Why Bad Things Happen to Good People
Jesse2016
There’s a lot of talk about karma and how good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people but the Bible clearly gives two examples of men who were righteous but had bad things happen to them as part of God’s overall plan.
The first man was called Joseph and he was one of the favourite sons of his father Jacob. His brothers were really jealous of Joseph and one day decided to sell him off to a caravan heading to Egypt. There Joseph was a slave but he eventually was promoted to head of the master’s household because he was so successful. But again tragedy struck as Joseph was falsely accused of trying to have sex with his master’s wife. He was thrown in prison and even there he was successful and was put in charge of all the prisoners. Joseph got out of prison when he correctly interpreted the dream of a cupbearer who later suggested to Pharaoh that Joseph should interpret his dream for him. The dream predicted the coming of seven years of prosperity and seven years of famine after that and because Joseph correctly interpreted Pharaoh’s dream he was put in second in command in all Egypt and was in charge of storing up food for the famine years. Ultimately Joseph’s family was saved from the famine when they were able to buy food from Egypt and the whole family moved to Egypt and stayed there for many years. Therefore Joseph’s hardships were planned by God in order to save the lives of many by storing up food to last the famine years.
The second man was called Job and he was an extremely righteous and extremely wealthy man who helped the poor, widowed and fatherless. Satan challenged God saying that Job was only righteous because God had blessed him so much, so God allowed Satan to take away all that Job had (all his livestock and even his children). God even allowed Satan to strike Job with painful sores all over his body. Even through all these hardships, Job stayed righteous and never accused God even though all these bad things were happening to him. Job 1:20-22 says “At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and sai😛
Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.” In the end, after proving Job was obedient even without all his prosperity, God gave Job twice as much as he had before and he lived a very long and prosperous life.
Therefore, both these examples show that even good people may suffer hardship and it’s all part of God’s plan whether it was to save people from famine in Joseph’s case, or because God wanted to be glorified by proving Satan wrong as in Job’s case. Also, it’s possible that God may be disciplining people in order to get them to repent of some wrongdoing. Heb 12:7 says “Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?” So whatever the reason, we shouldn’t get panicky when hardship comes but realize it’s all in good hands.
Comments
You demonstrate and prove this point extremely well: billions of innocents have been murdered by God as part of his divine plan, in which our only purpose is to grovel and glorify Him. I am not sure why I should respect such a God. Powerful It is: good It is not. You have made these points repeatedly in each of your articles so I hesitate to underline further. I appreciate these were not the points you wished to make. Insisting upon the literal truth of a poem can lead to such difficulties.
Continue; bon courage.
One of the hardest circles to square for religion is actually a bit of a triangle. Essentially it asks how it's possible for god to be all three of these:
- all knowing;
- all powerful;
- all good.
I have a feeling that nobody has been able to successfully explain this to you, oliver. Not surprising - it's very hard to do. Answers often hinges on the all knowing part in that we are not and therefore we simply cannot understand god's plan.
It might not be an answer that satisfies you (or me) but it's about as good an answer as we're likely going to get.
I see what you mean Oliver, but you have made one mistake. You assume that the billions allowed to be murdered by God were innocent when in fact the Bible states that everyone has sinned and is deserving of death (Rom 3:23). The thing is, God doesn't need to save anyone, because he is a just God and justice says we should all die for our sins. But God had mercy on some people and gives us a second chance to be saved. If God didn't let anyone die, he wouldn't be just because there would be no consequence for sin, which would mean people could sin all they want and not be afraid of dying. Obviously that sort of justice system would not work.
Enter a children's hospital for proof that a loving god does not exist.
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I still don't understand why an omni-everything God would need mortal, fallible creatures to glorify Him/Her/It.
It's so complicated to allow for human imperfection to exist in contrast to an image of ideal perfection, and then run it through a mechanism of punishment and rewards to rectify that imbalance. Does Judeo-Christian theology have an answer for the purpose behind this whole process other than it is God's will? It's about more than collecting good human souls, right?
Chochi seems to suggest that we don't have the ability to understand that answer, but we are given ways to behave as good followers in the middle process of that grand design and a key part of that is trusting in the One who makes those rules and has created the testing ground. Okay, maybe part of the test is not knowing why there has to be a test.
So much I just don't understand.
First of all humans while mortal on earth have an eternal existence, whether that's eternal life or eternal punishment. Therefore, Christians in heaven will forever glorify God which is a big deal.
As for why imperfect humans were created imperfect; I think that if everyone was created perfect, there would be no free-will, no choice to obey God freely but only a robot-like obedience that doesn't mean as much as someone who freely chooses to obey God even though they don't have to. But that's just my thoughts, I'm not quite sure myself but I guess we'll find out when we die just exactly why it is.
Yes, it does make sense that free will and choice would be hindered if everything in life and all people were somehow perfect. We wouldn't even make small mistakes like stubbing our toe, let alone big ones like causing catastrophic changes to the global environment.
It seems 'obedience on earth' and 'glory in heaven' will just have to be the limits of our understanding about why God chose to have a physical universe coupled with a spiritual dimension. It's not really apparent why that framework was chosen or what its ultimate purpose could be (it goes on forever?, it ends when a certain number of souls enter heaven? it has no other purpose/end except to reinforce God's absolute knowledge that He is the greatest thing around?) yet we are assured of our middling role in it.
If I believed God were a person with certain needs, then I could accept some version of this narrative. Yet it just doesn't make sense to me why a god of this sort of magnitude would have any interests or needs in this odd little experiment in life.
Hey Jesse, I should have said thanks last post for replying to my earlier message. Then I went and posted much the same question and observations in the follow-up, so there's no need for you respond to them again as I did not add anything new to the discussion.
The amount of effort required to convince a skeptic that there even exists a god, and that this god is a just god, and that this god is the de facto Judeo-Christian God would eat up a considerable amount of our time. This article series has been good for stirring up thoughts, which I would suppose is a good thing in itself. Feels like a repeat of metaphysics/ontology class ~ what a brainbuster that course was.
Religion is a great litmus test for the totally gullible