what am I missing here?

[franksolich]

I just got done reading Sod and Stubble (John Ise, 1936, Wilson-Erickson, Inc.), some personal reminescences of homesteading in northwestern Kansas circa 1870-1900, and therein is related a conversation between a farmwife and her two guests, a circuit preacher and the circuit preacher's wife.

The farmwife wished to create some mischief, and made the standard usual routine run-of-the-mill observations such as what a primitive might make today--about how if there is a God, why is there so much suffering?  If God is good, why is there so much suffering?

The usual blah-blah questions such as what a primitive might make today.

The circuit preacher's wife responded that bad things happen because it's the Will of God.

The circuit preacher himself responded that the ways of God are mysterious to man, and it is good that it is so.

Whoa.

If I am interpreting Genesis correctly, when man decided he could be God and was expelled from the Garden of Eden, or some place like that, God said, "Okay, you think you're God, you think you can know and understand all things"--and thus, the first sin was that of pride, arrogance--"and if you think this way, I'm going to let you try to run the world, keeping My Hands out of it, to see if you can run it any better."

And so the lifelong perception of God, Who watches us as if we're all on television; just watches us, without getting involved, or interfering in anything.

Of course God has a Will, but it appears God voluntarily allows God's Will to be thwarted by man, as the know-it-alls, the rationalists, the reasoners, the scientifics, the technocrats, the totalitarianists, the socialists, the Democrats, the liberals, the primitives, clumsily attempt to run things so as to turn this time and place into a paradise.

And we all know how well that's been working out.

I've had this impression since I was a little lad, and it was reinforced by the Italian author Giovanni Guareschi in his books about Don Camillo, which have been reissued countless times since circa 1950.  Originally I read the children's versions of these books, but as I grew older, I managed to accumulate a complete collection of them in their authoritative versions.

A little bit of history here; in 1948, things were bad, really bad, in Italy, and it looked as if the Stalinist socialists were going to win the elections in a landslide.  This was of grave concern to those supportive of freedom and democracy.

Then came this former Italian prisoner-of-war who wrote humorous satire about conflicts between a small-town priest and a small-town mayor, of course a Stalinist socialist.  These stories were satire, comedy, humor, and published in what was then considered a "pornographic" magazine (in its stories, not any pictures it published).

The stories struck a familiar chord, and everybody from the new president of Italy to the Pope to Harry Truman to the prime minister of England to Clare Booth Luce to Winston Churchill to Dwight Eisenhower, credited them for the crushing defeat of the Stalinist socialists in the election; an election they were supposed to win by an overwhelming avalanche.

As far as I know, the Don Camillo books are the only books written by a layman, a non-theologian, a satirist and mocker, that earned the nihil obstat imprinteur of the Roman Catholic Church, signifying "yes, yes, yes, the theology and principles of the Church as expressed herein are sound and correct."

And so my own theology, discovered in those books.

There was one story where the priest Don Camillo chastised Christ for having allowed the mayor--a Stalinist socialist, remember--to win the lottery.

To which Christ responded by reminding the priest that man's affairs are controlled by man, and man alone (given that man thinks man can be God), by design or random chance or sheer luck or mismanagement or egoism, and God keeps God's Hands out of it.  So God had nothing to do with who won the lottery.

That is, until such time that man accepts, as man inevitably must, that man cannot be God.

So, what's up with this notion, as related in that sod house in northwestern Kansas so long ago, that God controls this time and place?  Given of course that one already knows God can control this time and place, but has voluntarily chosen not to, so as to teach man a lesson or two about pride.

[Sam Adams]

Great question!

God controls everything, because He is sovereign. Man still makes choices--he is not a robot--but his control is very limited, thank God! Man is morally responsilbe and blameworthy, whenever he makes wrong or evil choices.

The sin of Adam and Eve was a decision to determine for themselves what is good and evil, instead of submitting to God's judgment. In essence, they allied and submitted themselves to Satan, instead of to God.

I realize that what I have said about the relationship between God's control of everything and man's control of somethings seems like a contradiction, but the Bible teaches them both.

[franksolich]

Great question!

I realize that what I have said about the relationship between God's control of everything and man's control of somethings seems like a contradiction, but the Bible teaches them both.

Thank you, sir.

Wherever this particular impression I have comes from, I've always seen it as God having given man unfettered control over this time and place, to teach man that man cannot be God.

One would think we learned this lesson a long time ago, but apparently not, what with totalitarianists, socialists, Democrats, liberals, primitives, global warmists, and climate changeists still trying to create a paradise on earth.

Ultimately such an attitude is going to kill us all; remember that things such as the Great Purges, the Holocaust, the Great Leap Forward, &c., &c., &c., were but weak fleeting attempts to create a paradise on earth--one reasonably assumes future attempts will be rather more vigorous.

This has never been of great concern to me--other than for the countless victims denied life and opportunity--because in the end, this time and place passes onto another time and place where God reigns Supreme, and man has no silly notions.

But what has always been of concern to me is this idea that when something bad happens, some seem to accept it as the "Will" of God, hence lending ammunition to those in humanity looking for excuses to Hate God.

