Where do we get our concept of right and wrong?

“It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power—it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk.”37 ~ Lewis

“It would be an undoubted advantage if we were to leave God out altogether and honestly admit the purely human origin of the regulations and precepts of civilization.”38 ~ Freud

Lewis writes: “Though there are differences between the moral ideas of one time or country and those of another, the differences are not really very great. . . . Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five.” 39
Does the idea of a universal Moral Law support Lewis’s or Freud’s view of its origins? Read the rest of this entry

How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?

If a good and powerful God exist he would not allow evil and suffering to persist, but because there are injustices the traditional good and powerful God could not exist. Basically this means if evil appears pointless to me it must be pointless.

This reasoning is simply not true. Just because you cannot see or imagine a good reason why God might allow something to happen, doesn’t mean there can’t be one. If our minds can’t determine the depths of the universe for good answers to suffering, well, then, there can’t be any! This is blind faith of a high order.

Joseph (Genesis) was an arrogant man who was hated by his brothers. In their anger, they imprisoned him and sold him into a life of slavery and misery in Egypt. Though he experienced years of bondage and suffering, Joseph’s character was refined and strengthened by his suffering and trials. Eventually he rose up to be the prime minister of Egypt who saved thousands of lives and even his own family from starvation. If God had not allowed Joseph’s years of suffering, he never would have been such a powerful agent for social justice and spiritual healing.

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My questions may not be directly related:
1. What practical things can someone do to ‘get their head on straight’ about God’s existance and character when dispair or distraction (weeds?) threaten?
2. If someone can’t get saved into a relationship with God, why can’t God save everyone through his action?
Thoughts on how God uses evil for his own redemptive purposes:

Psalm 18:27
You save the humble but bring low those whose eyes are haughty.

Sometimes God allows me to suffer so I understand those who don’t appear to be winning are not losers. E.G. I looked down on those who were laid-off/fired. Then I got fired twice from teaching in a year, and I stopped looking down on them.
2 Cor 1:3-4
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.
I feel that God allows me to suffer some things so that I can Know that God will get them through, and so I have empathy.

Via email
Where happiness is concerned, what is God’s definition of happiness? As far as I can determine, the bible has very little to say on the subject, unless that is just an issue of semantics. Can there be true happiness apart from God? I have known Christians who are miserable and non believers who seem quite happy. Is happiness something we as Christians should even be striving for or placing emphasis on? As citizens of the United States of America, we have the right to pursue happiness, but that is a very vague. Why do you suppose our framers thought it so important to include in the declaration as a right endowed by our creator?

They also brought up the topic of evil as relates to free will vs. evil in nature, such as earthquakes and other natural disasters. Can those be tied together biblically or explained by the fall of man? They didn’t really expand on the topic in their discussion, just skirted around it. I was always under that impression that it was a natural consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin in the Garden, but I never really thought a lot about it in those terms before.

Freud made the statement that once St. Paul made universal love between men the foundation of the Christian community, extreme intolerance of those outside of Christendom became the inevitable consequence. I know a lot of evil has been perpetrated in the name of Christendom in the past, but what exactly did he mean by that?

I hope these questions tie in with your message this week. The program is really very interesting and thought provoking. I’ll have to DVR it when it comes on again so the whole family can watch it together. I don’t normally watch PBS specials on God or Bible history because they are so one-sided and usually end up making me mad.