God's Omni-Benevolence

[Homer]

Paidion wrote:

Conclusions:
Since God is not malevolent, but fully loving, then the atrocities which occur in this life are not the results of God's doing, either actively or passively. To believe that such atrocities are, in fact, God's doing is tantamount to ascribing moral evil to God's character, and that is blasphemy. We are to praise God for Whom He is ----- total LOVE.

It seems to me a careful reading of the Book of Job would be very profitable in this discussion. God was clearly able to prevent the catastrophe that came on Job, his servants and his children. In fact it all happened because God chose not to protect them, and it was indeed for a higher purpose. And when Job wanted answers, he didn't get any other than "I'm God and you are not"!

In Job's case, he was tested. But there was much more at stake: God's reputation. Satan said to God, in effect, "Job only loves you for the stuff he gets from you". And God said "You watch my man Job, you will see!" And God was glorified through Job's (and his servant's and children's) tragedy. I would not call the Book of Job blasphemy.

IMO "love" does not totally describe God's character. '

[Jill]

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[Paidion]

I don't see how you can, in light of our discussions at the other thread still make such statements as the following:

2. God would not be loving, but malevolent if He actively tortured children and other innocent people in order to achieve some hidden purpose of His own. In that case, there would indeed be darkness in Him.

And I don’t see how you can disagree with this conditional statement. I said that IF God actively tortured children and other innocent people in order to achieve some hidden purpose, He would not be loving but malevolent. I didn’t expect anyone to disagree with such a statement. Indeed, you yourself, in your July 2 post seemed to indicate that God does not ordain all the evil things which happen, and that He may wish that something else had happened instead. So are you now saying that God could actively torture little children and other innocent people, and still be loving? If so, that is totally beyond my comprehension. If so, the word “loving” completely loses its meaning. It would be as meaningless as saying that Adolph Hitler tortured Jews but still loved Jews.

I used this conditional statement as a lead to my next point. Assuming that everyone would agree that God could not be loving while actively torturing children and other innocent people, I attempted to show in point 3, that there is no essential difference between God actively carrying out such heinous acts and allowing others to carry out such acts for Him, for the sake of some higher purpose. To make another human analogy, a person who observed someone torturing children, but took no steps to prevent the torture, though he had the power to do so, would be found guilty as an accomplice to the torture in any court of law.

You assume that "some hidden purpose of His own" would be something other than the intention of eternally benefitting the sufferer and the rest of mankind. Why assume such libels against God? Would not every purpose of God, hidden or otherwise, be for the benefit of His creatures?

Incorrect. I make no such assumption. The “hidden purpose of His own” could very well benefit mankind in some way. The only reason that I used the word “hidden” was that the supposed purpose never seems to be revealed. Perhaps you can find scripture to indicate that there was a revelation of a deeper purpose, but in our day there are millions of atrocious acts going on, with no indication whatever to anyone of how these atrocities result in a higher good. Again, I’m not denying that God can bring some good things out of these atrocities. What I am denying is that God allows the atrocities for the purpose of making these good things happen.

As has been repeatedly pointed out, a father may understandably choose to subject his child to painful surgery, which the child is incapable of understanding or appreciating, because the father has "some hidden (that is, hidden from the child) purpose of his own." But if that "purpose" is to save the child's life, how is this an act of malevolence on the father's part?

How dare you compare a father’s loving act to help his child with painful surgery to the atrocities which I have mentioned? I read about an incident in which a mother placed her one-year old child in boiling water and kept her there until she died. This was certainly malevolence on the mother’s part, and she may have gotten some kind of deviant pleasure from the act (which many torturers do). But you say that God allowed that event for a higher purpose, to bring about some greater good for humanity, or at least some parts of humanity. Can you suggest what that greater good might be? Any ideas at all? And why would boiling her baby girl bring about this greater good? And why could not God who is omnipotent (in my point 4, I mistakenly typed “omniscient”) have found another way to fulfill that higher purpose? You claim that there may be no other way.

You keep using the word "torture" (apparently as a rhetorical device to prop up an otherwise weak thesis).

No so. I am using “torture” to mean “torture”. People torturing others for their own deviant pleasure, people torturing prisoners in prison camps, etc. which you say that God allows in order to fulfill some higher purpose.

Torture is indeed malevolent, and no Christian should think God capable of lowering HImself to such criminal activity.

