This basically touches on why is there so much suffering in this world when it doesn't make sense. It's hard to answer but my only response is life isn't fair, but God is still good.
Where is our hope?
- Thread starter Gideon300
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Aah, but that is the wonderful thing about God: He knows how to judge perfectly fairly,
and there is no favoritism with Him (Rom. 3:25-26, 9:14, 2Thes. 1:6). This doctrine is called theodicy.
It means that we should be careful lest our explanations of God’s will seem unloving or unfair.
Another synonym for justness is goodness (Isa. 5:16).
The Parable of the Talents teaches that souls are judged on the basis of what they do with what they have been given.
finitude my friend. Think Job, but at least Job was restored. What about Horatio Spafford.. His suffering goes beyond comprehension. There is no earthly explanation to justify.
1) Lose all your wealth in great Chicago fire. Super wealthy man.
2) Lose first son to illness
3) Lose 4 daughters to cruise liner sinking in Atlantic
4) Lose another son to same illness as first son.
Yet he still kept his faith but he never understood why.
How fair would it to be a jewish teenager in the Holocaust who suffered in this life so immensely, but didn't believe in Christ to suffer again for eternity. Only God can answer that question; orthodox use the word "mystery" and this also designates with me. Only God knows if that person will receive some Grace.
Earthly experience of suffering due to mortality and sin is intended by God to help souls understand their need of His salvation.
Regarding the Jewish teenager in the Holocaust who suffered but didn't believe in Christ: Why didn't he? Only God can answer that question; why some choose to ignore Grace/Christ is a "mystery" that causes God to suffer (Matt. 23:37, Eph. 4:30), but we can be sure that hell is just.
People who are mystified by evil and repulsed by its punishment do not realize that the essential aspect of being a human rather than a robot or subhuman creature is moral free will (MFW), which is what enables a person to experience love and meaning. This is what makes humans different from animals, whose behavior is governed mainly by instinct. This is what it means to be created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26-27). God could not force people to return His love without abrogating their humanity. If God were to zap ungodly souls, it would be tantamount to forcing conversions at gunpoint, which would not be free and genuine. If God were to prevent people from behaving hatefully, then He would need to prevent them from thinking evilly, which would make human souls programmed automatons.
MFW only exists when there is the possibility of choosing between two qualitatively opposite moral options that we call good and evil. These options are opposites because of essentially different consequences for choosing them. Choosing good results in blessing, life and heaven; and choosing evil results in cursing, death and hell (Deut. 30:19). This is why hell as well as heaven exists. It is the just consequence for choosing evil rather than God. The Spirit of God is good: love, peace and joy (Gal. 5:22-23). Therefore, whoever rejects the Lord is spiritually separated from Him (Isa. 59:2) and thereby chooses the evil or satanic spirit of hatred, strife and misery and reaps the just consequence called “hell” in the afterlife (Gal. 6:7-9, Heb. 9:27-28). These options were presented by Moses to the Israelites (DT 30:19), and Jesus referred to this fundamental choice in terms of a fish or egg versus a snake or scorpion (Luke 11:11-13). Life… or Curse? (Gen. 3:24, Rev. 22:1-2)
God created theoretical evil or the possibility of rejecting Him as an option that actualizes MFW/free human personality. As such it is necessary and even good (Gen. 1:31). Of course, it was wrong for Satan (1John 3:8) and humanity (Rom. 5:12) to make evil actual by choosing to Sin or reject Faith in God’s Lordship. The first people to choose the evil option were named Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:6). Sin: ignoring God/God’s Word.
Evil people grieve God and punish/torture themselves by experiencing delayed karma, just as those who experience appropriate justice during this earthly existence also punish themselves or reap what they have sown and send themselves to jail. This view makes souls responsible for breaking the rules rather than blaming evil on the judges (or Judge) who enforce the rules.
The purpose of earthly punishment is to promote repentance, but the reason for retribution in hell is to attain justice. It is difficult to imagine, but somehow even someone as evil as Hitler will receive perfect justice, perhaps experiencing the agony of the millions of deaths he caused in accordance with the principal of “eye for eye” (MT 5:38), after which their souls are destroyed forever (per John 17:12, Rom. 9:22, Gal. 6:8, Phil. 3:19, 2Thes. 1:9, 2Pet. 3:7 & Rev. 20:13-14).
our hope is everywhere but who our hope is in is most important, Jesus!!!