I found my faith again at the beginning of 2020 after a long hiatus. I'm happy to have found your writings, they've been real eye/heart openers.
One question for me that has not yet been fully answered or at least not fully understood by me, is why do bad things happen to good people?
I "taught" a Sunday school on Job yesterday. More of a guided discussion, I like to go over scripture and get willing participants to discuss their thoughts.
We go wherever the Holy Spirit takes us.
Yet, I don't have the best answer to the question when posed by my oldest daughter and wife.
Why wouldn't they? There is no good person or good deeds exemption I'm aware of. If you teased that idea of goodness out far enough, we could do enough good deeds to earn eternal life. But we can't.
Nor is our own conception of goodness universally agreed-upon, or held by the creator. Because we know not the day or the hour, we do our best with our too-short time on this Earth.
True, but the harder question to answer is why suffering is required at all. I understand why MY suffering is beneficial to my learning. That I can put into words.
Why a child is born with a defect that causes them great pain and suffering and ultimately death is beyond my knowledge.
My workaround is simply that God created life to be imperfect. That sometimes terrible things happen and there's no one at fault.
I found my faith again at the beginning of 2020 after a long hiatus. I'm happy to have found your writings, they've been real eye/heart openers.
One question for me that has not yet been fully answered or at least not fully understood by me, is why do bad things happen to good people?
I "taught" a Sunday school on Job yesterday. More of a guided discussion, I like to go over scripture and get willing participants to discuss their thoughts.
We go wherever the Holy Spirit takes us.
Yet, I don't have the best answer to the question when posed by my oldest daughter and wife.
I don't know.
Suffering must be part of the plan?
I don't know.
Good essay as per usual.
Why wouldn't they? There is no good person or good deeds exemption I'm aware of. If you teased that idea of goodness out far enough, we could do enough good deeds to earn eternal life. But we can't.
Nor is our own conception of goodness universally agreed-upon, or held by the creator. Because we know not the day or the hour, we do our best with our too-short time on this Earth.
True, but the harder question to answer is why suffering is required at all. I understand why MY suffering is beneficial to my learning. That I can put into words.
Why a child is born with a defect that causes them great pain and suffering and ultimately death is beyond my knowledge.
My workaround is simply that God created life to be imperfect. That sometimes terrible things happen and there's no one at fault.
Exactly. Simply put, things happen and many have nothing to do with our ledger.