Oh. So now you agree with my conditional statement in point 2, that God would not be loving if He actively tortured children and other innocent people.

However, the pain of surgery (especially in the days before anesthesia) might be indistinguishable from that of torture, to the patient—and it may be so for God's children under the knife. The difference between the pain of surgery and that of torture is not its intensity, but its purpose. One is loving; the other is malevolent.

So the woman who boiled her baby was malevolent, since she had no good purpose in mind, but God who allowed the boiling for a good purpose allowed it from motives of love. That just doesn’t seem intuitively correct. What if the woman had boiled it for a good purpose? Something like that seemed to have happened in A.D. 70 in Jerusalem, according to Josephus, where a woman in a starvation situation boiled her child for food (hopefully she killed it first). But I guess since it wasn’t done for the child’s benefit, it wasn’t done out of love. But then, God’s allowing it, wasn’t done for the child’s benefit either. So who benefited from the woman eating her child? Did God allow it to relieve the woman’s hunger? Or was there some mysterious higher purpose? And if so, what could that purpose possibly have been?

Since God is a Healer, not an inquisitor, it seems disingenuous to introduce the word "torture" in what would otherwise be a serious inquiry into the theological causes of suffering.

Again, I wasn’t using the word “torture” to describe any genuine acts of God. I was using it to describe the acts of evil people, which you SAY God allows for a higher purpose, another way of saying that God passively caused the torture, by having evil people commit acts which lead to the fulfillment of God’s higher purposes.

4. Since God is omniscient, then He is able to fulfill these deeper purposes without having to cause or allow unspeakable suffering of people as a means of doing so

Note: I meant "omnipotent" not "omniscient".

You say that no person is competent to assume that He could do so. In view of His omnipotence, why would it be presumptious to make such an assumption? You suggest that God may allow such atrocities because there is no other way to bring about the higher good. I find it ludicrous imagine the Father saying to His Son, “In order to bring about this great good for the people of United States, we are going to have to allow Mrs. Jones to boil her baby girl. I hate to do it, but there’s just no other way.” Furthermore, if there were no other way, then anyone who successfully prevented Mrs. Jones from boiling her baby, would be sinning, for he would be acting against the purposes of God.

Many fathers have used surgeons to do the "dirty work" of saving their children's lives. Why aren't you able to see this?

I am able to see this very well. But it is irrelevant since it is of a completely different order from the concept of God promoting the boiling of babies by “allowing it”. The main difference is that it is clear to everyone that surgeons save lives. But no one has any idea how boiling babies could help anyone. I think this is not merely a lack of understanding because of human limitations. If the deeper-purpose view had any validity, one would expect God to at least sometimes in our day, reveal that purpose. But I have never heard of any saying, “Now I know why my little girl was raped and killed. God had a wonderful purpose in allowing it. I’m glad it happened” or “Now I understand why God allowed that woman to boil her baby. She was the means by which God did a wonderful thing! She was greatly used by God in bringing about great joy to many people” or “Now I understand why Hitler starved millions of Jews and killed so many in gas chambers. God allowed it in order to carry out a wonderful plan which benefited all of humanity.” No. No one ever understands the deeper purpose, and it is never revealed. It makes one doubt that such purpose exists.

5. If God either actively or passively uses terrible suffering to achieve higher purposes, then He is less than all loving, and we would be sons of the Father, if we too, instead of loving and praying for our enemies, caused them to suffer horrible pain in order to fulfill some hidden purpose of our own.

What has this discussion to do with treatment of our (or God's) enemies? The subject of God's judgment of the wicked has not entered this thread previously—though, when it comes to that subject, you even believe that God has a "higher purpose" in judging the lost (their redemption), don't you? Why see such a higher purpose in the fires of hell, but not in "the fiery trial with is to try you"?

I am not addressing "the fiery trial with is to try you". I am addressing the atrocities which people carry out on others, not necessarily Christians. The fires of hell are for correction. There is no correction involved in boiling babies, or raping and killing little girls.

In this thread, we are not talking about treatment of enemies, but we are inquiring what a father may do to save those whom he loves. We should do exactly as our father does—namely, never subject another (e.g., our children) to any suffering that is not absolutely necessary for their ultimate benefit. This is so basic to morality that I am amazed to find any controversy surrounding it.

