How To Live Debt Free

Jim Anderson

Why Doesn’t God Stop Terrorists?

Let's consider that God could set a deadline.  He could warn all the evil in the world that He will be stepping in this weekend and stop all suffering caused by evil.  He could use a taser gun.  The police claim that using a taser gun will get the target to comply 95 percent of the time.  When the weekend comes God could come down from heaven and start using the taser on everyone who sins.  Tell a lie, get shocked.  Rob a convenience store, get a stronger shock.  Murder someone and you get the mother of all shocks that incapacitates you.  God knows that our evil thoughts lead to evil acts, so He knows that He also needs to shock us when we have sinful thoughts.  Even then, He isn't finished.  It is also evil to fail to show mercy and kindness.  So He will have to zap us for that sin of omission.  What would be the result of all this?  We'd probably have a world full of twitching people that would obey God like beaten down dogs.

People in this world would suddenly find good morals, but only out of fear of being shocked.  Their hearts would not have changed.  There is a distinction between actions that come from deep within, and actions that come from surface level stimulus.  We learn this as children when expressing respect for our elders is emphasized more than actually being respectful.  If the taser were God's solution, He would only get a surface level of obedience.  It would also cause people to start to resent God and hate Him for the treatment they get.  The point of our faith as followers of Christ is to produce willing consent to choose good over evil.  To choose to do what is right over what is wrong. 

Another consideration against God setting a deadline is that evil in the world forces us to live with the world we have created, with all our good and bad choices.  When we are affected by evil and it creates pain and suffering in our lives, it forces us to think about the kind of world God wants for us.  He wants us to have a world free of terrorism and all kinds of pain and suffering.  We tend to be more willing to rely on Him when things get tough, so that is when God is speaking to us the most loudly.  He allows evil to continue, not just terrorism, because it forces us to ask why and draws us closer to Him.

Evil can't be disposed of like garbage.  It is what exists when things aren't the way they are supposed to be.  This is sort of like when your car breaks down.  It becomes dysfunctional.  If it isn't operating the way it was meant to operate, that presupposes a designer.  It is the same for the world.  The world is becoming more dysfunctional as evil grows.  Recognizing this also presupposes that there is a Designer for the world.  This is an important step.

Everyone today recognizes the problem of poverty and injustice.  When God is speaking the loudest, we begin to recognize that things aren't right.  Whether you believe in God or not you have to admit, we have a problem.  The next step is that this realization of all the pain and suffering in the world that we never paid attention to begins to haunt us, and we change.  We start to find it difficult to continue to believe our purpose in life is to enjoy it as much as possible, when the images of third world countries with starving children dying of AIDS in our minds.  There has to be more to life than having fun.

God has a plan to end all evil, but He has to do it by teaching us first to choose good over evil.  When everyone has had ample opportunity to make their choice, then He can end evil.  To do so before that would not work.  The whole point is that God needs to produce willing consent to choose good over evil.  When He has done that, He will stop the terrorists, as He will do with all evil.

Why Does God Allow Terrorist Attacks?

In the recent attack at Ft. Hood by Major Hasan, shouting "Allahu Akbar" as he shot fellow American soldiers, we are reminded of the attacks of September 11, 2001.  We all are reminded of the pain and suffering.  Many people begin to also ask the question, how can a good God exist if He lets these things happen to good people?  This is one of the biggest objections to Christianity that exists.  The argument is that if God really existed, he wouldn't let these things happen.  Essentially, if God existed then He would immediately eradicate all evil and bring heaven on Earth without delay.  Why would He let evil exist for even a moment?  These are good questions and they are difficult questions to answer.  However, there are answers.  It is difficult to get to the answers in the flood of emotions we experience when bad things happen to us or our family.

There was woman whose husband was in the hospital again for a chronic problem with his large intestine.  He had been in and out of the hospital for years now.  This time he had to go through another operation to remove more of his large intestine.  The difference was that this time the operation had gone on for 6 hours.  When she went to see him in intensive care he was worse than she had ever seen him.  The doctors had informed her that the operation was successful, but it wasn't without challenges.  He was lucky to be alive.  During all this time that he has been suffering from this malady, he has been trying to collect on his state disability insurance to help him while he could not work.  The insurance adjusters were denying his disability claim on some technical issues.  Now he is clearly disabled, why aren't they delivering on the promise of the insurance?  She thought about all these things as she looked at her husband lying in intensive care, lucky to have made it through alive.  She turns to the nurse outside the station and asks, "Is there anywhere I can go to scream?"  The nurse directed her to a room and they mused over the idea that every hospital ought to have a screaming room.  To be human is to wrestle with the reality of evil and suffering.  These things cause heightened emotions and we all cope in our own ways.  We are often flooded with questions of why.  We want answers, but they often elude us at the moment.   However, I'll try to answer the key question here.

Why Does God Allow Evil and Suffering To Exist?

Norman Geisler, a Christian philosopher, puts it this way in his book When Skeptics Ask, "To be free we had to have not only the opportunity to choose good, but also the ability to choose evil.  That was the risk God knowingly took."  Let me explain it this with an illustration.

There is a doll out on the market for women called the Mr. Wonderful doll.  He knows all the right things to say to make women feel good.  He is either 12" or 5" tall.  Whenever the woman who owns one wants to feel good, she can just push a button and hear statements like, "You know honey, why don't you just relax and let me make dinner tonight." Or "Here, you take the remote, as long as I'm with you, I don't care what we watch."  Here is another good one, "The ball game isn't really that important, I'd rather spend time with you."  As long as you keep the three AA batteries fresh he'll say something perfect when you push the button.  He never gets grumpy and he isn't selfish.  Those of us who are married can certainly understand why this doll sells.

God could have done the same thing with us.  We could be robots that just go around all day saying things like "You know God, the ball game isn't important, why don't I just read the Bible instead?" or "God you are holy and perfect, I will never disobey you."  If He had done this then there would be no evil because lying, racism, sexual abuse, and terrorism would not be part of how He programmed us.  But would a relationship with the Mr. Wonderful doll be satisfying?  What are the drawbacks of that kind of relationship?

God gave us free will because He loves us and wants a relationship with us, and yet we choose evil.  We are the ones who have created the world of pain and evil with our choices.  God grieves over our choices.  Our choices have created seemingly unrelated consequences such as natural disasters and bad things happening to innocent people.  Peter Senge wrote a series of books around his idea of "The Fifth Discipline" which is a business book about System Dynamics.  It is the concept of how a butterfly in Africa can cause a hurricane halfway across the world.  Senge relates this to business decisions.  If you understand this concept, you will begin to see how sin can ultimately result in natural disasters, deformed babies, and terrorism.  God allows it because He gave us the freedom to make our own choice to either love Him or not.

What Does the Qu’ran Say About Other Religions?

• Previous Posts:

• Why Does God Allow Terrorist Attacks?
• What Does the Qu’ran Say About Other Religions?
• What Do Muslims Really Believe About Jihad?
• How The Great GDP Hoax Is Stealing Your Wealth
• The Biblical Reasons For Working and Earning Money
• Turn Your Debt Problem Into A Solution
• The Truth About The Collectors Who Are Calling You
• The Most Common Financial Mistake We Make With Our Cars

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