Why would a loving God make nature so brutal?

[izzy88]

I'm still relatively new to theism, and while I've found some very intelligent and logical answers to many of the questions I've had, this is one issue I don't see brought up much, and it's one I've yet to find a real answer for.

The Problem of Evil I have no issue reconciling; that's not what I'm asking about. If God is good and men are free, then it means we're free to choose to go against God and therefore against the good - which is evil.

God, being good, would have made all creation good, and everything that exists is doing exactly what God designed it to do because it cannot choose to do otherwise. But man is free like the rest of nature isn't, and so we can choose to go against nature - against God.

The issue I have is that when we look at nature, we may not find evil, but we find a whole lot of pain and suffering and death. It really is a dog eat dog world, survival of the fittest; animals rip apart other animals with their teeth and claws, they eat each other alive. Then you've got disease and illness, microbes and parasites which exist only to cause pain and suffering to other creatures.

From what I've read, the classic explanation given by the Christian Church is Original Sin. In Genesis, the disobedience of Adam and Eve not only gets them kicked out of paradise, but it says that their act of defiance is what brought death and suffering into the world - not just for themselves.

But today, we're about as certain as we can be that life was around long before mankind appeared, and it was just as brutal before we showed up as it is now. So the Original Sin explanation really doesn't cut it, anymore. We didn't create this "fallen" world through our sin, we were born into a fallen world - it was fallen from the very beginning.

Why?

Why did God design nature to operate this way? Why did he design animals to fight and kill each other? Why did he create disease? Why is there physical pain?

If anyone knows of any theological explanations for this problem, I'd love for you to share them. Otherwise I figure this should at least make for a good discussion topic.

 

[epronovost]

Why did God design nature to operate this way? Why did he design animals to fight and kill each other? Why did he create disease? Why is there physical pain?

If anyone knows of any theological explanations for this problem, I'd love for you to share them. Otherwise I figure this should at least make for a good discussion topic.

Because an hypothetical creator deity wanted it like so would be the most logical and probable answer; that or the creator deity failed to create a world where scarcity, loss of energy, thermodynamics and predation would not be "necessities".

 

[rational experiences]

Humans are the theorist and story teller, owning all thinking conditions, regarding explanations.

We all own originally a human being bio life form. That can feel pain and suffering, so we try to keep our bodies safe by our choices.

When a human being is harmed, the first reaction is to apply blame. And we ask a question in our life pain, for what reason was I given this body to be harmed if you love me, spirit?

Therefore know that we would not own any question that was not relative unless a spiritual history placed us into this condition.

Now if you said to self, as a theorist does. Once no creation existed. Therefore nor did the ability to own and feel pain exist.

Creation however does exist, and you then question, and theme where it came from and always own the same answer, from a higher condition.

Now what if that condition was actually a spiritual place....why you infer and impose statements of argument and also status of questioning a spiritual inference to suffering itself, if it were not true to life and living?

 

[izzy88]

Because an hypothetical creator deity wanted it like so would be the most logical and probable answer;

That's a non-answer; it doesn't explain why God would create such a world, which is what I asked.

that or the creator deity failed to create a world where scarcity, loss of energy, thermodynamics and predation would not be "necessities".

If by "failed" you mean that he was incapable of creating such a world, you've ceased talking about God, who is omnipotent by definition.

 

[epronovost]

That's a non-answer; it doesn't explain why God would create such a world, which is what I asked.

I think I did. Because the alledge deity likes it like that. It finds it pleasing.

If by "failed" you mean that he was incapable of creating such a world, you've ceased talking about God, who is omnipotent by definition.

If my second proposal is true either there is no god or the definition is wrong.

 

[izzy88]

I think I did. Because the alledge deity likes it like that. It finds it pleasing.

No, that's still a non-answer; what you're saying is implicit in the question. If a God who is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc. created the world, then it's necessarily implied that the world he created is the way he wants it to be. But that still does not answer why.

If my second proposal is true either there is no god or the definition is wrong.

If your proposal that God was incapable of creating the world he wanted is true, then God does not exist? The existence of God is part of your proposal, bud.

 

[epronovost]

But that still does not answer why.

Because it likes it like that. That's an answer. Why is my current shirt grey? Because I like grey. Why is the world created by a deity brutal? Because it enjoys brutality. It's basic logic. If a deity has no limit or constraint then it's inevitable. There is brutality because the deity enjoys brutality. If it didn't there would not be any.