I have no quibble with that. Where the controversy lies is the idea that our father does not intervene to prevent atrocities in order to bring about a higher purpose. If our father does that, and we do exactly as our father does, we will not intervene when we see an atrocity being committed. For we “know” that there is a higher purpose being served by allowing it.

[steve]

As in the earlier thread on this same topic, I'm afraid you have allowed your emotions to short-circuit your reasoning. If this is ever excusable, I suppose a topic like babies being boiled would qualify as a sufficient provocation. However, throwing reasoning out the window does not alleviate the difficulty, and actually creates new and unnecessary difficulties.

I would distill your argument above into the following propositions:

1. God rarely explains the reasons or purpose for the suffering of innocent people—He must have no reason for allowing it.

2. Since no obvious benefit accrues to a boiled baby in this life, there can be no benefit imaginable in any life.

3. It seems like God would be smart enough to have found a better solution to the sinfulness of man—one that required no unjust suffering on the part of humanity—even if no other such remedy exists.

4. If God's net intention is to allow some sufferings for certain purposes known only to Him (as in Job's case), then we would have no incentive to intervene in cases where we could prevent or remedy injustice.

My problem is that I find neither biblical authority nor logical basis far accepting any of these propositions. On the other hand, I find abundant biblical authority for believing the case I have made in this and in the earlier thread.

[TK]

I guess I dont have a problem with the idea of God putting people through a "crucible" to mold their character, bring them to repentance, etc. The devotional "Streams in the Desert" talks about this almost very day.

What I struggle with is the idea that God would allow a "boiled baby"(using Steve's vivid term) to bring SOMEONE ELSE to repentance, improve their character, etc. obviously a baby has need of no such thing.

TK

[Paidion]

As Steve pointed out, in this as well as in the other thread, the question as to whether or not fulfillment ofGod's higher purposes is the explanation of intense human suffering, is an emotional issue for me. I know of no issue more worthy of being emotional about than issues where God's reputation, honour, goodness, and love are at stake. However, I realize that God doesn't need me to defend Him. But I can't help being upset when others make him out to be the passive cause of all intense suffering, and then call this His "love" in achieving higher purposes through it. Since Steve feels that my rationality has been superceded by my emotions, I perceive that further efforts at rationality will have no impact upon his thinking in the matter, and so I will now end the discussion with a few closing thoughts.

1. My guess is that in all instances of intense suffering throughout today's world, God intervenes to stop it or prevent it in fewer than 1 in a 1000 cases, perhaps even fewer than 1 in a million. It seems incredible that so much intense suffering is required to fulfill the purposes of God.

2. I recognize that Christ's intense suffering, the pinnacle of all intense suffering, resulted in the pinnacle of higher purposes, the redemption of mankind. Can we conclude from that, that ALL the really high purposes of God require intense human suffering?

3. If that is the case, why the disparity in intense suffering? For example, in African countries, often no water is available except polluted water. People must drink this water or die of thirst. From drinking the water, a horrible worm enters the flesh and burrows through it, causing intense pain and discomfort, and, if I'm not mistaken, eventual death. Thousands of African children are undergoing this horrible ordeal. Why are the African children required to fulfill God's higher purposes, and not the many self-centered, whiny, American children?
We read that God does not show partiality (Acts 10:34, Rom 2:11, Eph 6:19).If God is the passive cause of the African children's intense suffering, this certainly appears to be partiality. But if He is not the cause, there is no issue about God's partiality.

4. Why is God so adamant that we feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe those who lack clothing, relieve those of whom others take advantage, relieve the widows and orphans, and visit those in prison? "What you do for the least of these my brethren, you do for me." If intense suffering is required to achieve the highest of God's purposes, such requirements appear to prevent the very means by which He achieves them.

5. Life makes so much more sense, and God makes so much more sense, in believing that there are only rare instances where He allows suffering for deeper purposes.

6. Steve and I are both disciples of Christ. Both of us love and serve a God of LOVE, who nevertheless usually does not directly prevent or intervene in intense suffering in this life. Steve and I differ in our explanation of why this is the case. That is the basis of our disagreement on this thread and the other.

7. Even though Steve's and my disagreement seems almost violent at times, and may come close to personal attacks at other times, I believe there is mutual respect between us. Disagreements arise from time to time in all good, healthy, human relationships. I really saw Steve's heart during visits and lunch together at Thunder Bay a few years ago, when, for a day or two, I attended a school of discipleship in order to meet him.

