An analogy to understand God's view toward evil

I've written before in this blog explaining that God simply will not personally intervene to stop humans from performing evil against each other, whether it is individual "person on person" evil, or the most vile acts, such as the Shoah of World War II. Whenever one tries to understand God and his ways, and tries, from the perspective of an imperfect and flawed human being, to understand God, who is perfection himself, one has to approach such understanding both in layers and also from a number of perspectives. Whenever I think of a good one I have blogged it here. For example, I explained that God will not reach down and save every person who drives drunk and hurts someone because if God interferes with the natural law that he established (natural law being that if something big, heavy or pointed strikes a weaker object, such as a human in a car crash, that matter and energy may result in death or injury), humans will very quickly be unable to survive in the world. They will lose their ability to reason their way through things such as building safe autos, teaching good and safe driving, developing addictions programs, weighing punishment alternatives, and being able to better treat such injuries. If God reached down every time a drunk driver killed someone, and God brought the victim back to life, how in the world would humans function in a world that still operates according to the reality of physics, chemistry, biology and mechanics? So I have blogged that one perspective about why God "allows" evil.

Tonight I have thought of another helpful analogy.

Whenever one is tempted to think "Why did God allow a certain bad thing to happen to another person" (and here, since we are speaking of evil, I mean a bad thing where someone bad harms someone else, not a natural calamity, for example), before one can answer that question, first one must have more of a perspective that reflects God as he really is.

Think of a person's entire life, such as your own, from birth to death as being a single drop of water. Now, visualize that drop of water compared to all of the water that fills the oceans and other bodies of free flowing, frozen, or atmospheric water on earth. It is mind boggling to think of a drop of water "next to" all of the water that exists on earth.

That, brethren, is a suitable analogy, even though it is not grand enough, to describe the difference between a person's time in mortal life (being alive in their material body) and the time that a person spends in eternity after death (either heaven or hell, both of which are absolutely real).

Thus, the drop of water is like one's time while one is alive, and the rest of the water on earth is like one's time as the soul continuing on after death in either God's presence (heaven) or not (which is hell).

God's "priority" then, if you think of God as having priorities, is the saving of souls, since the soul lives on for all eternity, which is immense beyond human understanding, and the soul is either in saved, rewarded bliss in heaven, or in the unbearable pain, torment and total exile from God, which is hell.

Thus, no matter how vile someone is toward another person, either individually or collectively, any vile action is still only a part of that single droplet of water.

Humans MUST learn to manage their own ability to find goodness, under God's direction, within that drop of water. It's not that God does not care or feel the pain and sting of injustice for each and every one of his human children because, as scripture, most particularly the Gospel of Jesus Christ shows, God most certainly does love the person who is suffering, knows their pain, and feels huge wrath toward the evil doer.

But God wants humans to understand what they must understand, which is how to keep perspective and proportionality of how small a life span really is compared to eternity. People need to understand that what they do on earth, during that tiny droplet of water of time, results in either eternal reward and comfort, or eternal chastisement and damnation.

So it is not a matter of an innocent person suffering when something evil is done to them by someone else, for those events occur within the droplet of water. However, the sufferer, if he or she continues to hold close to God, knows that eternity in his presence will be theirs one day. And the evil doer, likewise, must understand that no matter how small or large the evil, that deed is a most certain risk that they will spend eternity in the total torment of hell.

That is how one must understand the Beatitudes, spoken by Jesus as he preached. Think about specifically:

Matthew 5:10

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousnesses' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Many people make the easy mistake of thinking that Jesus mean persecution for the faith, in other words, those who are persecuted and harmed for being Christians. Thus people sometimes gloss over this beatitude thinking that it refers to martyrs and persecuted faithful. Yes, Jesus refers often to those who are reviled who belief in him (and in 5:11 he compares those who are persecuted for their faith with the prophets, most of whom were persecuted, who went before). But do not miss a key phrase "for righteousness' sake."

If Jesus meant only martyrs, he would not have said "for righteousnesses' sake," since being "persecuted" is quite clear in its meaning that the persecuted are those who suffer at the hands of evil-doers because of their faith.

