DOCTRINE THAT SUFFERING IS ALWAYS ACTUAL OR POTENTIAL PUNISHMENT FROM GOD
Some believe, “Suffering and our weakness in the face of temptation are God’s
way of getting back at us for sinning. That is why God is good though he
lets evil take place”.
Believers have no choice but to accept this. They cannot blame all suffering and
weakness directly on how we use our free will. But they can blame it all
indirectly on our free will IF our free will is so badly used that it draws
retribution on us. No theodicy works so if you want to believe in God and in
free will you have to say that all evil is punishment from God. Believers in God
may not realise it always, but they are siding with a notion that implies that
sufferers deserve all they get. It may imply it by a process of elimination but
it is still implying it.
God must be punishing babies for some sin they are not conscious of like
original sin or something. This was the apostle Paul’s logic. He said that when
all die all must be sentenced to death for God is fair. Logic says the same
thing is true if all suffer even babies.
It is brutal if God really does this. It is never right to avenge yourself on a
person who cannot remember doing whatever it is you want revenge for or who
cannot know or repent what they have done.
The Bible clearly teaches that sincerity will not get you into Heaven if you do
not believe in God and salvation by the blood of Jesus. But it should. God can
let you into Heaven when you have meant well all your life and it is vile if he
excludes you. If he does this and he is good then it follows that error is
punishment for sin and those in the wrong faith are rejected by God. This would
imply that their virtues are deceptive and that they are full of stubborn
opposition to God inside which renders them deserving of their treatment.
Some might say that God will hurt the innocent to get at the guilty. Is it
really just to settle the score this way? If it is then we must do the same if
we want to.
If the theodicy were true then sick people who repent their crimes and get God’s
forgiveness would be instantly cured.
It cannot be right to help a person when God wants them to pay for their sins.
And when you help you must think, "I don't know if this person is being punished
but if I did then I would not help. This is a lethal theodicy.
A God who increases our propensity to sin to punish us has no right to condemn
sin. He is encouraging it and is as bad as we are if not worse.
God has no right to punish suffering people when he makes little effort to stop
them sinning. For example, he won’t warn a woman to stay away from a certain man
for she will end up having illicit sex with him. Christians say she has no need
to be warned for she knows herself. But what if she is being stupid? The warning
will waken her up. And she does not have to listen to the warning.
Why does God punish some sinners with earthquakes and kill saints with them? Why
did he do nothing about Hitler? Punishment is really forcing evil on a person
against their will because they did the same to somebody else. If you are going
to force something on a person and have no regard for their will is it not
better to harmlessly meddle in their lives so that they will not commit the
murder or whatever than to let them remove somebody’s freedom and then take away
theirs? The first has more respect for their free will than punishing them. Is
it not better to force them to repent in such a way that they think they do it
freely? They will do it freely later when the force is lifted off them. This
should be done for the worst sinners if not all. And what difference does it
make? When I repent now of my free will how do I know that some supernatural
force greater than me has not tricked me into thinking I am free while that
power was the one pulling the strings? Why wouldn’t the force do that when it
forces me to see pink elephants that are not there but which I think are there
when I am very drunk? I have no evidence that I have freely repented or am free
at all so I cannot believe that I am free for there is no belief without
evidence there is only feeling that something is true which is not belief in any
sense.
If the theodicies are right that we force God to hurt us and send pain to us
then it follows that when you sin, no matter how small you think that sin is,
you are calling on God to hurt the world and if he does not want to do that you
are the most cruel person alive and if he punishes sin at all he will not let
you off for your attitude is so malignant. He can’t let you off for it would not
be fair.
Religion says that God comes first. Love of neighbour has to be the outcome of
love for God. You express your love for God by helping your neighbour not for
the sake of the neighbour but the sake of God. Imagine somebody dies in a car
crash chiefly because he forgot to fasten his seatbelt. If God comes first it is
best to blame that person and not God and to feel no or little compassion for
the person. It is best also so that you don’t have the difficulty of explaining
how God could let such a thing happen. The more you try to explain God’s ways
the more you will suspect even a bit that God might be bad. So it is more
reverent to blame the dead person.
The reasoning will go, “He brought it on himself so he deserved it and God was
right to let this happen. We will not insult God by holding that the less
believable option, that God did not want this to happen for he was innocent and
allowed it for a mysterious purpose to make others better people, for that makes
it harder to believe that God was right for we don’t see the results or
understand how something so terrible could be justifiably allowed to happen.”
Newman said that a thousand difficulties do not add up to one doubt. But
difficulties are unanswered questions and have to lead to a weakening of faith
and in so far as your faith weakens that is as far as you foster a doubt. This
indicates that if God lets a person die or makes a new disease to take lives we
should take the simplest explanation which is that he is out to punish people
for their sins for God and therefore faith come first. Christians say that if
God sends sickness to punish you, you will know it. This is logical. Punishment
is about retribution and also hopes to see the punished person change into a
better person so you have to know if you are being punished to be punished.
Wouldn’t it be better to just to believe all the suffering you experience is
punishment just in case? If you cause yourself to experience all suffering as
punishment then you are saving God from the need to send punishment to you later
on.
Christian hostility to the notion that God makes them suffer proves they are
guilty of the self-righteousness that the apostles tried to eradicate when they
taught that nobody deserves salvation or any help from God to live a better
life. Logically then we are all worthless and life should be a punishment. It
shows too that Christians don’t want God or Christianity so much as they want
the benefits of these beliefs. When they persecute those who insult God they
persecute people for upsetting THEM!
When love is sacrifice God wants us to suffer. And we still suffer if we do not
suffer in sacrifice. So, we might as well sacrifice. This is tantamount to
blackmail. God does not give a toss about our freedom after all. He only gave it
to us to make sure we will sin so that he can get at us.