7. Our unity in Christ is based upon our discipleship, and not on theological and philosophical agreement. I see the purpose of the Narrow Path Forums as a means to seek out truth and reality with fellow disciples. I really enjoy this pursuit, and have learned a great deal by so doing.

[steve]

1. My guess is that in all instances of intense suffering throughout today's world, God intervenes to stop it or prevent it in fewer than 1 in a 1000 cases, perhaps even fewer than 1 in a million.

We do not know how often God intervenes to prevent human suffering. For all we know, it may be that the cases where God does not intervene may be one in a thousand. Any potential suffering that is actually prevented by God's invisible intervention might never be known to us.

But let us take your estimate as accurate, for the sake of argument. Is this not the very problem we are attempting to solve—namely, why does God not intervene as often as we think He should?

Your answer seems to vary between two mutually exclusive propositions (between this thread and the earlier one, you affirm both, at different times):

1. God has no higher purpose for His not intervening to prevent suffering; or

2. God does indeed have a higher purpose, which is to honor the free will of perpetrators.

It is not possible for both statements to be true, since one denies any higher purpose, and the other affirms a higher purpose. To say that God intervenes in some cases, but not in others, but that He does so having no guiding purpose in His actions is to reduce Him to the level of the capricious gods of Greece, on Mount Olympus—whose intervention was impulsive and self-serving. You yourself cannot allow this, and so you fall back on proposition #2.

It seems a strange hierarchy of priorities for God to honor the free will of bad guys (a privilege He has nowhere promised to uphold) at the expense of His keeping the promises of protection that He has made to believers. If God's purpose in not intervening (when He does not do so) is that He might honor an inviolable right of bad people to do bad things without God's interference, then how does God justify His intervention on the occasions when He does in fact interfere with human free will? Is there a discernible general principle deciding these things—or a benevolent purpose governing on a case-by-case basis?

You do not see the example of Christ's purposeful sufferings as a legitimate template for human suffering in general. However, I believe this is exactly the way in which Christians are to assess their own experiences of suffering (Heb.12:1-4/Col.1:24/Phil.3:10).

If the objection were to be raised that we are, in this discussion, not simply talking about Christians' suffering, but the suffering of people generally, I would answer that God may well view unbelievers just as we are encouraged to view them—i.e., as potential believers—or "pre-believers" (e.g., 1 Cor.7:16).

Most perceptive Christians can look back at their pre-Christian experiences and see in them the hand of God dealing with them (e.g., the "goads" against which Saul was "kicking")—both through multiplied blessings and through painful experiences. We could conclude, without fear of contradiction, that God intended such pre-Christian sufferings to be instrumental in bringing us to Christ, even as He now uses our sufferings as Christians to bring us to holiness. If this is true of the sufferings we experienced as non-Christians, why should we deprive other non-Christians of this significance in their afflictions?

You can not lightly dismiss this thesis as nonsensical, unfair, or unloving on the grounds that most suffers never turn to Christ at all in this life—first, because your own theology insists that God does not know in advance who will or who will not turn to Christ—and thus God may view almost all sufferings as potentially restorative; and second, because we do not know whether or not postmortem restoration or rewards may be secured or enhanced as a result of sufferings, which achieved no apparent benefit in this present life. There is too much that we do not know. What we do know is that our universe is governed by an all-powerful and all-benevolent God. We may assume that He is the best of all economists, and will not waste any opportunity to redeem what has been lost.

The position I am defending is that there is always a higher purpose in God's non-intervention (as your second proposition acknowledges), but that it is artificial to assume that the only higher purpose could be the honoring of criminals' free will (this solution does not help to solve the problem of African parasites). Such may be one of the purposes, but it cannot be His highest concern, since it makes God out as only caring about a principle (human autonomy), not about people (actual sufferers).

In my view, the Bible teaches that God loves people (even more than He loves sparrows!), and, therefore, all of His purposes will be concerned with the ultimate well-being of people. It will not do simply to catalogue instances of horrible suffering and to say, "What possible purpose could there be in that?"—as if we knew as much as God knows. The manager of a large corporation might as easily explain to the satisfaction of a two-year-old how his every decision conforms to his general administrative priorities. As long as we are still not trusting in the goodness of God in the midst of human suffering, we have not yet learned the ABC's of God's character, and can hardly be entrusted with the keys to greater mysteries of His providence.

