Sunday, April 10, 2011

Are Statists Really Smarter Than God?

Today at church the sermon covered what has been the big objection to the Christian faith in the modern world:  How can a good God allow all the evil and suffering we see in the world?

The best answer I have ever heard (and it does explain much) is that if God wanted to create creatures with freewill such as we are, the possibility of evil could not logically be excluded.  In other words, once God decides to create human beings who can make significant moral choices, He has also committed Himself to at least the possibility of evil – evil that results from bad choices of creatures with free moral agency.

As one part of the sermon (which, the minister has informed us, is from the recent book The Reason for God) put it, if God’s wants creatures to have freedom of choice, He must also allow for evil.  This is, for obvious reasons, often called “the freewill defense.”

This set me to thinking about how this playoff is handled by our society, especially by the “progressive” element that has been in control of our government for some time now.  They seem to see the possibilities for society and the individuals who make it up in this same way:  if there is freedom in society, there can be evils in society.

But UNLIKE God – and that does not surprise me – these progressive statists attempt to eliminate evils by eliminating freedom.  God said, “Let there be freedom, although that might bring evil.”  Progressives say, “Do away with freedom so we can eliminate evil.”

Now I realize this is over-simplified.  Some of the “evils” progressives are after are simply matters of their own invention.  (Things like “climate change” some to mind, but the list is a long one.)  It is also the case that some evils (like physically coercing another human being) deserve punishment.

But consider something like “saving for a rainy day.”  A person can create a very bad situation for himself if he always spends everything he makes and saves nothing for a rainy day – and some of those days come to most of us most of the time.  This is a situation you might even call an “evil.”

Of course, the only way you can even attempt to preclude this situation is to eliminate freedom.  You have to force people to save for a rainy day.  And while it is rather stupid not to save for a rainy day, if you can be forced not to do stupid things, you are someone’s slave; you are not free.

So the statist progressives evented things like the so-called Social Security program.  It attempts to prevent personal fiscal stupidity.  It does it by eliminating freedom.

Thus do the statist progressives fancy themselves smarter than God.

1 comment:

Jon Lanier said...

Will is a free principle. Free will is as absurd as bound will, it is not will if it be not free; and if it be bound it is no will. Volition is essential to the being of the soul, and to all rational and intellectual beings. God uniformly treats man as a free agent; and on this principle the whole of Divine revelation is constructed, as is also the doctrine of future rewards and punishments. If man be forced to believe, he believes not at all; it is the forcing power that believes, not the machine forced. If he be forced to obey, it is the forcing power that obeys; and he, as a machine, shows only the effect of this irresistible force. If man be incapable of willing good, and willing evil, he is incapable of being saved as a rational being; and if he acts only under an overwhelming compulsion, he is as incapable of being damned.