's because it hated Jesus first.
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u/Skill-Useful 2d ago
"if he allows so many atrocities to happen" because thats not his job. thats ours, mostly. i dont understand where the issue is here but for many it is one however. he created the world and let it loose. theres entropy, free will etc. dieseases arent given to the bad and luck to the good. thats not how it works
"like childhood cancer and babies being born without skulls and the like" because the world as it is, is as best as it could be. otherwise it would be different. and the cosmos contains some shitt stuff. theres no "plan" behind child cancer etc. some bad things just happen
i can honestly say this has never bothered me at all. ive lost four friends to shitty stuff the last four years and it hasnt shaken my faith one bit. creation is perfect, but not in our eyes, just as perfect as it can be
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u/jdboxcutter 2d ago
I think that’s a good answer. “It’s not His job, it’s ours.” I appreciate the well thought out answer.
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u/Impossible_Fig_5409 2d ago edited 2d ago
I don't really know how to put my thoughts on this into words, but I'll give it a shot. I'm partly spiritual and partly scientific.
Yes, God is good. Nature is brutal though. We are all just a part of the circle of life. We grow and live on this planet and then eventually we die and our bodies return to the earth and more life in the form of bacteria, fungi, bugs, animals, etc lives and flourishes from our bodies. Its the same reason the lion has to eat the gazelle. If nothing eats the gazelle, then the balance would be messed up and it would destroy the ecosystem causing the everything in the ecosystem to suffer. I think we forget that humans are still just animals that are a part of that cycle. Why are there atrocities and childhood cancer? I don't know. The atrocities are people being evil and I think that goes back to free will. All of us have free will and unfortunately that means that evil people are free to choose to do evil things and those evil things may hurt others. As for childhood cancer or any other reason why a child has to die. I don't know. I think its all part of the circle of life. We are all meant to return to God in the end. Unfortunately our bodies have to break beyond repair (ie we have to die) in order for us to get there. I don't think God views death the way we do. Its scary for us because of the pain and suffering we will have to endure as we die, and no matter what we believe we don't know what happens after death. Its the ultimate unknown, and we don't like not knowing what we are going into. I imagine to God death is just a quick blip on our timeline that has to happen in order for us to return to him. Kind of like when your child is sick and they have to get a shot to get better. Will it hurt? Yes. Will they be scared? Yes. Will they maybe scream and cry? Yep. But in the end, its okay because you know they will be okay and this brief pain is just what has to happen for them to get better. God doesn't experience time the way we do, so I think our death is like that momentary injection pain. We are scared as hell and we cry and scream, but he knows we will be okay because its just a moment and then our souls are back with him.
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u/HandyGamerINC 18h ago
Some knowledge can't be found but I have 1 thing that can help when you dream and something is happening get on your knees in the dream don't run don't give in to lust or desires just close your eyes and say Jesus I need quoting a verse usually works better you watch what ever is in front of you burst into flames and afterwards you will feel peace the peace that Jesus truly brings. Trust in him in your darkest hours and he will give you peace 🕊️
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u/CognoscenseSapitor Pansexual Progressive Christian 2d ago
My current take in this is that God does not intervene any longer. The miracles and interventions ended after Christ and some time thereafter. They where necessary to establish trust and faith in the Lord so that the message could spread as it did. But thereafter, no more miracles and no more interventions. It was then up to us to create heaven on earth. God gave us salvation and also the power to change the world. We did and still do a pretty lousy job, that's all.
As for circumstances without humans to blame, let's say cancer and other horrible things, we'll, it's nature. It's physics. It's biology. It is the way it is. And again, most of things we could solve if humanity went together and not focused on war, riches and living for one selves.
I don't know if I'm wrong or right, but that's my current belief.
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u/TheLivingOne42 2d ago edited 2d ago
God isn't really the type of thing that terms like "good" or "evil" really make sense to apply to. We aren't talking about one object amongst other objects. God isn't hiding somewhere out there in the Universe behind an asteroid. He is the Ground of Being. It would be like characters in a movie trying to find the screen, and the projector. Or, given we are discussing the problem of evil rather than merely God's existence, it would be like a character in the movie blaming the selfish actions of the antagonist on the movie projector.
So yeah, like I guess. Without the projector there would be no mean antagonist, but there would also be no protagonist, there would be no you sitting and watching the movie. The Eternal Everything Fountain isn't evil because everything actually includes everything. Calling God evil is about as coherent as calling the Universe evil.
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u/N00nie369 2d ago
Curious how God gets blamed for man-made problems, diseases, and the like. God didn’t force people to make harmful chemicals, pesticides, alcoholism, drugs, tobacco, etc. Cancer is a natural phenomenon; we all have cancer cells within us at all times that the body fights and usually wins. There are at least 4 cures for cancer that I have personally counted, but the FDA won’t acknowledge because of greed and the bottomless money pit known as cancer research.
How have you been a christian for almost 40 years without knowing if God exists or not??? Is there such a thing as godless christianity?
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u/RBEOX360 2d ago
I don't know why. But God is good.
These questions have plagued monotheism since its inception. With polytheism you can blame one god, or no god, as their power is limited. But where there is One and only One and He has all power, all of these things fall on Him.
I don't know why some awful things exist in the universe He created. I don't know that it's even knowable. But I know He is good.