Tuesday, June 24, 2014

CHOICE

Here's the next question about evil and suffering in the world today ...

Do you believe it's possible to have free choice and not have any suffering?

Because that really is the point of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis 3.  It represents human decision to either do what is right or what is wrong.  It's either my way or it's God's way.  Those are the choices.  'I'm not taking my orders from You.  I'll do what I well please.'  That particular choice faces every human on a very routine basis.

Remember when you've had a family or friend argument and your response was to leave the room and go pout?  And you knew the quickest way to forgiveness and relational health was to get up, go back there and apologize.  But would you?

No.  You sat somewhere stewing and wallowing in it and replaying it and getting angrier and angrier.  'I'm not going out there to say I was wrong,' even though you knew you were -- even though you knew the quickest route to happiness and healing was to march back over there and put an end to it.  You knew exactly what to do, but would you do it?

What was happening right there?  You were making the personal free will choice to prioritize your independence above the happiness of your family or friend.  You were taking the position to refuse to submit to someone other than yourself.

Look at it this way.  For me to have free choice means I can do whatever I want to without repercussion.  So I can just decide to go over and slap my friend.  But in order for God to stop my friend from suffering, He'd have to stop me from exercising my free personal will choice to do it to him.  God would have to stop me from doing something I had decided I wanted to do in order for my friend not to suffer.

See?

Or ... last year in the United States there were over 35,000 traffic fatalities.  Many more people were incapacitated or seriously injured by accidents all caused by free will choices made by people like you and me, deciding how much they'd drink before getting behind the wheel of a car -- deciding how fast they'd step on the accelerator -- loads of pain and suffering, all casualties of free will choices.

For all that suffering to go away, God would have to wipe out our personal free choice.  He'd have to stop you and me from choosing what we do when we
get in a car.

Why doesn't God stop all that, particularly when He knows it's going to cause pain, hurt, suffering -- even death?

Because for those things not to happen, God would have to remove the perpetrator's free choice -- and with the removal of his free choice, by the way, the removal of the ability to make a free choice to ever love or give his life to Christ -- because those are also free will decisions.

The only way it would be possible to have free choice without any suffering is if you and I - every single time - chose to do what was in the best interest of everyone else rather than the best interest of ourselves ---- which incidentally, is what Jesus said was the sum idea of the Gospel in the first place:  "Love your neighbor as yourself."

And with that, the Gospel comes full circle - that the only way to have a suffering free world with free choice is if we all followed the path of God 24/7.

And be blessed.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

In a quick reading of this post, may I say that you are revealing more about 'your' way of handling conflict. For me, I am quick to apologize. Even if I am not quite sure if I am wrong. I hate disagreements. Too many when I was growing up, so there you have it.

I know, without a doubt, that I would have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge. I am incessantly curious. It is my nature and the best thing in my life, as it makes it so much broader.

There are plenty of things I wish to talk about here, but I will later. Once I contemplate it all.

Anonymous said...

Does God allow what is best for eternity, His Kingdom, not necessarily what we think might be best?

PK's BLOG said...

Lol. I wasn't talking about MY way of handling conflict but how many often handle it including at times, both you and me. Nice bait. I didn't bite.