Board index ‹ The Problem of Evil and Suffering

[Willie Henders]

I've tried to be clear that I'm not asserting that scripture promises blessings and curses all the time. But if this occurs any time, it would be a deviation from the average.

Psalms 5:11-12 states, "for thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favor wilt thou compass him as with a shield. These blessings are not promises of things to come in heaven." These are promises of blessings to faithful followers during their lives here on earth. But blessings such as long life have no significance in the eternal afterlife.

Proverbs 3:1-2 states, "my son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: for length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee."

In Mark 10:29-30 Jesus makes a clear distinction between the promises of blessings here on earth and that of eternal life in heaven. Jesus said, "Verily I say unto you, there is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life."

Along with blessings for the righteous here on earth, scripture promises curses for the wicked here on earth. Exodus 15:26 states, "If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee."
In Exodus 22:22-24 God warns, "Ye shall not afflict any widow, or fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their cry; and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless."

Leviticus 26:14-39 and Deuteronomy 28:15 threaten plagues, disease, hunger and the destruction of cities for failure to abide by God’s commandments.

Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 speak of the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Proverbs 28:20 states a faithful man shall abound with blessings: but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. Proverbs 3:33 states that the curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just.

As I said before, I'm not talking about all the time. There is an overall average in the world, call it random if you want, call it good luck and bad luck, or call it the amount of blessings and curses that God normally hands out however He wishes. If these scriptures are true, there will be a few additional blessings and curses in response to individual's actions. Again, not all the time, just more than the average.

[jimwalton]

All right, let me try to tackle this from another angle—hopefully the angle of your inquiry that will address your concerns. The blessings and curses of God in this life are not quantifiable in such a way as to be able to make scientific inquiry into them to discern what the "average" is (scientifically) or that God is performing "more than the average." Such effects are not always scientifically observable, and certainly not able to be isolated for controlled studies. It seems that maybe you are wondering something like this:

1. The Bible claims God blesses and curses people in this life above what average statistics would reveal.
2. If God does not exist, blessings and cursings in this life will fall into somewhat random and average patterns.
3. What we see in life is somewhat random and average patterns of blessings and curses.
4. We have every reason to question the existence of God or the veracity of the Bible.

Am I sensing your position accurately? The problem is that #2 is a non sequitur, #3 is not scientifically verifiable by controlled studies, and therefore the whole argument is a correlative fallacy. The syllogism you seem to be proposing is:

1. If God does not exist, blessings and cursings in life will be no different that what we call good and bad luck.
2. The blessings and cursings in life are no different than luck.
3. Therefore God does not exist, and the Bible is fallacious.

This is a logical fallacy called "affirming the consequent." It's invalid because the conclusion can be false even if #1 & #2 are true. Instead, it's more accurate to state as follows:

1. If God does not exist, blessings and cursings in life will be no different that what we call good and bad luck.
2. The blessings and cursings in life are no different than luck.
3. No conclusion is possible. We don't know if God exists or not.

The first premise is, of course, not provable. You agree with this because you're not talking about "all the time". It's possible that God can exist but not bless or curse above or below averages. What's pretty much true is that God can bless or curse in whatever pattern or non-pattern he wishes. In actuality all it would take is ONE example (not a statistical majority, or even a statistically significant minority) to prove that he "blesses" or "curses" in general. The Bible records several examples of blessings and curses, and since the same Christians who believe that God does bless and curse also believe that the Bible is the accurate record of the activity of God, it is not inconsistent for them to believe that God DOES bless and curse, though this gives them no assurance that he will do so at any predictable time or rate. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Most Christians will affirm that they have no way of knowing whether or not God will bless or curse in any particular situation, and most of the ones that won't affirm that are operating under faulty theology that I have no desire to defend.

We know that God acts in this world didactically, not empirically. Causation (of any kind) can't be measure empirically without fully isolating variables and replicating results. Revelation ( = being told by God) is the only way we know ANYTHING about what God is like or how God acts. Generally, when we affirm something as a blessing or curse, this is not on the basis of an absence of physical/biological efficient causes, but on the belief that God works by means of those causes. In other words, we believe that there are blessings and curses in this life ONLY because we first believed in a God who blesses and curses.

If obvious (more than the average) blessings and curses were set forth as an argument for the existence of God, it would be a disastrously weak argument. The truth is, Christians (aside from the health and wealth preachers whom I don't pretend to defend) don't believe that there is any particular assurance of blessings or curses in this life. If anyone could manage to prove that even ONE incident, ever, in the history of time, occurred as a particular blessing or curse from God, and NOT from some other cause, it would prove that God exists (or existed at that point in time). I have no idea how one could possibly go about proving this, however, so I will admit that the argument, while technically valid, is practically useless.

