Re: Going back...

Russell Stewart (diamond@rt66.com)
Mon, 30 Jun 1997 11:24:53 -0600

At 12:08 PM 6/30/97 -0400, Gene wrote:
>According to Pim van Meurs:
>
>Talking about fighting against sin and evil in one's own life.
>
>> Gene: Perhaps it is because we *need* the battles, the experience of
>> fighting
>> and losing against sin, to teach us something important.
>>
>> Perhaps but it surely appears to be an uncaring god who allows his people
>> to suffer when suffering is not necessary.
>
>I was trying to point out how it is thought to be necessary in the
>Christian conception of the world. Suffering in this instance would be
>necessary because it would teach us, by experience, something we would not
>otherwise know. It is similar to laboratory work: I can explain things
>to students, and they can grasp it intellectually, but this sort of
>knowledge is not the same as actually doing the experiment yourself. A
>*fuller* knowledge necessitates experience, sometimes *lots* of it.

I have to say that I understand what Gene's saying here. I don't believe
in God, but I do believe that people learn a hundred times more from their
own mistakes and failures than they could from just about anything else. I
don't think it's fair to say that it would be cruel and uncaring for God
to let humanity suffer if there were to be something to be gained from that
suffering.

That having been said, however, this leads us to something that is a matter
of personal interpretation. Has mankind failed and suffered so much because
there is no God, or because God is simply standing back and letting us make
our mistakes for us? Either interpretation can fit the evidence, and neither
can be logically proven.

_____________________________________________________________
| Russell Stewart |
| http://www.rt66.com/diamond/ |
|_____________________________________________________________|
| Albuquerque, New Mexico | diamond@rt66.com |
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Tautology
(n) See truism.

Truism
(n) See tautology.