 

[74x12]

Why did God design nature to operate this way? Why did he design animals to fight and kill each other? Why did he create disease? Why is there physical pain?

In Deuteronomy 8:3 Moses told the people how God humbled them and suffered them to hunger and endure various hardships in the wilderness and yet the whole time God provided all their needs; so that they would learn that man does not live by bread only but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

So you can't learn in paradise what you can learn in the wilderness. And so it the world is a brutal place. Also it's sometimes beautiful and the good things that come our way unexpectedly by providence are also good to learn from. And in the end all this will be gone because it's not the final creation. On the 7th day when God rests in the new Jerusalem then creation will be finished and the world will be perfect.

 

[izzy88]

Because it likes it like that. That's an answer. Why is my current shirt grey? Because I like grey. Why is the world created by a deity brutal? Because it enjoys brutality. It's basic logic. If a deity has no limit or constraint then it's inevitable. There is brutality because the deity enjoys brutality. If it didn't there would not be any.

Man, I have no idea how you're still missing the point, but I give up trying to explain it to you.

 

[izzy88]

In Deuteronomy 8:3 Moses told the people how God humbled them and suffered them to hunger and endure various hardships in the wilderness and yet the whole time God provided all their needs; so that they would learn that man does not live by bread only but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

So you can't learn in paradise what you can learn in the wilderness. And so it the world is a brutal place. Also it's sometimes beautiful and the good things that come our way unexpectedly by providence are also good to learn from. And in the end all this will be gone because it's not the final creation. On the 7th day when God rests in the new Jerusalem then creation will be finished and the world will be perfect.

Interesting. So, the brutality of nature is all for us, for our benefit, to help us grow and learn?

 

[epronovost]

Interesting. So, the brutality of nature is all for us, for our benefit, to help us grow and learn?

That's a bit stupid. As you mentionned in your introduction, the brutality of nature started well before the arrival of humans in the cosmic scene. Why was it necessary for the billions of years before when there was nobody to "learn" from that brutality? It's not like a "brutality switch" was activated after our arrival on the scene. It existed for far, far longer than we have. That sounds like cop-out, a feel good excuse. It's not like brutality is necessary to learn things or for that matter that a creator deity couldn't create people with the ability to understand what can only be understood through brutality from the get go. Thus, it returns back to the simplest proposal the world is brutal because the deity enjoys displays of brutality (perhapse for a wide variety of reasons).

 

[amorphous_constellation]

The issue I have is that when we look at nature, we may not find evil, but we find a whole lot of pain and suffering and death. It really is a dog eat dog world, survival of the fittest; animals rip apart other animals with their teeth and claws, they eat each other alive. Then you've got disease and illness, microbes and parasites which exist only to cause pain and suffering to other creatures.

To witness and interact with the content of nature, was not something that the original animists were allowed to shirk. In being embedded within it, mankind originally accepted his role in the wild melange. He saw that it could be grim and powerful, but just as easily it could contain the jaw dropping beauty of the northern lights, or mountain ravines, or simple but perfect summer afternoons. Man was spiritually trained to accept that there is both death and joy. Naturally, nature was therefore to be respected, in every sense of the word. To begin respecting it again, is probably to give the species hope of survival. To divorce ourselves from it and shirk it, most likely leads to the end. I don't know where the human race is going with its modern behavior. We had better all hope it is part of the earth's plan

 

[74x12]

Interesting. So, the brutality of nature is all for us, for our benefit, to help us grow and learn?

Well yes, an imperfect world really provides the environment for us to grow. Take David for example. He became the hero king of Israel but he had to face the lion, the bear, and the giant first. If he had not done so then he would have remained a normal shepherd and his name would probably not be remembered. But the adversity brought out the best of him.

It provides the crucible. The catalyst. The room for growth. The garden where every plant of righteousness can grow so long as it's watered by the Word of God.

The Word of God in Isaiah chapter 55 is likened to the showers on the field and the snow on the mountains. It descends from heaven and waters every good plant. The result is rejoicing and joy for anyone who follows the Word of God. As it says instead of the thorn will come up the myrtle tree. So the prophecy really speaks of our hearts as if the heart is the dry desert wilderness with it's thorns and briers. That is how God sees it; but His Word is like the water which can make it into a garden of Eden.

