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PERSONAL FROM
WhyGod
Permits
Human Suffering
L
OOK
at the world toda
y !
\Va r, fami ne, pestilence! Poverty,
inequality, hunger, want! Sickness, disease,
suffe ring, death! Crime, graft, dishonesty,
corruption! Insanity, degeneration, decay!
Unhappiness, fea r, wretchedness and woe!
How,
so many are asking, can a supreme,
a ll-powerfu l God of
LOVE
permit it?
WHY is he pcrmitting civilization itself to
crumble?
Sorne are saying, "God isn't fair!"-or
"ls
there a
God, after all?" But what do you suppose men would
say if God took away their r ight to think and do as they
please? For God could never stop this awful carnage
without FORCJNG men to act according to hjs
will--denying them a free will of their own!
lt
is
men's ways,
so contrary to God's ways, that
have brought this unhappy state. And they have
brought on all the world's sorrows and anguish
in
spite of
thc pleadings of God. He says, "Your ways
'are not my ways."
God's ways, had they beco followed, would have
led inevitably to peace, happiness, prosper ity and joy.
God revealed to the first humans his ways. He
pleaded with the human family.
Suppose God had taken the only alternative.
Suppose he had FORCED men, against their wills, to
have lived accordi ng to his laws?
Can't you almost hear the defiant, rebellious,
May 1984
s t iff-necked human race indignantly screaming at the
Almighty, "You can't cram your religion clown
my
throat!" For it
is
a matter of religion. Can't we see
that, had God followed that course, more than ever
meo would have shouted, "Goo ISN'T FAIR!"
For near ly 6,000 years meo have lived in defiance
of God's laws. Had God denied them this right to be
wrong, meo would have accused God of injustice,
demanding frcedom to follow their own ways.
God's plan has for its purpose the creating of
perfect CHARACTER in beings who are separate
entities from God yet members of the very family of
God. Character cannot be created automatically by
fiat-it must be developed through
experience!
Nor could character be insti lled without free
moral agency. To achieve this great purpose- that of
producing the supreme pinnacle of all God's
creation, sons of God having perfect character, man
has to be
convinced,
of his own free wiJI, that God's
laws are JUST, and that his ways are the only right
ways for man! Man must turn to them, voluntarily!
T his Jesson could be Jearned
only by
EXPERIENCE!
In the beginning, Satan appeared to contest the
wisdom of God's law. T his law is, simply, LOVE for
God and !ove for neighbor, as defined in the
10
broad pri ncipies of the Ten Commandments. A
fu ndamental, spiritual, eterna! law. T he philosophy
Christ taught is that it is more blessed to GIVE than
to reccive. But Satan argued for the GETTING way.
Competition, he argued, is the lifeblood of activity.
Self-desire provides incentive to endeavor. Vanity
spurs to action. And so, in Satan's philosophy,
self-desire, competition, strife, provide tbe
root-principle for accompl ishment. The way of
GETTING is the way to progress and advancement.
Had not God permitted this selfisb way to be
tried, testcd and dcmonstrated, God's creatures
could argue throughout eternity tbat they bad bcen
denied the better way.
And so God turned over to Satan six days of ONE
WEEK, consisting of six one-thousand year days,
in
which to
demonstrate
the falsity of this way-the
way of grced.
During this 6,000 years Satan was per rnitted to
retain DOMJNJON over all the earth. "Six days," God
said, "thou shalt labour, and do all thy work"- his
work of deception and
(Continued on page 39)