Correct me i I'm wrong, but God could wipe out Satan if he wanted, but he doesn't? Evil is allowed to exist by God, that I'm guessing acts as a test of faith. If there was no temptation or sin, how would people know the strength of their faith?dsweeney wrote:Great call about disbelief because of misery all around being more about anger and rage at God than anything else. I'm reminded of something I read a while back. It's from "Night " by Elie Weisel, a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. A young character in it asks an older, Rabbi-like character how God could have let this happen. The older man says the answer to this question is not important but just the very act of ASKING the question brings you closer to God. My reading of this is that railing at and responding to the horror, even by questioning His very existence, elevates you closer to Him.
Is it a given that Christians don't believe in free will? Before I scratched the surface I believed that we were like those sea monkeys you used to buy in comics. God made the tank, and the stuff that went in the tank, but whatever happened after that was free will. At the end, everybody was judged based on how they used that free will. However, I'm not sure this aligns with catholic conventions.