My point is that God really does love the sufferer, and that He really does have the ability to alleviate temporal sufferings. The only missing piece is the question of "why" He does not prevent every instance of human suffering. To say, as I do, that He has a benevolent purpose for His actions can hardly be insulting to Him, since the only alternatives would be to say either that He is powerless to intervene (we have too many examples of His intervention to entertain this one), or that His actions are guided by no purposes at all (and are thus capricious), or that He has a malevolent purpose. Christian theology, following scripture, has never accepted the latter two libels against the God who did not even spare His Son.

[steve]

This post of mine was never answered, so I am moving it back to the front of the line:

Consider this:

God sometimes heals, delivers from injury and death, etc., but sometimes does not do so.

Take the case of Jesus Himself (a model for us all in terms of suffering—Hebrews 12:1-3). There were several times when His enemies fully intended to kill Him, but His "hour" was not yet, so they were not permitted to carry out their intentions. Later, the same enemies, with the same evil intentions, were permitted to kill Him, because His "hour" had come. Was this "hour" one determined by God's "higher purpose" for Christ's life, or was it determined by sinful men, and God had no power over it?

Acts 4:27-28 gives the answer, in case the question is difficult.

Now take an average person, whom God loves. On Monday, thieves try to break into this man's house to rob and kill his family. However, an angel of God strikes the thieves dead outside the house (an example of such a thing may be seen in 2 Kings 19:35). However, on the following Thursday, another band of thieves comes, breaks into the man's house and kills his family (an example of this kind of thing may be seen in 2 Kings 25:1-7). How shall this man view the situation? It seems that he has only three options:

1. God had more awareness and power to rescue on Monday than He had on Thursday; or

2. God's higher purpose allowed for delivering the family on Monday, but did not allow for such deliverance on Thursday; or

3. Neither God's power nor His purposes were involved, but merely His caprice.

Which option fits the general theology of the Bible, and the specific example of Jesus' case, more admirably? Or is there a fourth alternative that I am missing?

[Paidion]

So there you have my final thoughts, Steve's response, and Steve's reposting of his unanswered post. In spite of my decision to end the discussion, I will respond to part of that post:

Now take an average person, whom God loves. On Monday, thieves try to break into this man's house to rob and kill his family. However, an angel of God strikes the thieves dead outside the house (an example of such a thing may be seen in 2 Kings 19:35). However, on the following Thursday, another band of thieves comes, breaks into the man's house and kills his family (an example of this kind of thing may be seen in 2 Kings 25:1-7). How shall this man view the situation? It seems that he has only three options:

1. God had more awareness and power to rescue on Monday than He had on Thursday; or

2. God's higher purpose allowed for delivering the family on Monday, but did not allow for such deliverance on Thursday; or

3. Neither God's power nor His purposes were involved, but merely His caprice.

Which option fits the general theology of the Bible, and the specific example of Jesus' case, more admirably? Or is there a fourth alternative that I am missing?

It is easy to invent a hypothetical scenario which can stymie one's interlocutor, once one is aware of the other's position. But do we know that such a scenario ever took place? And if it did, how do we know that an angel struck the thieves dead on Monday? Did anyone see the angel? And how did it strike the thieves dead? Indeed, I have wondered how the author of 2 Kings knew that an angel slew the 185,000 Assyrians. Not that I'm doubting it. I'm just wondering how the author knew an angel was the cause of death.

In Steve's hypothetical scenario, I also question the cause of the death of the thieves on Monday. The fourth missing alternative is that God may have had nothing to do with the death of the thieves on Monday, nor their success on Thursday, and not His caprice. He simply may not have been an active or passive player in the events of either Monday or Thursday.

Now let me give you an actual scenario, a case of which I am personally aware. A young man answered the call of God during a Christian meeting to become a foreign missionary. He spent years in training for the field. Finally, the moment came for him to depart. He assembled his gear and checked it in at the airport, bought his ticket to the country in which he would be ministering, and embarked on the plane. The plane crashed, killing all people on board.