You seem to think, and I'm assuming here, that either God isn't involved, or he's blessing and cursing at a rate he specifically calculated to make it look like the average. But I'm not convinced these are the only two options. Christians believe that God does what God will do according to the will of God, which is not contingent on anything that anyone else does. This is a corollary of a divine attribute called Aseity. Christians who know their theology should already affirm this.

You seem to think that the lack of "more than the average" is significant of something. Initially, at some point, we receive a description of God and what he is like. We hear that he is powerful, kind, loving, merciful, cares for us, answers prayers, blesses, curses, etc. We hear this and we get an idea of what we can expect to experience in light of such a God. Then we go out and experience life and none of what we expected happens. At this point, we have a choice to make. Either the definition we received of God was wrong, or our ideas about what that description meant was wrong, and one of the two must be abandoned. The true disciple will abandon their conceptions and try to develop a better understanding of the God of whom they have been told. Everyone else will look for a new god who will either give them what they want or, as a consolation prize, at least fall into line with their self-generated conceptions.


As I hear it, your conception of "God blesses and curses" is "people who believe in God should be blessed at a rate better than random chance would predict." You KNOW that this is not how a Christian understands blessings on this earth, because you SPECIFICALLY SAY that you're not talking about **all the time**. You have also observed that this conception does not bear out in reality (of course it doesn't). So now this is the question you need to ask: What use do you have for a God who will not bless and curse on this earth?

If your answer turns out to be "none at all," than nothing I (or anything in Christianity) can say can help you. We do not serve God because we get things from him. God cures our sins and makes us like him, and that has nothing to do with blessings and curses in this life, which are things that can't be empirically measured. Why does God not make his existence self-evident (in this case by obvious blessings and curses)? What is the significance of God blessing and cursing if it's not recognizable as a pattern, not any different of what would happen randomly, and if it doesn't manifest his existence? Theology can answer all of these (some more clearly than others), but these discussions are really only apprehensible after divine existence is established; you can't really debate the character and behavior of something that doesn't exist.

[Willie Henders]

I'm not addressing the existence of God, but His active involvement in our everyday lives. It is possible for God to exist and just be watching for a while or be busy somewhere else or have lost interest in us or not see anyone who is righteous enough for Him to care about during these times.

The current blessings for the righteous and answers to prayers of the righteous could be missing due to a lack of righteous people instead of a lack of God or His willingness to deliver on His promises.

As far as a deviation to the averages, just consider insurance rates that are based upon varying levels of risk. Certain groups of people are charged lower rates because statistically, those groups contain people who are on average less likely to have an insurance claim, based upon historical data.

If any religious group contained people who historically made fewer insurance claims, this would be observable in the data.

[jimwalton]

> It is possible for God to exist and just be watching for a while or be busy somewhere else or have lost interest in us or not see anyone who is righteous enough for Him to care about during these times.

No that's not possible. According to the Bible, that's against his nature, and God cannot act against his nature. His nature is love, and his engagement, interest, and involvement are, should I say, non-negotiables. The deist position is untenable from a Biblical viewpoint.

> could be missing due to a lack of righteous people

Now this is possible. I could agree with this. There was a 400 year span of time (between Malachi and John the Baptist) where there was no prophetic word. (Also during the time of slavery in Egypt.)

> If any religious group contained people who historically made fewer insurance claims, this would be observable in the data.

I still stolidly assert that the action of God, either in answers to prayer or the working of miracles or the blessing and cursing of person are not subject to experimentation and data analysis.

[Willie Henders]

> Prayer is not subjectable to controlled and repeatable studies as are mathematical or natural phenomena. Prayers are sometimes answered by very normal means or unexpected means. "My prayer was answered" is not scientifically verifiable. If I pray to recover from my cold, and I recover, can science guarantee that my prayer had nothing to do with it? Of course not. That's beyond the scope of science. We know that God answers prayer didactically, not empirically.

You keep taking it much further than I am expressing it. I understand that each individual case is effected by too many variables to draw definite conclusions. That is not what I am suggesting.

If God uses any variety of different means to attain the end result of sometimes protecting His people from some violent crime, then His people have an additional protection that is not available to everyone else. The overall statistical data will reveal a slightly lower rate of violent crime against the people who have this additional protection from God.

There is no way that His people can enjoy any amount of additional protection from violent crime and simultaneously report the exact same amount of violent crime as everyone else.

[jimwalton]

Thanks for the clarification. Sorry if I'm going in an unhelpful direction.

While I think that God's people enjoy additional protection, I'm not aware of controlled scientific studies about such things, or how such things are even possible. For instance, if I go downtown tonight and no one attacks me, how can I tell, scientifically, whether (1) no one was in the area who wanted to attack me, or (2) God was protecting me from attack. There is no rational way for a scientist to discern through controlled experiments, or even logic, what the reason is that nothing happened. Is that more to the point?