It’s a very old question about God allowing awful wars and tragedies and not intervening to save the innocent suffering.
Searching the Internet for material about God allowing evil I came across this 64 minute video below and found it thought provoking – even thought it’s from am Americal right wing Christian preacher.
For those who do not want to watch it I will give his bullet points:
– 1. There are three kinds of evil – Natural evil (natural calamities) moral evil (people) and supernatural evil (Satan etc)
1. Evil exists.
2. God exists.
3. God allows evil and designed it into his his plan for the universe.
4. God takes full responsibility for evil.
5. God will evil to exist.
6. You can’t get God off the hook of being responsible evil and and he does not want off that hook.
7. God created evil for his own glory.
8. God punished his own son on the cross to satisfy his own righteousness.
9. God reveals himself in darkness.
10. The cross was God making up for the sins of humanity by an infinite God punishing another infinite being.
11. God has the right to put his own wrath and anger on display.
12. The greatest evil that ever happened in history – the murder of Jesus was part of God’s plan.
13. Wrath and mercy necessitate evil.
14. God is in control of evil.
15. Evil’s day will be over when God wants it that way.
MY RESPONSE
One of the hardest things I have had to deal with as a priest was trying to answer the question: “Why does God allow evil? Why does God let bad things happen to good people”?
John McArthur’s response in the video is that there are no good people. Only God is good and the rest of us are all fallen sinners.
That seems to suggest that any evil that happens to us is well deserved?
EMOTIONAL AND INTELLECTUAL ANSWERS
When we try and answer the question of God allowing evil, our answers can often be based on our emotions – like how we felt about Putin bombing a children’s hospital this week.
Can we have an academic or intellectual answer that is not affected by our emotions?
When it was asked “Where was God when all those people perished in Auschwitz some Christians answered: He was in the gas Chambers with the victims”?
Was that a trite answer?
QUESTIONS TO MYSELF
1. Do you believe in God?
Yes.
2. Do you believe that God created everything including evil?
If evil exists, and it does, then God had to create it, as I believe he created everything.
3. Why did God create evil?
I don’t know. But if God created evil, and God is all-Good and all-Knowing, he must have had a perfectly good reason for creating evil.
4. Why did God not create a perfect universe with perfect people in it so that there would be no natural, moral or supernatural evil?
I don’t know.
5. Can good come out of evil?
I believe it can. Suffering elicits compassion and aid from others. Illness inspires doctors to find cures and treatments.
6. Does witnessing suffering and evil in the world make you faith in God weaker?
No. On the basis of my lived life and faith I don’t just believe God exists. I “know” he does.
However, I think if I was God I would spend my time promoting Good and blocking evil and suffering.
And I can’t understand why God does not work that way. I suppose that’s why I’m not God and He is?
There were times in my life when I begged God to rescue me from suffering and evil, and he did not answer my prayer and allowed the bad things to happen to me.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 
123 replies on “WHERE IS GOD IN UKRAINE?”
God does not allow evil. If he did, then he would be complicit in it and, therefore, morally culpable for it; in other words, he would be a sinner, like us, and not God at all.
God wills that we will good, even though we are free to will evil instead. It’s a position entirely different from, say, that of Sinn Fein – IRA in terms of abortion. Sinn Fein – IRA describe themselves as ‘pro-choice’ in this matter rather than pro-abortion, which, morally speaking, is a sophistic cop-out, since Sinn Fein – IRA appear perfectly willing to fund the provision of baby-extermination facilities; God would do no such thing.
I’m surprised, Pat, that you, at this stage of your life, know God so little as to think such little of him.
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But that means that God isn’t God. He must allow evil because if he couldn’t prevent it he isn’t omnipotent and isn’t God
The other thing indicated by your answer is that you are an arrogant bastard.
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10.38, your understanding of my post is, at best, extremely superficial. And that is a generous compliment.
No, it does not mean that God isn’t God: it means precisely the opposite. God can prevent evil IF we cooperate with his will. It is we who allow evil, not God. This is the price God must pay for giving his creation the freedom of independent, dialectical thought, otherwise we would all be automatons.
I’m sorry I appear arrogant to you, but I am certainly not a bastard. The clever often appear arrogant to the not-so-clever.
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‘The clever often appear arrogant to the not-so-clever.’
Conceited as well.
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12.46: An excellent comment, Chris. I share your thoughts. Pat us being deliberately protagonistic but without any intellectual rigour, as he asked for. G8d inky creates and approves of “goidness”, not evil of any kind. It us We, human beings who create and choose evil. Even in our words we can ve evil.
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Then God did not create everything?
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11.50, you are alluding to the presence of evil?
Evil has presence, but not existence. Evil is merely an absence of something: in a word, ‘good’. Therefore, it does not require a creator, but a destroyer of the potential for good. And isn’t ‘Destroyer’ one of Lucifer’s titles?
