Why would a loving God allow the Trolley Square massacre?
Tough question.
I like many others, believe in a loving God. I believe that God loves all of his children equally and unconditionally. I also believe that God has a personal relationship with each of His children, and answers prayers and provides protection, guidance and Divine intervention. I believe that God has answered my prayers, on subjects from the trivial and mundane, to the most perplexing and important situations of my life. I believe that God has watched over me.
I also believe that man is free to choose his actions. In politics we call this liberty or free will, in Sunday School it is often referred to as “free agency”, but it’s the same concept. God gave each of us the freedom to be self determining beings. It’s a concept that the Declaration of Independence is founded upon. And it’s a big part of why I am a libertarian.
The pardox comes at the intersection of man’s free agency and the divine, loving intervention of God. If God loves all of us equally, why does He allow others to use their agency/liberty in ways that can harm an sometimes even kill His children? Why doesn’t He intervene? Why does it appear that He intervenes in some instances, but not others?
These are real questions without easy answers. We look forward to your thoughtful responses here on our blog and tonight on KVNU.
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Feb 13th 2007 • 22:02
by Me
No.
Feb 14th 2007 • 00:02
by Scott Stevenson
I, like many others do not believe in a God, loving or otherwise. Answered prayers are the result of confirmation bias and probabilities taken personally (basically the same principles that psychics rely on). When prayer “works” that means God answered them and when it doesn’t, well… God works in mysterious ways.
The Judeo-Christian God infringes on liberties and kills those that worship the wrong God, live in the wrong place, have sex the wrong way or have parents that do any of these. The idea that there is a God that cares about your liberties and free will and at the same time will allow little children to be swept into the ocean by a tsunami, commands Moses to kill infants and non-virgin female Midianites, but will help you find your car keys if you just pray, is astronomically ridiculous. This kind of God capriciously violates free agency all the time.
There is an appearance of divine intervention in the same way that psychics and horoscopes sometimes get things right (probabilities taken personally). Humans assign meaning to make sense of a senseless acts. There are sick, evil people in this world that will do sick and evil things (we can leave the discussion of the existence of good and evil without God for another time).
Scott Stevenson
Feb 14th 2007 • 00:02
by Bradley Ross
Many Latter-day Saints throughout the state recently read a lesson in Priesthood and Relief Society meetings based on statements from Spencer Kimball, a past president of the church. The lesson was titled “Tragedy or Destiny?” President Kimball said the following.
“Could the Lord have prevented these tragedies? The answer is, Yes. The Lord is omnipotent, with all power to control our lives, save us pain, prevent all accidents, drive all planes and cars, feed us, protect us, save us from labor, effort, sickness, even from death, if he will. But he will not.”
Later, he went on to say, “If all the sick for whom we pray were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the gospel, free agency, would be ended. No man would have to live by faith.
“If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be no evil—all would do good but not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency, only satanic controls.”
Trials are hard while we endure them and it can take many years of perspective to find appreciation. In the meantime, our hearts go out to those who are hurting today because of this and so many other tragedies around the globe.
Feb 14th 2007 • 16:02
by Reach Upward
It is also important to understand that if you accept an eternal and omnipotent God, death (even by violent means) may not be the worst thing that could happen to you. Tragic, evil, and horrible, yes. But from an eternal perspective it may not be the worst possible outcome.