You haven't addressed the secondary point I was making: what does an innocent child have to repent for? What is the purpose of their gruesome death? If it is for the benefit of others, that means some of us are just pawns for the lessons of others. The alternative is that some kids just die through no fault of their own and for no reason at all (which leads to the question: why would an all-knowing, loving god allow that?). Of course, this all ignores the suffering of other life like chickens that through no fault of their own born and die in the same cage without ever seeing the sun.
> Suffering is God’s wrath on sin, often through our own decisions but not always. He wants people to repent whereupon they will eventually see a world restored.
So a toddler abducted and murdered suffered to repent for what? To teach the parents a lesson? To bring the parents closer to Christ? I have asked this question to many religious teachers and all had answers similar to yours (or hid behind things like "they weren't baptized") and none addressed the core that real, innocent people die horrible deaths from time to time through no fault of their own. Others may learn and grow from the experience but what about the innocent person that died?
To understand this, you have to start with four components: God’s sovereignty; human’s autonomy with consequences; individual vs group effects; all sin (evil) must be punished.
God is sovereign which means He can do what He pleases. He created us to worship Him and love each other. He’s also painting a story of humanity that shows who He is (all attributes), who we are, and how that interacts. We are all part of the story He is telling whether we want to be or not. Christ dying for unworthy, unrepentant people to redeem and adopt them as His children is the climax of His love story.
God making us in His image means He makes us autonomous: free agents able to choose good or evil. He also allows the consequences of both. On an eternal level, choosing Christ leads to life while betraying a perfect, everlasting God leads to eternal punishment. On earthly level, our choices impact us, our families, and our societies. God lets most play out with minimal intervention. If His children ask Him (pray), He sometimes intervenes on those same levels to help them.
We’re also in it together. God judges our actions as individuals, families, nations, and even humanity as a whole. He blesses obedience and curses disobedience which includes, per Deuteronomy 27-30, both fertility rates and our health.
We also see most harms are directly tied to selfish, sinful behavior of humans (consequences of choices). His wrath is often letting our choices hurt us so we or others will learn from it. Ex: My PTSD was caused by others’ sins but my liver problems came from mine. Many health problems are caused by our diets, how we process food, and stressful choices. Our public policies, including financial investments, can help or hurt people. Individually and nationally, we can intervene (or not) to help the helpless or restrain evil. Choices -> consequences.
That all of humanity rebels against God, even daily choosing evil, requires a holy God to respond to that. Genesis 3 and 4 said He cursed the Earth with hard labor, childbearing pain, and death itself. People didn’t repent. So, that form of His wrath continues as both justice and tough love to inspire repentance.
That’s why children die. They die because everyone opposes God to a degree which forgoes protections, like against natural causes, that are conditional on collective obedience. They die because we poison our environment, our bodies, and so on. They die when people neglect them or kill them, inside and outside the womb. We’re tested where some have conditions that can be treated but we’re too selfish to allocate the resources that way. Then, people mistreat them as adults, too.
So, the combo is the moral law of God that rewards/punishes choices, free will means we can earn justice for evil choices, that our choices affect other people, and a holy God always punishes sin somehow. That creates all suffering on the Earth. People also stay evil even when we tell them that which justifies God’s wrath even more.
Yet, God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him shall never perish but have eternal life. Whoever confessed Jesus is Lord will be saved. He’ll help them transform, too. Repent and choose life. That He offers these things to wicked people, even guaranteeing their salvation by Jesus’ own blood, is the Good News.
I appreciate your reply. I've read the linked comments which had good explanations of your moderation theory. You tell us to avoid comments that lead to emotionally-charged misperceptions, ideological battles, and so on. People do this out of selfish desires or misunderstanding the effects of their comments. By blocking them, you intend to make a cohesive, calm community. I've seen the work you do myself by reading with showdead on.
"and it destroys the free exchange of views by ruining the container—the community and site—that supports it. The container is fragile and needs protecting."
"it's the difference between users who comment with care for the whole and those who don't"
I believe these two summarize your top goal. There's a higher goal that we're to balance which is giving glory to God (Jesus Christ) while leading others back into a relationship with Him. While it bothers some, I'm not ashamed of the Gospel since Christ is the only name by which men can be saved. Sharing Christ with a community creates eternal value for them on top of existing, temporary value. Also, a life of purpose with access to God in prayer to help live it effectively.
