I am not claiming to be the spiritual or
philosophical genius of all time. Also, I am not saying that I have the only answer to the most pondered question
in history. So, why am I even exploring this loaded query that, frankly,
everyone asks, at some point? What gives me the right?
No, I do not
have a huge ego. I’m just one of many individuals saddened by the increasing
number of people who refuse to believe in a god who allows tragedy in their lives and in the world. So, I want to
share some of my thoughts, as well as the thoughts of prominent individuals.
My
credentials: a lifetime of first-hand experience and research on the subject of
man’s inhumanity to man.
Why do bad Things Happen?
Why is life
unfair? If there is a higher power, why does he let us suffer? Why doesn’t he
intervene? To my way of thinking, one of the main answers to this all-important
query can be summed up in two words: free will. In brief, humans are given the sacred right to choose, and we don’t always make
the best choices.
Quotes on Free Will
“Good people will do good things, lots
of them, because they are good people. They will do bad things because they are
human.”—Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life
That Matters: Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success
************
“According to most philosophers, God
in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He
set it free. God had written, not so much a poem but rather a play; a play he
had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and
stage managers, who had since made a great mess of it.” –G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
************
“I’m convinced that most men don’t
know what they believe, rather, they only know what they wish to believe. How
many people blame God for man’s atrocities, but wouldn’t dream of imprisoning a
mother for her son’s crime?”—Criss Jami, Killosophy
************
“God isn’t about making good things
happen to you, or bad things happen to you. He’s all about you making
choices—exercising the gift of free will.”—Jim Butcher
***********
“You
cannot hinder someone’s free will, that’s the first law of the Universe, no
matter what the decision.”—E.A. Bacchiaveri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly
************
“God
created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go wrong
or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had
no possibility of going wrong, but I can’t. If a thing is free to be good it’s also free to be bad. And free will
is what makes evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will?
Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that
makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.”—C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity
The Bible
References
to free will begin early in the scriptures. It starts in Genesis, chapter two,
when Adam and Eve make the choice to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and
evil--against God’s express command.
They were
not stopped from eating. They just had to suffer the consequences of their
choice.
“The steps of a good man are ordered
by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way.”—Psalm 37:23
My Conclusion
I don’t
believe in a divine puppet master. I believe in a divine being who has to allow
us to create our own blunders and successes, just as we must let our children
make their own decisions--when appropriate.
We are given
the inalienable right to choose
every thought and action. I don’t think that’s been negotiable since the world
began. Sometimes, we make wise decisions, and sometimes we don’t.
I cannot end
this article without pointing out an important fact: While we have the right to
decide our actions, we are not able to choose the consequences of those
actions. We reap what we sow; that’s a law of the universe.
Please see more about people exercising their right to choose in my
book, Accept No Trash Talk:
Overcoming the Odds.
Related Posts
Do you hold free will sacred?
