It is easy for us to say that

we want God to control everything in order to avoid catastrophes like the earthquake in Haiti, or events like 9/11. But if God were to take control of everything, we would all just be puppets in his hands. There is no love in controlling every aspect of people’s lives. God is put into an impossible dilemma with humanity as he wants what is best for us, but he does not want to just control our actions like puppets because that isn’t truly life or love.

Now, I do not want to seem cold or uncaring, but there is something else to consider. Our fear of death. While what has happened in Haiti is awful and we need to do whatever we can to help those people, is death something to be feared? Every person who died, would have died at some other time. And much of the rest of the world understands this well, though we often forget it. For much of the world’s population, death is a common part of the life around them, whether it is from disasters, or wars, or disease, or old age, or malnutrition, etc. But yet we, who live without most of these things, are the ones who doubt God’s goodness because of them.

My next thought is that we don’t know the extent of what will come out of this situation in Haiti. Haiti has been in a bad way for a long time, maybe this disaster will finally gather enough symphathy and support from the rest of the world that something may change in Haiti for the better.

If the argument is that a god who has the ability to stop bad things from happening but doesn’t, then he cannot be good. But is that necessarily true? I am a father, my daughter is a year old. This doesn’t give me much experience in fatherhood as of yet, but I know that my instincts will be to overprotect her, whether she is 1 or 25. But I know that to do so would be doing her an injustice, because she will need to explore, to learn unfamiliar things. And I know that she will get hurt along the way, whether it be physically or emotionally. And I know that whatever happens to her can make her a better person, regardless of what tragedy may happen to her. And I will be with her, guiding her when she needs, and letting her loose when she needs, and loving her the whole time. Sure, I could stop all manner of bad things from happening to her, but it wouldn’t do her much good in the end.

Posted By: Tony Martin, Aug 24, 08:39:23