It's perfectly fine, and emotionally and intellectually healthy, to accept what comes one's way--to accept it, adapt to it, and move on--but one must put the blame where it belongs; on man, on random chance, on sheer good or bad luck, and not on God, because God is keeping the Hands off of things in this time and place.

On a personal note, I started reading the Don Camillo books (the children's versions) at a very young age, and was obviously greatly influenced by them, and they perhaps had something to do with my attitude about my deafness, my being born absent of ears.

Once in a rare while, throughout my life, a kind-but-ignorant person has mentioned that such an affliction was the "Will" of God, so as to make me a better person.  I have no doubt it makes me a better person than I would be if I were a hearing person, but even as a little lad, I had, and have, considerable doubts that such was the "Will" of God.

It was just random chance, good luck or bad luck, however one wishes to see it.

My mother was a registered nurse, and I always supposed--it's far to late to know the facts now--that perhaps in her fourth or fifth month of pregnancy, in her work she came into contact with a virus normally harmless or insignificant.  The normal usual customary routine human negligence, and as God knows (but some in mankind don't seem to know), we all get careless once in a while, and nothing can be done about it.

We're not perfect, we're not God, after all.

Very often, the primitives on Skins's island try to be "theological," and ask, "If there's a God, why does God allow suffering?"

That's a pretty stupid question, even if asked by a non-primitive, and deserves no reply, nothing more than silent contempt.

[Sam Adams]

Three more thoughts. First, God restrains moral evil. Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, etc, were not permitted to achieve complete success. From whence it appears they were on a short leash the whole time.

Second, I think we can expect the world to get better in the (very) long run. I say this not because I have faith in man--I absolutely do not--but because the Bible teaches me that the influence of God and Christ will increase until the whole earth is permeated with the Christian religion. Who would have guessed that a religion begun in a small corner of the Middle East would now have millions of adherents in places like South Korea, China and Canada?

Third, as a student of history, I know you have noticed that Christianity makes societies more humane. That's because God teaches men to love and honor other men. Yes, I admit that Christians can act decidely unchristian, at times. I would rather live in Kansas at any point in modern history than in modern communist China. The communist/socialist dream, by contrast, has become a nightmare, wherever it has been tried. Granted, the socialists/communists have denied this, but only by denying the historical truths obvious to the survivors of the holocaust, Stalin's purges, etc. Alexander Solhenitzen said, "These things have happened because we have forgotten God."  He was right.

[franksolich]

There's a radio show on NPR (National Public Radio) every Sunday morning, which discusses--gasp!--religion in American life. 

I of course can't hear, but if I'm out on the highway, and the radio is going full blast, I can pick up substantial portions of the sound through the steering-wheel (conduction of sound through not the air, but the skeletal structure).  It's not, really, an efficient way of "hearing," since it demands so much intense concentration and physical endurance, but then if I miss something--which I inevitably do, about 80% of it--I can go to the web-site to read what I missed.

Anyway, the show has had all sorts of guests, but always one constant theme:

Nothing good is accomplished without God.

I recall the very first show I "heard" was some woman from China, who had grown up under Maoism.  She went on and on and on about how children were taught to share, to give, to sacrifice, to love, to extend the hand of friendship to all who came their way, to do good works, &c., &c., &c.

But even minus any concept, any idea, of God, she felt a Great Vacancy; something was missing, and she had no idea what it was.

It wasn't until she was an adult, and in the United States, that she grasped it; nothing is good without God.  Without God, it's all shallow, superficial.

So much for the commonly-expressed sentiment, "He doesn't believe in God, but he is a good man anyway."

A great many of the guests appear to be those who were once secular, non-practicing, non-believing Jews, who got into medicine, surgery, and psychiatry.

During their observations and practices, they noticed there were certain, uh, intangibles, things that couldn't be articulated in words, that affected whether or not a patient did well.  It took many of them quite a while to see that, oh, yeah, if God's involved, it comes out well, and if God's rejected in the healing process, there's no healing.

The guests run the gamut, from Christians to Jews to Moslems to Buddhists, but there's that common theme--nothing good and nothing lasting without God.

The most memorable guest--probably most likely because I could "hear" her the best, given her tonal qualities--was that woman from Kenya who won the Nobel Peace Prize some years ago.

She created a controversy when she alleged that white men had invented AIDS so as to destroy Africans, but the show was nothing about that.

The show was about her reforestation of Kenya, planting millions of trees.

Early on, she realized that this environmental attempt was no good, without God in it.

(She is a practicing Roman Catholic.)

It was when she put God into it, that it began resonating with Kenyans; urban and rural, tribal and non-tribal, modern and primitive, Christian and "other".  Her own reforestation efforts have been much greater, and much cheaper, than "foreign aid" or "environmental aid" offered by God-neutral or anti-God agencies and organizations.

Something like a few thousand bucks as compared with tens of millions of bucks, and something like 30 times the trees planted and sustained, than done by these others, who don't have God in it.

[Sam Adams]

I am not familiar with the examples you cited, but it is often the case that God chooses to bless people who seek to be obedient to Him. The Bible teaches us to expect this, though the extent and the manner in which God blesses is His decision, obviously.

Whatever it's worth, I am also somewhat hearing impaired, though not as severely. Have you considered cochlear implants? My ENT says the technology is pretty amazing.