I used to feel that God was to blame for many things. I never challenged these assumptions properly. This can happen so easily today in our Christian walk. I put this together for an atheist site but also feel it is a meaningful topic for Christians to discuss.
We accuse God of so many things. Are we giving God a fair trial when we do this? Can God be exempt of anything when He created everything? Is God justified in sending many to eternal punishment in hell? Is God justified in taking your loved ones before their old age? Do you blame God for not blessing you with more money or healing when the person next to you is?
Before we throw stones at God, lets' stop and ask ourselves, 'Are we giving God a fair trial?'
Surely If we can see a flaw, so too can our God and Creator! We all make the mistake of assuming God is dumb. We arrogantly, laughably and embarrassingly assume we know better then God.
In judging God we need to understand something about Him and the bible that is paramount. Namely, that scripture is limiting factors imposed by Him on Himself. He does what pleases Him and giving Himself these limiting factors in His dealings with us, His creation, pleases Him. Scripture is thus a clear source on which to judge Him. An important limiting factor that God has chosen to impose on Himself and extremely important in our judgement of God for us to grasp, is our free will. Yes you are correct to say ''God created everything and knows everything, therefore God must have made people to go to hell'. Well done, you have proven your brain is working and able to grasp the obvious. Now grasp that God does what pleases Him. It pleases God to give man-kind free will. Scripture clearly teaches that God is just, fair and NO respecter of persons. Take a while to meditate on this. Consider all your accusations of God in light of it.
So now, let us humbly and respectfully judge God our Creator. Jumping to the questions raised in the OP.
1) Is God justified in sending many to eternal punishment in hell? If we choose from free will to reject Him, living in a place away from His presence is surely inevitable? He will not over-ride our choice out of free will to reject Him by taking us out of hell. The obvious chief issue being the subject of suffering. Will there be suffering in hell? We know Jesus suffered for sins. We know that it pleases God that the wages of sin is death. If we look at our 'free will' fore-runners, the angels. The fallen angels clearly sinned and received judgement of banishment and impending suffering in the lake of fire. They are not quite enduring the sentence of ''suffering'' for sins now. They currently seem to only be in a state of banishment from God's presence. Scripture says God is a fair judge. It is safe to assume God will be a fair judge on judgement day. It seems that 'eternal punishment' mentioned by Jesus involves both suffering and banishment. God does all He can to draw us to Him. He has reached out to us with the greatest act of love He can by sending His Son to be a sacrifice for us. God is fully exempt in my books!
2) Is God justified in taking your loved ones before there old age? Understanding how God came into existence and His specific timing on taking us fitting into His grand plan is beyond our mental capacity. We can only thank Him for making us and giving us the time we did have with our loved ones. If we had to go on and ask 'why does God allow evil people to exist that would hurt or kill our loved ones'. We need to understand that God gives everyone their right to exercise their free will (He treats everyone equally). Everyone alive today is breathing by His mercy. He has mercy on the evil, only because He has hope that they will one-day repent.
3) Do you blame God for not blessing you with more money or healing when the person next to you is? We need to understand that until we 'accept God', His hands are in a sense tied from helping us, by imposing upon Himself the limiting factor of our free will to reject Him. God will not interfere in our lives unless we want Him to. Just as a husband can only be expected to be faithful / helpful on a continuous basis to his own wife and kids. The only requirement to God hearing our prayers (unless it is the prayer of repentance from sin and acceptance of Him) is for us to get / be saved (accepting Jesus as our Lord and Saviour). Then, the only requirement to God the Father answering our prayer is, His will. This may or may not be what we want. We grow in trust from experiences that He is good. We also understand that richness is not always money but more inner and heaven bound rewards as mother Theresa showed.
I want to add, is God evil for destroying Sodom and Gomorrah? Egyptians? If we consider how He warned all before He acted and look closely at Nineveh and what God said to Jonah, No He is not! God was clearly saddened at having to wipe out all the inhabitants and even the animals. God tries His best to reach out to us! In both the OT and the NT. The law He has put in place on sin is irreversible unless we repent. In order to repent of sin we have to hate sin. In order to not repent of sin we have to like sin. It is really our doing and not illogical. We bring God's inevitable wrath upon ourselves by being lovers of sin.
Lets' not make the silly / naïve / common mistake of looking at only one side of the coin. Lets' be honest and use our common sense before we try find fault with God. It is always easier to throw a stone at our Creator then look inwards at our own shortcomings.
