How could a loving God allow people to die? That is the question.
This is not a question involving innocent people who get ran over, struck down by disease, etc. Yes, that question exists, but that is a separate question.
This is the question of forgiveness of sins. Some persons, you see, believe that no matter how bad another person is, that God, in his infinite love, should forgive them everything and allow them to continue.
And really, I do believe that God will forgive most things that are not related to out and out rebellion and telling lies against him. Well, that is, I believe it is possible to be forgiven for them.
Yet if a person chooses to rebel, curse God, spit on his sister, cheat on his wife, lie about his former friends, etc. should God forgive them?
I'll answer the first question as it will be read by the majority, first, then:
God is not a car manufacturer, he does not issue driver's licenses, he is not a patrolman, and he more than likely had nothing to do with the raising of the "innocent" who got run over or the driver who did it. So, then, be assured that the correct term is "allow" and not "cause" .
How can you allow your children to go to the movies alone? Don't you know they might rape the cashier? Or that the cashier might shoot them in the head? Why do you let them go and play at a house of a friend when you know that sometimes friends have parents who are pedophiles or cannibals?
Because, like all good parents, you took some precautions. You met with the other parents and made an estimation, as you could, of their heart and they appear to be decent parents. You know their address, phone number, you've seen the way their children are raised.
You met with other parents before them and found them unsuitable and you warned your children not to go over to their house because you don't approve of their lifestyle, perhaps. Yes?
You have instructed your children through example and/or verbal and/or written methods in regards to proper conduct in public, the right and wrong times to use violence, how to watch out for strangers, the dangers of sex at too young of an age and without proper protection, etc.
But, at some point you have to let them grow up and you have to let them learn, for themselves, how to conduct themselves as adults. You give them a little responsibility and if they prove themselves then you give them a little more.
Unfortunately, many good parents have children that fall in with the wrong crowds despite their best efforts. Sometimes the child is tricked, sometimes they are insane, sometimes they are just a nasty person and no one knows why.
If you raise your children to believe that it's wrong to hurt other people and then they go fruttering mad, perhaps because of a strange bacteria they got during their Peace Corp mission, and go to raping and hacking up strangers in back alleys:
1) Is it your fault? Did you disease them? Is it because you don't love them?
2) Could you forgive them for having failed to wash their hands properly?
3) Could you ignore the killing and raping since they lived in a world with disease?
4) Would you try to help them first? Or just kill them straight off?
There is your answer.
Here is the other one:
(Proverbs 1:28-33) 28 At that time they will keep calling me, but I shall not answer; they will keep looking for me, but they will not find me, 29 for the reason that they hated knowledge, and the fear of Jehovah they did not choose. 30 They did not consent to my counsel; they disrespected all my reproof. 31 So they will eat from the fruitage of their way, and they will be glutted with their own counsels. 32 For the renegading of the inexperienced ones is what will kill them, and the easygoingness of the stupid is what will destroy them. 33 As for the one listening to me, he will reside in security and be undisturbed from dread of calamity.”
It is not that God cannot forgive a person who has been inexperienced, stupid, wanton, destructive, hateful, etc. It's that God cannot forgive a person for being what they are. He can forgive them for having been what they were and he can have mercy on them while they are still what they are trying not to be. But this is their person, their soul, and if they wish for their soul to be apart from God, untrained, their heart full of vile teachings, then who is he to force them to another choice?
Only for the protection of the people who wish to be His, would he do such a thing. And so, eventually, He does: and they, the rebellious and purposefully ignorant, are no more.
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