No, Jesus is actually extending the meaning of the persecuted to mean not just those who are persecuted for their faith, but those who have wrongness inflicted on them, unrighteousness meted out to them. Righteous people are not just those of the greatest piety and faith. Righteous people are those who do the right thing, who treat people correctly and kindly, and who obey secular and moral laws. Thus, who persecutes the righteous? Those who are unrighteous, which means evil wrong-doers. Thus this Beatitude means that those who suffer as others inflict wrongs upon them, are given "the kingdom of heaven." It is not only the martyrs and those persecuted for the faith who can, according to Jesus, consider the kingdom of heaven "theirs," but all who suffer for the sake of righteousness: of those who continue to be righteous when unrighteousness and wrongs are poured down upon them.

This Beatitude, therefore, must be understood as not only comforting but also specifically referring to the kingdom of heaven as "theirs," to those who suffer through perhaps a really bad event done to them by a criminal or cruel person, to those who suffer martyrdom for the faith, to those who suffer on a grand scale, such as in a genocide. This Beatitude comforts the person who is deliberately impoverished by a robber baron and oppressor, for example, as much as it comforted a saint who went to his or her martyrdom, to those who went to their death in the Shoah. This Beatitude explains that all who cling to righteousness, as they suffer life events, whether the routine sufferings of life when one is afflicted by a wrongdoing, or the extraordinary evil that erupts periodically, can be assured that "theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

This, then, is one way you can better understand God's bigger "picture" and his bigger "plan." Individual human-on-human acts of wrongdoing and evil are of the greatest concern to him, but not in the way that a human, who is by definition living within the droplet of water time frame, may think God is focusing. God has established an unchanging ordering to the matters of heaven and earth whereby unrepentant evil doers (great and small) are not saved and wind up in hell for all eternity, while those who clung to righteousness even as they suffered are given as "theirs" the kingdom of heaven.

This is not to say that one is helpless in all circumstances of being the victim of evil, and that God will never intervene or that the Holy Spirit does not move to try to aid the victim and convert the heart of the tormentor. But I thought that this analogy of the water droplet, combined with a commentary and explanation of the Beatitude to enlighten the reader of God's "viewpoint" would be an important foundation as to why God does not seem to be as totally in the moment of an innocent person's suffering at the hands of evil doers as one might expect or hope. The real tragedy is that humans have stopped a large part of their own evil behavior regulation as they stopped understanding that hell and eternity are very real and inevitable consequences of continual and unrepentant evil doing.

Paul describes well the two types of righteousness. There is the righteousness of the faith (which is what most people think of when they read that word in the scriptures) but there is also the righteousness of doing the right thing versus wrong doing, including in secular matters. Remember that much of the Law given by God through Moses to the Israelites dealt with secular matters, such as how to treat people justly, settle disputes, provide wages and so forth. So read this and understand how Paul is referring to the righteousness of faith, but also the righteousness of routine deeds in life (which was given to the Jews under the law).

Romans 10:5-6

For Moses described the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which does those things shall live by them.

But the righteousness which is of faith speaks on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above).

Here Paul is not trying to explain the distinction that I point out here, since this passage of his concerns the difference between obeying what God has said to do (both in religious rites and in righteous living, including secular matters) and having righteousness of faith which, for these early Christians that he is addressing, focuses on belief in Jesus Christ and that he was raised by God from the dead.

So I include this so you can see scriptural foundation for what I am explaining, which is when Jesus Christ used the phrase "for righteousnesses' sake," he would say so knowing that the audience would understand that righteousness meant not just righteous faith before God but also righteous living, in both a faith based and a secular way.

I hope that this has given you another aspect of how to view with better perspective God's insistence that humans regulate within what he has given to them their own good behavior (being righteous and avoiding wrongdoing and evil), and that God's emphasis, for lack of a better word, is to remember that life is such an infinitesimally small portion of the eternal life, in either bliss or punishment, that each soul exists throughout and beyond the end of time. God simply will not intervene in 99 percent of the human-on-human evil doing, but God most certainly renders perfect and inevitable judgment and dispensation to either heaven or hell as a result of those deeds.