I know I will get no answer, if I should ask Steve what higher purpose was served by allowing the newly-trained missionary to die before he even began to serve God in the capacity in which he believed he was called. For all of us humans are too stupid to understand God's higher purposes (though we were created in God's image). As for me, I'll stick by a simpler and more realistic explanation, that God seldom intervenes in human affairs because He respects generally (not specifically) the free will of all people, for free will was perhaps God's greatest gift to man when He created him in His image. Since man has rebelled, and ceased being under the rule of God, God allows him to go his own way, and hopefully learn why his own way is not good enough for his well-being, or even his survival.

Christ's statement that His hearers need not be anxious about food and clothing but could trust God to be feed and clothe them since He feeds the sparrows and clothes the lilies of the field, is not a promise of miraculous intervention to do so. That is not the case with sparrows, and that is not the case with lillies.

Miraculous intervention is rare indeed. That is why the generalization is mistaken that God miraculously takes care of His children every day, or intentionally allows them to suffer in order to fulfill a higher purpose. The way God normally works to take care of suffering people, people with insufficient food or clothing, is to work through His people to feed and clothe those needy people. This is His normal modus operandi. His direct intervention is rare. If we fail to help the needy, and relieve the suffering, we have failed God. God didn't "allow them to suffer for a higher purpose". We simply failed to obey God, and thus to fulfill His intention to provide loving care for hurting people.

Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.
Isaiah 58:6-10 ESV

I will now repost an unanswered question of mine:

4. Why is God so adamant that we feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe those who lack clothing, relieve those of whom others take advantage, relieve the widows and orphans, and visit those in prison? "What you do for the least of these my brethren, you do for me." If intense suffering is required to achieve the highest of God's purposes, such requirements appear to prevent the very means by which He achieves them.

[RFCA]

I'm really enjoying the healthy exchange of information in this thread. I hope everyone is profiting from it as much as I am. Here's my 2 cents..

People's perception of the goodness or the badness of an occurrence is very subjective. It depends so much on their current state of being i.e. physical health, income, benefits and privileges received, geographical location, upbringing, experience, point of view etc. For instance, Person A earns $20K a year. He then went thru a situation (promotion or new job or inherited a business etc.) that puts him in a state where he now earns $100K a year. Person A would see this as a GOOD occurrence and many will agree with him. Then we have Person B earning $500K a year. He also went thru a situation (demotion, failed investment, etc.) leaving him in a state where he earns $120K a year. Person B would see this as a BAD (or evil) occurrence and many will agree with him as well. However, notice that their end-states (Person A still earns less than Person B) aren't quite consistent with how they saw their respective experiences. Some folks here in the Philippines say that life in the US is good while their life here is bad. On the other hand, I know of some Cambodians who say that life here in the Philippines is good while their life back in Cambodia is bad. So is life in the Philippines good (as some Cambodians say) or is it bad (as some locals say)? Who’s to say?

It seems to me that people see an alleviation of their situation as good and see an aggravation of their situation as bad. I submit that goodness or badness should not be determined by the alleviation or aggravation of one's situation but rather by the end state that results from the occurrence.

So what is a GOOD state and what is a BAD state. Jesus said that no one is good but God alone. It seems to me that if we are to define/describe a GOOD state, we need to do so in the context of who God is. God is the center and source of peace, love, kindness, joy, mercy, comfort, etc. Therefore I dare say that a GOOD state would be a state where any of these elements (elements that are exclusive to God btw) is present, however small or unnoticeable its degree may be. Conversely, we can define a BAD state as a state that is devoid of peace, love, kindness, joy, mercy, comfort (or what have you) OR hell OR total separation from God OR eternal (spiritual) death.

God's justice sentenced all men to eternal death/separation from God; and to be in such a scenario is really BAD. In other words the default state of man is to languish in hell..no BUT's..no IF's. The Genesis account may in fact very well say "when Adam ate of the fruit of the tree...they (Adam, Eve, their would be children, their would-be children's would-be children...) suddenly found themselves in the lake of fire which God hath prepared for the devil and his angels...". The Bible may very well end with "verse x: And God repented that He had created man. verse x+1: And all the four living creatures and all the angels of God bowed down and cried out "Holy Holy God Almighty !!! (as if the party in heaven continues without us in the picture, for what is man that God should be mindful of him)". But fortunately for us, our God is good to us all the time! He is omni-benevolent and in all human experiences, be it good or bad (in our subjective eyes), God's good heart and purpose for His creatures abide.

