Assume there is no God: then this world, and happiness in it, is extremely important. Indeed, it is all there is. So it is a great tragedy whenever anyone does not have a long and happy life here. The death of a child, or a painful life in a third-world country, is an unimaginable tragedy, which nothing can mitigate.
If you have seen your own grandchild killed by a car, or have traveled in poor countries and have seen the misery of people starving slowly to death, your own sense of justice demands that there be more to life than the vale of tears we experience in this life. It is just not fair that the only life a small girl knows should end almost before it is begun, in an agony of injuries. It is just not fair that so many millions of people be born into circumstances that they have no control over, and that condemn them to unimaginable suffering every day of their lives.
Are we ready to say that this beautiful universe, which is so incredibly orderly, is also diabolically unfair? That would make us only a great cosmic joke. That is not acceptable.
Our sense of justice demands that these wrongs be righted. But by whom? Not by us, that's impossible: only by a Supreme Being.
We have a conscience that lets us know right from wrong. Yet in this world, the people who do not follow this guide and commit murder and cheat and steal and lie and are selfish and mean are often the ones who are the most successful. Honest, good people living quiet lives of loving and charity often have horrible illnesses, or lose loved ones, or are born into abject poverty. Our sense of justice tells us that there will be, there must be a future time of accounting, when the books will be balanced and the inequities of this world will be resolved. Yet with no God, no Divine Justice, this is impossible.
Many of our readers ask: how can there be a God if He allows children to be raped and murdered? We ask: how can there not be a God, in a world where this in fact happens? It is only His Divine justice that can right this wrong. It is only a God with infinite power that could bring any good out of this unspeakable evil.
2006-07-05
12:28:07
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23 answers
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asked by
Anonymous
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Religion & Spirituality