by jimwalton » Thu Jun 18, 2015 3:57 pm
It sounds like you are misthinking free will, God's intervention, and morality. Without free will we would not be human. There would be no such thing as love, kindness, forgiveness, mercy or grace, because all our actions would be determined, and the attributes would have to be defined differently. They would all only be robotic constraint, and we would cease to be human.
The ability to choose and decide is very different from protection. A necessary part of love, kindness and care is protection. Any loving parent will protect their child, but no matter how much you love your children you can't force them to love you back. That must be chosen and exercised by their will.
When God gave humanity their right and ability to choose, he didn't withdraw his protection. In Genesis we find that he put the man and woman in a protective environment and provided for their every need. The world was functioning optimally, and God was in relationship with them and watching over them. But he couldn't force them to love him. He warned them about the fatal fruit, and he was clear about the consequences. He desire for them was life, and his motive was both protection and nurture, but they had to choose. If he deprived them of the ability to choose they would cease to be human. That would have been immoral.
In addition, to address your second slam, God intervenes a lot to reduce suffering and to redeem it after it happens. We are not in a position to judge what has not happened because God prevented it, or from what disasters and grief we have been saved by God obstructing it. There are some prophecies in the Bible (some in Isaiah) where God's punishment on the people is to merely withhold his hand of protection, and the prophet tells of the horrors that will now happen because God's stops protecting. It's enough to let us know that God very probably protects us in many ways that we don't even dream of, and in our ignorance we think our lives are just "the way they are." God's protection of us is, again, very moral of him, since it seems he even protects many people who scorn him and who are opposed to him.
What you can't do, as a parent, is prevent your child from every self-imposed danger and injury. If your kid is an adolescent, you'll learn very quickly that they use their free will, at times, to your heartbreak, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. They choose their path and its consequences. It doesn't make you immoral, because I know many parents in that kind of situation who do everything in their power to stop their kids. But their kids have to CHOOSE it. You falsely accuse God of immorality without thinking all the way to the edges with what you are saying.