I meet this question in one or another form so often lately:
Why is God cruel?
Especially atheists and god-fighters play a trump this question. They pay attention on cruel, at first sight, acts or commands of God, particularly in Old Testament. They remind the World flood and orders of God to Jews to destroy the people of Canaan, thus, sometimes together with women, children and cattle. Let’s remember Job and children who were cursed by a prophet Elisha. Some believers try to divide God on cruel God of Old Testament and kind God of New Testament, although God is actually the same, and if it seems to you that in New Testament God is such a kind, pretty, cute pussycat, then read a book “Revelation”. It will be a cold shower for you.
No less than a few ten of milliards of people died from the curse of God.
Somebody even tried to count how many people were killed by God in the Bible, and counted something about two millions (as on a picture to the article). Fools, you are not quite able to count! For the sin of Adam God cursed a man with illnesses and death, by the way, natural cataclysms: earthquakes, hurricanes, tsunami, floods etc, are also the result of God’s curse on humanity: «earth is cursed because of you» (Gen. 3: 17). So generally if to count all natural deaths of people from illnesses or simply from the old age, and also as a result of natural cataclysms, then it is no less than 4/5 of all deaths of people, the rest is the result of murders. And if to count in all history of humanity, then it is no less than several tens of milliards of deaths! And we don’t yet talk about animals, and how many of them were sacrificed in the days of Old Testament, nobody counted them.
Yet to cruelty of God they relate also mortal and painful illnesses of children, and diseases of ordinary people. Think about the cost of oncological diseases. How many pain and sufferings do they bring! And this is also the result of God’s curse. We should realize this clearly.
And if God is cruel, then what does it mean? In fact if we decide that God is cruel, then it turns out that God is sinful, because cruelty is a sin. But God can’t be sinful. God is the Absolute. It means He is absolutely kind and absolutely saint. If we decide that He is sinful, so, He is already not absolutely kind and saint, and He is not God, because He is not the Absolute. And here atheists and non-believers will be overjoyed: ”You see absolutely kind God could not create such cruel world! So God doesn’t exist! ” – they will say. How can such cruelty of this world be combined with absolutely good and kind God? Maybe, really there is no any God?
How do we know what is cruel and what is not?
Stop, let us think logically! And where do we know from, what is cruel and not cruel? How can we judge objectively somebody’s cruelty? We can judge only on condition that there is an objective moral law on the basis of which we can say: “it is cruel, and it is not”. Otherwise, any objective valuation of cruelty or grace is out of the question! But if there is such moral natural law, then turns out, there is a High All-powerful Reason who created this law because only All-powerful Reason can invent natural laws. And this Reason should be absolutely kind, for on its basis we just tried to blame or judge God’s cruelty, on the basis of some objective moral law, which should take place from some absolute good. And good cannot exist in and of itself. Good is always a kind personality, and absolute good as is turns out, is absolutely kind Personality and it is God.
Argument of atheists about cruelty of the world against the existence of God is the cleanest foolishness
And what did we come to? The ability to distinguish objectively what is good and what is evil and also realization that this world is cruel means not an absence of God but His existence! And the argument of atheists about cruelty of the world against the existence of God seems to be the cleanest foolishness! Because if they deny the objectivity of morality, then how can they in general talk about somebody’s cruelty? It’s simply a nonsense! Without objectivity of moral law it’s impossible to do such a judgement!
And if they want to judge God according to the objective moral law, then they must confess that God exists, because only absolutely kind higher Reason could create a moral law! Atheism actually is a dunderheaded and primitive study which doesn’t not notice obvious details in the arguments against God.
How to explain the presence of evil and cruelty in the world, if God is absolutely kind?
Well – you say, but how to explain the presence of such amount of evil and cruelty in this world, if God is absolutely kind? And how does it in general combine with the total kindness of God? Actually, we should realize two important things:
- First – where did an evil and sin appear from in general and who is its reason?
- Second – what is God’s attitude to the sin and evil?
An evil and sin became possible due to the fact that God created people with a freedom of will and at least part of them used if for evil, it means they went against the will of God. God is not the reason of evil and sin. Those creations of God, which not correctly use the freedom of will and break the rules and God’s commandments produce the evil and sin. Here is a source of evil in this world! From the Bible we know that the first who came against God was a great and strong spirit, angel Lucifer, who carried along after itself about one third of all angels and in such a way raised a mutiny in the sky. According to the Bible that fallen angel seduced the first people in the earth and they sinned. Their nature changed and they became spoiled and sinful. And this sinful nature was transmitted by the right of succession to all descendants. That’s why all people are sinful. They inherit an original sin.
As we know God is kind, absolutely kind. And it means that God is absolutely just. And if God is absolutely just, it means that He must absolutely punish an evil and sin. Because justice requires punishment of evil. And an absolute justice requires absolute punishment for any evil and any sin. It can be illustrated by such the analogue of mathematical formula.
Punishment = justice * sin, where justice of God → ∞, accordingly punishment = 0, on condition that sin = 0. But if sin, though a bit more zero, then punishment turns out too → ∞. For this reason all whose sin is not equal to the zero, deserve eternal punishment! And these are all the people on earth!
God is not only just but also loving and gracious
But God is not only absolutely just but also absolutely loving and gracious. Therefore He, understanding that for sinning people in any way it is impossible to clear up from a sin and avoid eternal punishment, goes to them on meeting and takes eternal punishment for all sins of all people on Himself. God’s Son Jesus Christ once suffered for all people and took eternal punishment for the sins of all people. And He as an eternal and endless God had to suffer only once not the whole eternity!
Therefore if we want to get rid from eternal punishment, we must repent and accept a victim of Jesus Christ for ourselves. But the victim of Christ does not release our flesh from the consequences of sin, but it is fair it must suffer and die. It depends on different situations and people. But everybody should fall ill and die. Because such is a just retribution for a sin. And because all people inherit sinful nature or original sin, then even children who were not even born are sinful, so they can fall ill and die. And it is really just because God’s justice is absolutely absolute. But it doesn’t mean that they will be in eternal torments. No, because the victim of Jesus Christ certainly was also for them.
All of us have a chance to avoid eternal punishment
The fact that we fall ill and, eventually, die is justly and not cruelly from the side of God, because all of us are sinful. And just retribution for a sin is death. But all of us have a chance to avoid eternal punishment because of a favour and love of God , who did not spare His Only Son for every believer in Him not perish but have an eternal life.