Whereas, a community of people, or moderators, who suppress the Gospel of Jesus Christ will face severe consequences the day He judges their lives. The thought of people here experiencing that saddens me. The risk goes up if you allowed things that mock the same God. Recent example in this story:
Far as "troll effects," that won't be a problem for open-minded, humble people. The Father draws them to Himself. His Word is living and active where the Creator of our brain causes it to know it's true on a deep level. If they act on that, they'll repent and be grateful for all the Lord Jesus Christ does for them. God's Word never returns void if shared.
"[Jesus said,] But the things which proceed out of the mouth come out of the heart, and they defile the man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony, and blasphemies." (Matt. 15:18)
If they hate God's authority or love their sin, they react highly negatively in a way that shows how wicked their hearts are. Jesus says we're judged only for giving them a chance, not their rejection of Him. If they admonish or censor, I believe Christ expects authorities to address their reactions, not censor the Gospel.
(Note: One person here did find some of the comments insightful. Others might have been built up. That's some success.)
Now, I'm certainly willing to reflect or share Christ in the same ways people here do other topics. Especially controversial ones. I see submissions, corroborating points from different perspective with helpful advice (I did that here), counterpoints asking their thoughts, and personal expression of beliefs in on-topic comments.
Are these allowed for Christians like they are for other topics, some controversial? Or are you banning sharing the Gospel on Hacker News where readers can't receive eternal salvation here? Shouldn't we let them decide if they burn in a lake of fire for their sins or receive Jesus Christ's gift of forgiveness?
In addition to nickpsecurity's response - if you enjoy using the rationalist perspective, then the calculus is that yes, the innocent child died a horrible death, but then they spend eternity in heaven.
I don't subscribe to "it's worth torturing one person for their entire life if it removes dust specks from enough peoples' eyes" hyper-rationalist logic, but I do think that "an eternity of peace and joy outweighs a few days of suffering" is a reasonable argument to make. (and the more you think about the length of infinity, the more reasonable that argument gets)
Also, my understanding of the answer to "why do innocent people suffer" starts out with the caveat "Nobody is truly innocent - everyone sins a lot (the standards of a perfect God are zero sin, not "not very much sin")" and then under that caveat there's a few reasons:
1. God's punishment/wrath on non-Christians
2. God's correction on Christians for sin (like punishing a child for disobeying something important like "don't hit others" so that they don't do that when they grow up)
3. God pushing non-Christians into a state where they'll realize they need Him (I've heard a lot of stories that basically go "my life started out OK and then I did alcohol and drugs and eventually ended up in a ditch and realized I needed Jesus")
4. The result of other humans being created with free will exercising their free will
5. God bringing Christians closer to Him (to your last point)
6. God using that person's suffering to either bring other Christians closer to Him, or to convert non-Christians
...where the reason for any particular case is probably a linear combination of the above.
For the specific case of the person dying instead of just suffering, take (1), (4), (6), and "it was in God's plan that it was time for this person to die" (e.g. because they were a Christian who He was ready to take to heaven, they were a non-Christian who He knew would never become a Christian, they were going to do something evil in the future, etc.)
A lot of the reason why people think so many things in Christianity are crazy is because their perspectives are wildly different. For instance, in almost every non-religious people have some threshold value for what it means to be "good" that still includes occasionally doing something "bad". But where does that value (and "good" and "bad" for that matter) come from? The Christian answer is that "good" things are things that are not sin, "bad" things are things against God's will, and that the threshold value is "perfect" because God is perfect - which seems nuts, but I think that it logically follows from the premises, and if you understand all the premises at once, the entire thing seems quite logical to me at least (although most people don't actually believe the premises without a major ego shift).
You do have to understand the premises, though - if someone says "they weren't baptized" I can guarantee you that their theology is inconsistent and they don't understand the premises. There's a reason that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Catholic church - not only was the church incredibly corrupt, but the theology itself is inconsistent with the Bible.
Uh, I hope this was helpful. I don't expect you to believe it, but I at least hope it's logical. If all that was rational to you, then you can challenge me with more hard questions at the email in my HN profile and we can see how far I can get before I run out of answers :P
> Suffering is God’s wrath on sin, often through our own decisions but not always. He wants people to repent whereupon they will eventually see a world restored.
So a toddler abducted and murdered suffered to repent for what? To teach the parents a lesson? To bring the parents closer to Christ? I have asked this question to many religious teachers and all had answers similar to yours (or hid behind things like "they weren't baptized") and none addressed the core that real, innocent people die horrible deaths from time to time through no fault of their own. Others may learn and grow from the experience but what about the innocent person that died?