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TheWriter

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  1. Really glad I found you folks. Sometimes I feel like I'm hanging out in the breeze with no company at all. A friend died recently. At his funeral, the priest said that God didn't will death and suffering for us. I've been choking on that ever since. Maybe someone can help me sort through my own theology on this point. Let's assume that God "wills." I know this brings up another whole can of worms, but let's assume this for the sake of argument. [i've put the word in quotes because I personally feel that using humanoid words--will, love, feel, think--for God is probably not terribly accurate. I think that God probaly does will, love, think, feel, but in a wholly Other way than we do.] OK, so here we have God who either does or does not will death and suffering for humans. If God does not, then there must be some way for God to get rid of the extra humans. Or, if we're to be immortal, wouldn't that mean that God wouldn't will sex and procreation? Otherwise, it would be even more crowded here than it already is. Or am I being too literal-minded here? What about for animals? Does God will death and suffering for them but not for humans? If yes, then where is the cut-off point between human and animal? If we assume that there is a distinct difference between human and animal, say self-consciousness, then during evolution, there must have been a point where the mother was animal and the offspring was human. In this scenario, God would have willed the mother to die, but not the child. Plus, you've got the problem of emerging zoology which seems to be pointing toward self-consciousness in some animals--apes, elephants, dolphins, etc. I'd add my cat to that list. So if it doesn't seem likely (and to me, it doesn't) that there could be a dividing line between human and animal evolutionarily, then God must have extended not willing suffering and death to animals as well. Fish? What about those weird beasties that are sorta animal/plant? What about bugs? The world is getting awfully crowded now. The priest went on to say that suffering and death was the result of human evil. Unless you subscribe to the Fall theory (I don't and he's said elsewhere that he doesn't either), that can't hold water, can it? You get into the same dilemmas about what's human and what's animal, don't you? The mother, being animal, cannot do evil, but the child, being human, can? The virus that munched the sheath around my friend's heart was caused by human evil? How? Anyway, here I am, left with my friend's death, and what feels like the inescapable belief that God either DOES will suffering and death on us, or God doesn't will anything at all and it's all random. Or am I being too black/white here? Have I missed some middle ground?
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