But if everything was perfect in the world you won't grow spiritually. Because we would be satiated already. We would neither be hungry nor thirsty for the things of God.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

 

[MNoBody]

might as well ask why game makers shoot for as realistic as they can get [well the programmers in any case]
money, boy o' boy it better not be fake ....eh
everybody is all caught up with having the genuine article and feels pretty cheated if it wasn't
should there be another standard we aren't aware of?

 

[Vouthon]

@izzy88 "Natural evil" has always been an interesting moral dilemma for theism.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church argues:

Catechism of the Catholic Church - The Creator

The ultimate purpose of creation is that God "who is the creator of all things may at last become "all in all", thus simultaneously assuring his own glory and our beatitude."140...

310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better.174 But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world "in a state of journeying" towards its ultimate perfection [eternity]. In God's plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.175
​

I think of the great Catholic fantasy novelist, JRR Tolkien, and his moving lyrical tale of the "fall of Númenor", a great semi-paradaisical realm where Men lived for hundreds of years in relative peace and plenty (if you've ever read The Lord of the Rings, or seen the films, Aragorn is a descendant of the ancient Numenorean race).

In the story, Men were given everything they could possibly desire from the Valar (gods, angels) except that they had no power to revoke the "doom of Men", that is death, and were "banned' from journeying to the Undying Lands of the Elves and Valar in Aman, in case full paradise on earth distracted them from their true destiny for transcendence and return to Eru Iluvatar (supreme God, beyond the circles of the world).

According to the tale, the Numenoreans eventually succumb to envy and bitterness of the gods and fall from grace, turning their almost perfect homeland into a vision of hell in their quest to evade death and to cling on to everything they enjoy in life, with the result that they no longer find the same joy in it.

As Tolkien writes:

In the second stage, the days of Pride and Glory and grudging of the Ban, they begin to seek wealth rather than bliss. The desire to escape death produced a cult of the dead, and they lavished wealth on tombs and memorials.They now made settlements on the west-shores, but these became rather strongholds and 'factories' of lords seeking wealth, and the Númenóreans became tax-gatherers carrying off over the sea evermore and more goods in their great ships. The Númenóreans began the forging of arms and engines.​

It goes from this at the beginning:

To become this by the end:

Bruce Charlton's Notions: Power, potential, pride: Tolkien's parable of Numenor

"...The Numenoreans were the minority of mortal Men who had fought alongside Elves and Valar to overthrow the evil one Morgoth.

As a reward and compensation for destruction of their lands; by the Valar [angels] these Men were given peace and plenty, their bodies were enhanced in strength and stature, they were freed from bodily suffering and illness, they were given a beautiful and safe island in which to dwell - out of reach of Middle Earth.

Their life span was extended about threefold, so they would have enough time to bring their schemes to fruition.

The Numenoreans were thus made super-Men; but they remained Men: mortal Men.

And for all their enhancements they had the faults of Men.

*

What did they do - what did they make of their opportunities?

For a while they were satisfied to live well - enjoying the simple things of human life enriched by disinterested learning, art, and religion - and faithfully accepted death when it was due...

Then they became scholars, scientists and technologists; almost matching the High Elves in their ingenious devices; and surpassing them in becoming the greatest mariners the world had seen, the greatest military power...

For a while.

*

But soon they got bored, felt constrained, wanted a change, wanted power and wealth and luxury and to dominate, wanted the worship and subservience of lesser men - wanted all this and nothing less than than all this; here, now and forever.

Wanted perfect satisfaction of all their desires: Good and evil.

Wanted permanent worldly gratification.

*

They rejected beauty for power, science for magic, rejected truth and freedom for propaganda and totalitarian coercion, disbelieved in the virtue of the one God and his Valar - eventually, in a final rapid spiral-down into the pit, embraced the worship of 'the dark lord' Morgoth and the High Priest status of Sauron, because they believed he could grant them their desires.

Other Men of Middle Earth then feared them; they were terrorized, exploited, enslaved, sacrificed.

Sensing their own degeneration and decline, ignoring argument, refusing repentance; the Numenoreans built a massive armament and assaulted the Valar by force, invaded the undying lands to take what they wanted - to be immortal gods on earth...

In grasping at gratification of all their desires and forever, they embraced destruction: nihilism...

But repentance was always blocked by pride.

