Summary: "How can a good God allow human suffering?" "What father among you, if his son asks for a loaf of bread, will give him a stone; or if he asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts [gifts that are to their advantage] to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask and continue to ask Him!" (Luke 11:11-13, AMP) Human beings are capable of both “good” and “evil” deeds and actions. As a matter of our created nature, and as Orthodox theology would espouse, our fallen nature inherited through natural lineage from Adam and Eve and their sin and fall in the garden. Orthodox theology purports that this “fall” tainted ALL of creation with the sin of this transgression, thus allowing into creation the effects of evil and all the accompanying suffering. "The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of God. And if we are [His] children, then we are [His] heirs also: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ [sharing His inheritance with Him]; only we must share His suffering if we are to share His glory. [But what of that?] For I consider that the sufferings of this present time (this present life) are not worth being compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us and for us and conferred on us! For [even the whole] creation (all nature) waits expectantly and longs earnestly for God’s sons to be made known [waits for the revealing, the disclosing of their sonship]. For the creation (nature) was subjected to frailty (to futility, condemned to frustration), not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will of Him Who so subjected it—[yet] with the hope That nature (creation) itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption [and gain an entrance] into the glorious freedom of God’s children. We know that the whole creation [of irrational creatures] has been moaning together in the pains of labor until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves too, who have and enjoy the firstfruits of the [Holy] Spirit [a foretaste of the blissful things to come] groan inwardly as we wait for the redemption of our bodies [from sensuality and the grave, which will reveal] our adoption (our manifestation as God’s sons). " (Romans 8:16-23, AMP) It goes without question that creation is in one hell of a mess. We, humanity, are as much a part of that creation as any rock, tree, cesspool, mountain, ocean, planet, sun, star galaxy or universe. We are subject to the laws and material nature of manifested created reality. Genesis tells us that “God” created… ALL that is. It further tells us that “God” judged and condemned man and mankind for the transgression of one. And we are told that multiplying sin and transgression entered human history, thus compounding the judgments’ to follow and affecting human relations ever since. The effects are unarguable. History, regardless of the source bears out the dilemma humanity finds itself. The question we are faced with is: Is this “God” of creation, the God of judgment, the God of Law, the God of conquering and wiping out entire civilizations, Is this the God that Jesus eludes to as “Our Father in heaven”? Or is it possible that this “creator God”, the God of Israel, the God of the Pharisees, this is the God Jesus referred to as “your father, the devil”? "You are of your father, the devil, and it is your will to practice the lusts and gratify the desires [which are characteristic] of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a falsehood, he speaks what is natural to him, for he is a liar [himself] and the father of lies and of all that is false. " (John 8:44, AMP) Is it possible that the “God” Jesus came to re(continued)