We accuse God of so many things. Are we giving God a fair trial when we do this? Can God be exempt of anything when He created everything? Is God justified in sending many to eternal punishment in hell? Is God justified in taking your loved ones before their old age? Do you blame God for not blessing you with more money or healing when the person next to you is?
Before we throw stones at God, lets' stop and ask ourselves, 'Are we giving God a fair trial?'
Surely If we can see a flaw, so too can our God and Creator! We all make the mistake of assuming God is dumb. We arrogantly, laughably and embarrassingly assume we know better then God.
In judging God we need to understand something about Him and the bible that is paramount. Namely, that scripture is limiting factors imposed by Him on Himself. He does what pleases Him and giving Himself these limiting factors in His dealings with us, His creation, pleases Him. Scripture is thus a clear source on which to judge Him. An important limiting factor that God has chosen to impose on Himself and extremely important in our judgement of God for us to grasp, is our free will. Yes you are correct to say ''God created everything and knows everything, therefore God must have made people to go to hell'. Well done, you have proven your brain is working and able to grasp the obvious. Now grasp that God does what pleases Him. It pleases God to give man-kind free will. Scripture clearly teaches that God is just, fair and NO respecter of persons. Take a while to meditate on this. Consider all your accusations of God in light of it.
So now, let us humbly and respectfully judge God our Creator. Jumping to the questions raised in the OP.
1) Is God justified in sending many to eternal punishment in hell? If we choose from free will to reject Him, living in a place away from His presence is surely inevitable? He will not over-ride our choice out of free will to reject Him by taking us out of hell. The obvious chief issue being the subject of suffering. Will there be suffering in hell? We know Jesus suffered for sins. We know that it pleases God that the wages of sin is death. If we look at our 'free will' fore-runners, the angels. The fallen angels clearly sinned and received judgement of banishment and impending suffering in the lake of fire. They are not quite enduring the sentence of ''suffering'' for sins now. They currently seem to only be in a state of banishment from God's presence. Scripture says God is a fair judge. It is safe to assume God will be a fair judge on judgement day. It seems that 'eternal punishment' mentioned by Jesus involves both suffering and banishment. God does all He can to draw us to Him. He has reached out to us with the greatest act of love He can by sending His Son to be a sacrifice for us. God is fully exempt in my books!
2) Is God justified in taking your loved ones before there old age? Understanding how God came into existence and His specific timing on taking us fitting into His grand plan is beyond our mental capacity. We can only thank Him for making us and giving us the time we did have with our loved ones. If we had to go on and ask 'why does God allow evil people to exist that would hurt or kill our loved ones'. We need to understand that God gives everyone their right to exercise their free will (He treats everyone equally). Everyone alive today is breathing by His mercy. He has mercy on the evil, only because He has hope that they will one-day repent.
3) Do you blame God for not blessing you with more money or healing when the person next to you is? We need to understand that until we 'accept God', His hands are in a sense tied from helping us, by imposing upon Himself the limiting factor of our free will to reject Him. God will not interfere in our lives unless we want Him to. Just as a husband can only be expected to be faithful / helpful on a continuous basis to his own wife and kids. The only requirement to God hearing our prayers (unless it is the prayer of repentance from sin and acceptance of Him) is for us to get / be saved (accepting Jesus as our Lord and Saviour). Then, the only requirement to God the Father answering our prayer is, His will. This may or may not be what we want. We grow in trust from experiences that He is good. We also understand that richness is not always money but more inner and heaven bound rewards as mother Theresa showed.
I want to add, is God evil for destroying Sodom and Gomorrah? Egyptians? If we consider how He warned all before He acted and look closely at Nineveh and what God said to Jonah, No He is not! God was clearly saddened at having to wipe out all the inhabitants and even the animals. God tries His best to reach out to us! In both the OT and the NT. The law He has put in place on sin is irreversible unless we repent. In order to repent of sin we have to hate sin. In order to not repent of sin we have to like sin. It is really our doing and not illogical. We bring God's inevitable wrath upon ourselves by being lovers of sin.
Lets' not make the silly / naïve / common mistake of looking at only one side of the coin. Lets' be honest and use our common sense before we try find fault with God. It is always easier to throw a stone at our Creator then look inwards at our own shortcomings.
! 
