God Is Not To Blame Posted in: Suffering and an all-powerful benevolent God

So long as a believer characterises this world as primarily a place of ignorance and suffering they have a problem in connecting it closely with God. Especially if they also embrace the idea that not a blade of grass moves without the sanction of the lord. And God is all powerful and all loving. I believe it is for this reason that the majority of religions seek, through various means, to separate God from the goings on here. Typically arriving at the mindset that we are to blame … we have rebelled against God, fallen from grace, we are sinners etc etc. In other words God is not to blame. Not blaming God being important to any person of faith.

Another approach, but perhaps more difficult, might be to revisit the given that this world is primarily a place of ignorance and suffering. For example, if instead this world can be seen as a glorious, beautiful, perfect place then the problem with not blaming God evaporates. It becomes a case of crediting God rather than blaming God.

But how can one possibly see this place of ignorance and suffering as a glorious, beautiful, perfect place?

Well … baby steps … to begin with one might look back at periods of suffering in ones own life and place them in context of the greater journey that led you here. How do you feel about them now? Contrast that with how you felt at the time of suffering. You might see some of those times as positive periods of growth, or as necessary stage settings for a beautiful subsequent outcome. Can this approach gradually be expanded to how we understand apparent negative/dark situations in the world at large? Does it help if we imagine a terrible end is not the actual end, that the soul is eternal and some dramas may be played out over multiple lifetimes before resolving to something glorious and beautiful? OK … this may just be creative thinking on my part. That is for you to decide.

Still, if a believer believes God to be all beautiful and all perfect, surely they would expect everything that comes from God to be likewise? Worthy of God. Us and this world included.