Having said all these let us try to look at the "bad" situations again with our new goggles (or should I say, with our subjective good/bad perceiving goggles removed).

First, Mrs. Jone's boiled baby. So here we have God, not preventing a baby from slowly dying in a cauldron of boiling water. It's so painful to look at..it's gross! But I dare say that God, even though he permitted this thing to happen, was still good toward that baby all the while. Just compare the state of that baby to the default state of judged sinful men (i.e. languishing in hell). I dare say that that baby was still infinitely better off dying in a cauldron of boiling water with the hope of being received in God's eternal abode THAN to languish in hell without hope and without God. Yes, the baby died so young but God was good to him all the while (and beyond) that he had the gift of life, however short its duration was. I don't know what's the purpose of God for allowing this to happen. But I know it's a good one. All I can offer is a hypothetical but logical conjecture. God could've permitted so many other possibilities but they will all lead to one earthly conclusion—the physical death of that person...either death after being a beggar all his life, death after being a renowned evangelist, death after being a businessman, death after being a leader of a terrorist group..the list goes on. Choose any and the result is still the same--he is appointed to die once. So why did God permit a gruesome death? Perhaps (here comes my conjecture) God knows that the message it will send will convey the sorry standard of living/poverty/corruption/moral decadence/a person's insanity/etc. to those who can make a difference. Perhaps this kind of suffering was permitted because it would cause legislators to pass stricter laws that would prevent other hideous forms of child abuse from happening. Perhaps this was allowed to trigger expert undertakings to identify and assess societal problems. Perhaps..perhaps..perhaps..but whatever that is, we can trust God that His purpose is good and no matter how much suffering he permitted, we can say that he did the math correctly and the experienced suffering was in fact way much better than the default state of languishing in hell without hope and without God.

Second, Paidion's minister-friend who was killed in a plane crash. Let's analyze the experience of this brother. Of course he experienced unbearable fear the moment the pilot announced the unimaginable. Picture the mental torture of not seeing your loved ones again. Then the exceeding frustration of not being able to do this and do that. Think about all those years of hardships and discipline..down the drain like this!..Then there's the pain of being thrown around like a rag doll, unable to breathe, the agonizing stomach churns, the blistering heat of igniting fuels, then boom!! In our subjective eyes yes this situation is very bad and one that nobody wants to be in. But is it really bad? May be not after all. For such an end is still infinitely superior to what it would be like when we are in man's default state -- languishing in hell without hope and without God. In hindsight God was good to him all the time. Imagine, during his lifetime he heard the voice of God, realized God's love for Him, he enjoyed God's presence in praise, worship and obedience. Perhaps he experienced the joy of being married and having children. However he lived his life and however it ends, it's still better by far than man's default state -- languishing in hell without hope and without God. So what was God's purpose? Again I can only conjecture. The death of a person in his prime strikes us differently than the death of a person in his ripe old age. The former is more likely to bring to people's attention the person's ambitions, hopes, dreams, aspirations, uncompleted works, etc.. Perhaps (here comes my conjecture) this kind of death (in the line of action / en route to obedience) sparked the interest of many to look into this person's life and see CHRIST in it. Perhaps his fellow brethren were inspired by his commitment and later embrace the same vocation. Perhaps his offspring became determined to become ministers themselves -- the kind of minister that their daddy aspired to be. Perhaps he was able to proclaim the message of our eternal hope in Christ to the other passengers just before the plane went for a nosedive. Perhaps..perhaps..perhaps..but whatever God's purpose was for that event we can trust that it is good and His plan airtight. And no matter how much suffering was involved...it is still much better than man's default state -- languishing in hell without hope and without God.

The Bible strongly exhorts us to be thankful to God in all things. This certainly includes all situations that we perceive as good or bad. Why will we give thanks? Because there's a reason to give thanks! Is it because we have lots of money, healthy, safe? No. But because God is good and we receive his mercy all the time and we are not found in our default state -- languishing in hell without hope and without God. None of us have experienced hell and lived to tell the tale. As such it is so easy for us to lose focus and say that nothing could be worse that what I/he/she/they have been through. It has become natural for us to dismiss situations in which we feel discomfort/pain/lack/sorrow, as a bad situation. But the fact remains. God is good to all of us (to both the righteous and the wicked) all the time. He is good to us in every breath that we take...even in our dying breath..even in our final gasp.