At the end, the Numenoreans were, as a culture, insane, having embraced insanity by incremental steps, until - I guess, perhaps - the clearing of illusion at the very end. At the very end when utter failure was obvious and imminent, it is likely that death and destruction, annihilation, was actually chosen.

Chosen on the same basis that Denethor (one of the last true Numenoreans) described in his despair:

"...if doom denies this to me, then I will have naught: neither life diminished, nor love halved, nor honour abated. (...) But in this at least thou shalt not defy my will: to rule my own end."

Thus is pride the strongest of sins, thus is damnation chosen at the last."​

I think there's a lesson in there, somewhere, about what human beings would do with the gift of a more perfect world than the one we find.

We're destroying the habitats and ecosystems of the one we already have, in our lust for consumerism.

God is expressing Himself through creation much like an artist expresses Himself through a painting or a novel. However the difference is that an artist or a novelist creates inanimate, abstract objects that have no inherent reality. When God creates, He creates realities including free-willed, concious beings like ourselves.

In the end, while the piece of art is beautiful and communicates something of the artist himself (being an expression of Him) it "isn't" the artist Himself. Therefore, human beings being created in the image of the artist, seek not only the art but the artist Himself and Union with Him.

Therefore, we believe that creation is not perfect. This might seem akin to "not particularly good" but it isn't. For while the universe is "good", it is not "perfect" in the sense that it cannot possibly fulfil all of our desires.

Since we are a union of body and soul, it naturally follows that the material (if one adheres to such a belief in the first instance) cannot hope to satisfy all the urgings of the human spirit. If it could, then we would surely not have created ideas of "afterlives" and "disembodied" souls in the first place.

To live in the world is to experience both sadness and joy. No one can find lasting happiness from purely material things in an impermanent world marked by constant change.

 

[Nimos]

So the Original Sin explanation really doesn't cut it, anymore.

Original sin have never worked, and personally is one of the things I hate the most about this whole setup.

The ability to throw the blame on Adam and Eve (Humans) for something that is clearly God's fault is just absurd. I would still argue that a person unable to know the difference between good and evil will have no chance to defend themselves in the type of setup that God have put forward.

It is very easy for us today to look at this story and say that Eve should not have listen to the Satan, because we know the difference. She DID NOT!!
Amongst all the animals and stuff going on in the garden, why should she expect a snake to be any different. What abilities should she have used to figure out that he was trying to deceive her...?

Taking this further, no one seems to care that God planted the tree there to begin with... Put it somewhere else!! And when they then inevidentable "screw" up, he blames them and not himself. What type of God would do that? He is so full of himself that even if he existed, he should beg us for forgiveness.

If he is so disappointed in us, he should have done a better job to begin with

 

[PureX]

I'm still relatively new to theism, and while I've found some very intelligent and logical answers to many of the questions I've had, this is one issue I don't see brought up much, and it's one I've yet to find a real answer for.

For existence to be equitable, all forms must be given an equal possibility of becoming extant. Even the ones that do so at our expense. Whatever God is, it seems to be more involved in the wholeness and fullness of being, as opposed to any particular form or expression of being.

 

[Koldo]

It goes from this at the beginning:

To become this by the end:

The greatest irony is that the first picture looks peaceful while, at the same time, hides all the brutality that happens on nature.

 

[Thief]

If anyone knows of any theological explanations for this problem, I'd love for you to share them.

If you think God is doing a tough love routine.....no

life and death need to be balanced
one thing dies that another continues
the next hoop to jump through might be higher.....and smaller

the struggle is what keeps any one species strong and resilient
if any one species fails several others are in peril

and of course.....tweaking life on this planet has been a lengthy give and take
the dinosaurs are gone that mammals should rise in number

reptiles are fine and good.....but they don't seem to look up and ….consider
they just keep eating

can a microbe worship God?......how?
make Him sneeze?

the lesser things come and go.....pushing chemistry
and the push comes up TO us
and like all pushing.....
the chemistry also pulls DOWN

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Unfortunately for the theist who insists that "God is good" as a defining aspect to His character/nature, this means that NOTHING He does can be considered "wrong," "evil," "bad," etc. Because you are not God, you would simply have to realize that you cannot, in any way, see things from His perspective, and you MUST therefore simply endure anything and everything He throws your way because "God knows best." So my best guess is that you just need to stop complaining.

It is one of the most asinine aspect of any god-based faith/theology within which God is necessarily expected to "be good."