The Nature of God

Tomes have been written on the nature of God by highly learned men, which I have no intention of reading unless they turn out to be part of my purgatory.  It is Snowbrush wrestling with the contradictions of theism and atheism that has got me thinking about my own attempts to come to grips with things over the past 30 odd years.  In a number of his blogs, he has forced me to think through my own beliefs and I owe hm for that.  Him and all his readers who comment.  Now he is threatening to leave that topic so I better get busy and write.  I jotted a few things down in previous blogs WHO and WHO & HOW. And please keep in mind, this is the very finite trying to explain the infinite.

The gist of the argument is that if God is so good and loves his people so much how come he allows so much suferring in this world? I quote from Snowbrush's blog:
(1) If God is omniscient, he knows exactly where, when, and how much every creature suffers. (2) If God is omnibenevolent, he doesn’t want any creature to suffer. (3) If God is omnipotent, he has the power to eliminate suffering without eliminating any benefit that suffering might bring. 

Now the nature of God has always been described as omnipotent (all powerful) omniscient (all knowing) and omnipresent (big enough to fill the universe and small enough to fill my heart, as the song says).  I never anywhere heard of omnibenevolent but stand to be corrected (R-B?).

Yes, God knows exactly what is happening and what will happen to all His Creation and I expect it gives Him a great deal of pain to see His creatures suffer and yes, he could change all that "in the twinkling of an eye".  However, He is not going to do that.

We are taught that God has a plan for the redemption of His creation from its current sorry state of affairs.  And given that the earth is 3 to 4 billion years old and the universe much older than that, it is fair to say His planning horizons are not the 5 years in my business planning, nor the 50 years that the Japanese allegedly use, nor the 500 years the Chinese allegedly use in their political maneuverings.

As I understand it, God wants a people who will know Him for WHO He is and love and worship him OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL.  Doing everything for us is not going to help us grow up, nor is magically making us love Him going to be very satisfactory (A very crude comparison - and I know, I know, I 'm going to Hell - is using a date-rape drug vs old fashioned seduction).

So He leaves us to our own devices and so far we have pretty much mucked it up and it hasn't even begun to get really bad yet.  When you compound man's inhumanity to man with nature's inhumanity to man over a few millennia, you arrive at today. Bleah! But humans are not yet convinced they can't fix things themselves (liberals) or they have the upper hand in the game and don't want it fixed (conservatives).  At some point those who are left will come to their senses, realize that they need a power beyond themselves (how is it worded in AA?) and turn to God.

That is the tricky part as there is no end to the folks who assail us daily with the idea that THEY alone have the answers, that God has given them alone the wisdom to understand the Bible as the road map to Salvation and that the rest of us, in order to be saved should shut up and do what they say, unquestioningly. Sorting our way through that minefield is no easy task and no one is going to do it for us.

Please pass the hat.