Natural Evil

[Angrboda]

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."

— Susan B. Anthony

The suggestion here that God's actions should not be judged because God's reasons are unknowable runs into issues in much the same way that agnosticism does, making a knowledge claim that knowledge of God is not possible. If I look at the engine of my car, knowing what it ultimately does, I can certainly claim, justifiably, that I don't know how it works. However, if you bring me to an automobile with a closed hood, I can't rightly say whether I do or do not understand its motive power, as I lack the knowledge to make that determination. (And Job raises as many questions as it answers, literally — see excerpts below. The interpretation of God's soliloquy is problematic on many levels, from it being a largely Socratic dialog, from the text itself, from the question of literalism versus hermeneutics, to the fact that the story of Job was likely borrowed from other cultures).

And despite one attempt, the question of what is a baby has gone unanswered. Perhaps the question is better phrased as when does a baby stop being a baby such that it no longer receives a pass on God's judgement? 12 months? 18 months? 3-1/2 years? 60 years? And note that if you answer when the baby or child is old enough to understand X or Y, you've just pushed the question back one level — to when does a human possess sufficient understanding of X/Y to receive judgement. And this is one side of the problem of death overall. A person's ability to change from the guilty to the saved can occur at basically any point in life. And as Chad Wooters suggests, God is in full control, so God may not only be depriving you of life, but also eternal happiness as well. Does it make sense to put any limit on one's moral experiment? If God is omniscient, it would make sense to me to extend one's "projected acts" to infinity, as we do in mathematics when trying to characterize a function whose behavior may wander all over the graph initially, yet ultimately converge on a specific value or behavior. (The question of monotonic periodicity arises here, people who alternate between being saved and not being saved in regular cycles — how do you judge that individual if you are God?) This also omits the fact that death affects the living as much as the dead. How do you judge me less deserving of salvation because, on account of naturally caused suffering, I turned away from God? Wasn't He in control of the cause of my turning away?

Job, New International Version, declarative excerpts only. (I've omitted passages that are in the interrogative as interpreting their meaning requires interpretation which by its nature is highly subjective.)

Job 38

14 The earth takes shape like clay under a seal;
its features stand out like those of a garment.
15 The wicked are denied their light,
and their upraised arm is broken.

Job 39

3 They crouch down and bring forth their young;
their labor pains are ended.
4 Their young thrive and grow strong in the wilds;
they leave and do not return.
5 “Who let the wild donkey go free?
Who untied its ropes?
6 I gave it the wasteland as its home,
the salt flats as its habitat.
7 It laughs at the commotion in the town;
it does not hear a driver’s shout.
8 It ranges the hills for its pasture
and searches for any green thing.

13 The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully,
though they cannot compare
with the wings and feathers of the stork.
14 She lays her eggs on the ground
and lets them warm in the sand,
15 unmindful that a foot may crush them,
that some wild animal may trample them.
16 She treats her young harshly, as if they were not hers;
she cares not that her labor was in vain,
17 for God did not endow her with wisdom
or give her a share of good sense.
18 Yet when she spreads her feathers to run,
she laughs at horse and rider.

19 “Do you give the horse its strength
or clothe its neck with a flowing mane?
20 Do you make it leap like a locust,
striking terror with its proud snorting?
21 It paws fiercely, rejoicing in its strength,
and charges into the fray.
22 It laughs at fear, afraid of nothing;
it does not shy away from the sword.
23 The quiver rattles against its side,
along with the flashing spear and lance.
24 In frenzied excitement it eats up the ground;
it cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds.
25 At the blast of the trumpet it snorts, ‘Aha!’
It catches the scent of battle from afar,
the shout of commanders and the battle cry.

26 “Does the hawk take flight by your wisdom
and spread its wings toward the south?
27 Does the eagle soar at your command
and build its nest on high?
28 It dwells on a cliff and stays there at night;
a rocky crag is its stronghold.
29 From there it looks for food;
its eyes detect it from afar.
30 Its young ones feast on blood,
and where the slain are, there it is.”


Now that we have the text before us, please show where God is claiming that his moral judgements are beyond our ken. (And keep in mind that doing so contradicts Genesis 3:21-23 [And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil." - NIV]) Moreover, If I recall correctly, properly translated, the story of the Fall in Genesis says that if we had eaten of the tree of life also, we would have been as Gods.