Another really good Qur'an commentary

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=5&section=0&article=113545&d=30&m=8&y=2008&pix=islam.jpg&category=Islam


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In the name of God, the Lord of Grace, the Ever Merciful
As for the unbelievers, the fire of hell awaits them. No term shall be determined for them so that they could die, nor shall its suffering be reduced for them. Thus shall We requite all unbelievers. There they will cry aloud: ‘Our Lord! Let us out and we will do good, not like what we did before.’ ‘Have We not given you lives long enough for anyone who would be warned to take warning? And a warner had come to you. Taste it, then. Wrongdoers shall have none to support them.’ God knows all that is hidden in the heavens and earth; He fully knows what is in people’s hearts.
It is He who made you inherit the earth. Hence, anyone who denies the truth will bear the consequences of his unbelief. In denying Him the unbelievers will have nothing but an increase of their loathsomeness in God’s sight; and in denying Him the unbelievers will only add to their loss.
(The Originator, Fatir, 35: 36-39)

snip

“God knows all that is hidden in the heavens and earth; He fully knows what is in people’s hearts.”
It is God who knows everything in the universe and what is in people’s hearts. On the basis of His knowledge, He judges all matters.

snip

The surah concludes with a warning that should strike fear in people’s hearts. It tells them that if God were to punish people immediately for what they incur, no one would remain on the face of the earth. It behoves us then, to acknowledge God’s grace in allowing us time to reflect and consider our position.

"White magic" abuse of my family, one example

Here is a personal example of what I just wrote about, the damage and grave sin of so called “psychics” sending “white magic” dreams of “comfort” or otherwise.

Many years ago my mother told me that she “received” “visits” from her deceased husband-my father- that were “comforting” as in explicitly erotic and also sometimes “angry” where he would “yell at her.” Of course I knew immediately that these are not authentic. But since my mother seeks spiritual direction from no one, least of all me, I just listened and tried to be neutral. Oh, and she would also be “led” to look out the window and “see his star.” Yikes.

My conclusion for many years was that she was unconsciously plugged into the psychic filth that humanity has rolled in for decades now. There is such arrogant spiritual inflation “everyone is important, spiritual, and the center of the universe, woo hoo, with the moon rotating around their ass,” that I figured she was inadvertently plugged into that global disease. It apparently stopped after some years of going on.

Later, of course, I learned about the filthy pig whore and pimp cultist prostitute harlots who have been stalking my family with their filth about reincarnation and other diabolical putrid “beliefs.” It then clicked to me that the dirty pimps were getting their rocks off with my mother, psychically, and rationalizing that they (and I want to vomit as I type this) are “reincarnated” of either my dad or others “entitled to intimacy,” to put it politely. The fact that my mother has been used and abused in this way means that whatever dreadful secular things she has done will be canceled out by the Lord, and punishment she would have received will be added on to the filth sins of the occultists who abused her.

So I thought I’d share with my readers my full awareness and realization of what has been going on. Oh, and don’t forget, God knows and judges everything all along. I sure don’t need to know in order for HIM to know.

And for those perverts so interested in my dad. He’s in heaven, he’s not in communication with anyone alive, and he’s actually in a very “low key” role in heaven, entirely to his personality and satisfaction. He certainly is not fantasizing about sticking it into my mother, or yelling at her. And neither is anyone else in heaven because as I’ve repeatedly admonished you, the dead remain dead in their place of repose (heaven) or eternal punishment (thrust in hell). My dad’s in a very low key part of heaven and doing just fine, “Thanks ever so much for your interest,” now sod off and get on your knees and pray that you can still save yourselves from the cultist filth.

Wrap up of stalking discussion

It's such a sad and pathetic waste. The world truly is in dire and grave trouble, and seems to lack the will or intelligence to get out of it. And they've made a persecuted enemy out of me, the best friend they ever had, beside Jesus Christ himself, or will ever have the opportunity to ignore and hurt again.

So I have been aware of hundreds of examples and instances of stalking and manipulating my human life based on the sick and insane cultists and their drunken and drugged money and power grubbing antics. I just gave four examples (promised three but gave an extra since it was such an interesting one) in order to demonstrate once again that not only does God know absolutely everything that happens, is planned by humans, or even intended or thought about by them, but I was not exactly out of the loop either.

So who is stupid now? In the Lord of the Rings, Gollum is not so interested in the fish he caught in the pool when he hears that it will cost him his life, but for the mercy of Faramir. Stealing isn't as brilliant and clever when one finds one has traded away salvation, not only for yourself, but for your entourage and followers.