The Problem of Injustice
I was talking to a friend recently who is not a Christian. This friend is not currently a follower of Jesus though she does believe in God. Her reason for not following is that she is angry with God. She has traveled the world, including some third world countries, and she has seen suffering, poverty, and injustice. She is angry at God for allowing this.
It’s interesting, because one of my big reasons for not believing in God before I was a Christian was injustice. I saw so much of it, and I knew that people believed God to be all-powerful and good; how could I reconcile these two ideas? My only answer was that this God could not exist!
The crucial idea in my conversion was the understanding of free will. It is not God’s choice that has brought the world to the point it is now. It is our choices. God has given us free reign to do as we want, and humans have chosen many terrible things. Things like, Indian gangs abducting small children, amputating some of their limbs and burning them with oil, then forcing them to beg on the street to provide money for the gang. Such atrocities do not please God, nor do they prove He doesn’t exit; they simply prove that we live in a world broken by sin!
God has given us free will, but He has also given us an example of what we can do to fight injustice. Jesus, the Christ, has given us an example of self-sacrifice and service that is the answer to selfishness and greed of this broken world. When someone lays their life at the cross and follows Christ, they will be a living protest in the war against oppression and cruelty. When I lay myself down for others, I’m standing up the self-serving mentality. When you choose Christ over this world, you are choosing THE answer that will bring true life to you and those around you!
Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification
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My mistake is I kept sayin’ “that was proof that God didn’t exist”
And you told me, “nah, it was proof that the devil do”
— Amiri Baraka
Yes, God has been framed, blamed for the works of his arch-enemy.
It took me decades,even as a Christian, to understand about free will.
I appreciate your site and the topics you explore. You are helping to illuminate such truths.
Its funny, we were just having this discussion last week and its even come up once since then. Must be a hot topic. The world outside of Christ has a hard time accepting the fact that man is the reason for much of the evil we see around us. When your view of mankind is that we are ‘basically good’ you will never fully appreciate the cost that was paid to reconcile us to God.
Knowing that Christ does the saving from these generations and not us, can really help in shedding light on our sins and the worlds sin/social problems. As bad as it may be,we can only do so much here……but heaven awaits where God can have us sinless. Thanks Ed.