sapphireslinger

A couple months ago a friend mentioned to me how he thought that all God's changes in law made it seem like he was experimenting on us like lab rats.

I wrote him afterward (edited for typos and readability):

“I don't think all the changes in God's instructions through history are God experimenting with us. I think it is like a parent guiding a child through different exercises in math, for instance.

For instance, God knew when he let the first people live into their 900's that he would have to reduce their lifespan [...] after Noah's flood because they had only used their long lives for evil.

But he still let mankind go through that experience and find out for themselves, otherwise we would be telling God, “God, how do you know we can't handle longer lifespans?”

Now he can say, “I DID give you longer lives at the beginning so you would understand why I gave you shorter lives later.” Because mankind really likes to find out the hard way (or you could say the concrete or experiential way) what is right and wrong. “Don't tell me, show me.” God: “OK, I'm showing you.”

So anytime you think God could be experimenting, please leave room for the possibility that he already knew the outcome, he is just working through the steps anyway for [the sake of] our knowledge, not his.”

He sent this back:



Number 2 I felt was unfair of Epicurus, and wrote back:

“Is he able but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.”

Every parent puts things into 2 groups:

Group 1: Things you have to let your child learn to take care of on his own or he will [grow up] weak. (Children who learn not to care when idots mock them - good. Children who were protected so much that when they grow up and go to college, they don't know how to wash their clothes or feed themselves - bad. Or children who can't deal with anybody who has a different opinion from them - bad.)

Group 2: Things you have to step in and protect your child from because to let your child try to learn to deal with it would put him at too high a risk of death.

Every parent has to decide what level of suffering/challenge they will let their children go through for the sake of their future health and independence, and what suffering/challenge would be too dangerous to allow.

Nobody calls parents [malevolent] for making their children face painful but healthy challenges.

What if everything we consider Group 2 [things too dangerous to let us learn to deal with], God considers Group 1 [things we have to learn to deal with anyway]?