Even so, everything that exists isn’t necessarily created by God. If I carve a piece of wood, then, in this sense, it is I who created the finished image, not God.
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But God created the wood and gave you the skill to carve it?
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12.04, yes and yes, but it was I who created the image.
God made possible the opportunity for the work and facilitated its execution through the bestowal of wood, and the skill to carve it. But the decision to carve the wood and the effort to carry out the work was mine alone. In this minimal, dependent sense, I, too, am a creator. However, I do take your point.
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You carved wood. Are we not told that God created everything out of “nothing”?
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“I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the Lord, who do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7).
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In the Bible, especially the New Testament, Satan (the Devil) comes to appear as the representative of evil. Enlightenment thinkers endeavoured to push the figure of the Devil out of Christian consciousness as being a product of the fantasy of the Middle Ages. It is precisely in this figure, however, that some aspects of the ways God deals with evil are especially evident. The Devil first appears as an independent figure alongside God in the Hebrew Scriptures. There evil is still brought into a direct relationship with God. Even evil, insofar as it has power and life, is effected by God: “I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the Lord, who do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7).
Thus, Satan is a creature of God, who has his being and essence from God; he is the partner of God in the drama of the history of salvation; and he is the rival of God,
Encyclopedia Britanica
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12.19, yes, I recall being told that at school. Personally, I think it’s nonsense. If God creates from nothing, then who created the ‘nothing’ that God might create something?
If God did not create the ‘nothing’, then it has existence independently of God. So, is there another creator? Or is the ‘nothing’, like God himself, eternal? But if God did create the ‘nothing’ that he might create something from it, then it makes God look, to use the vernacular, ‘a buck eejit’.
No; God creates from his very self: everything that exists speaks something of God, its most eloquent voice the person of his son, Jesus.
But not evil. Remember evil is an absence of good: of God himself. Evil has no existence.
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I have had 3 physical encounters with Satan in my lifetime.
I have seen his non physical presence many other times.
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Chris at 12:36
In the classic Christian conception of God he is everywhere. It is literally impossible for him to be absent or for us to get away with him. In fact the classic conception of hell often features that he is present but the damned are tormented by never having the beatific vision of him.
Now you might think that a God who would do that to his creation is a monster of cruelty, and you would be right.
However this also goes for evil and you have taken a natural route out of the problem to suggest the absence of God but this takes you out of Christian theology. In fact your argument is one frequently used by atheists because taking God (or rather the Christian omnipotent, all-loving God) out of the picture solves the problem here perfectly.
But you can’t do that and keep a mainstream Christian belief in God.
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I am yet to find the word protagonistic in the dictionary.
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Nice the comments aren’t all by priests today, it gets samey on this subject when they are because they’re formed to parrot the Catholic free will argument.
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12.39, I believe you.
Yes, Satan has existence, since he was created from good: from God himself. But the evil in him is a void, made by his choice to reject the capacity for good in him: to reject God himself.
Satan’s own agony because of this is, quite literally, beyond words.
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12.45, where did I ‘take God out of the picture’?
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With all respect +Pat, this blog indicates your intelligent reasoning faculties inability to make sense of the mythology of some almighty loving personal Creator God concerned for we insignificant humanoid species. That is no criticism of your personal critical faculties. Such inability is to be expected, and acknowledged as simple reality.
The fact is that the realities of our existence are just not compatible with evolutionary derived concepts of some Creator God who conducts the orchestral performance of our existence.
But if you don’t accept this, just think: …… yes, he’s a busy guy this Godfellow. Is he,……..or does he…. actually exist?
Astronomical research currently tells us of zillions of other galaxies, plus zillions+ other potential life supporting planets in the cosmos beyond this insignificant planet earth.
What sense does it make to rely on disputed writings of illiterate middle eastern tribesmen from 2000 years ago of the basic reality of existence, and as to how we should live our lives?
And moreover, how we should follow the prescriptions and edicts of a now thoroughly discredited religious self serving corrupt RCC institution?
Where is God, in Ukraine, ……..or anywhere?
MMM
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God is on the side of the big battalions.
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Just my pennies worth…
“Through him all things were made; WITHOUT HIM NOTHING WAS MADE. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” (Here’s the interesting part) “5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…”
— John 1: 3-5
•
CREATIO EX NIHILO : “Creation out of Nothing” is what most mainstream theistic religions believe as foundationional doctrinal basis; apart from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They believe that God, Heavenly Father, did not create the universe Out of Nothing, but rather that he created the universe out of “Pre existing Matter” only : CREATIO EX MATERIA.
In addition, Latter-day Saint theology firmly states that God, Heavenly Father, is incapable of creating anything out of Nothing. Mormons teach that God did not create the universe… but rather, he simply organised the universe from pre-existing matter. The Mormon God cannot create out of nothing.
GENESIS 1
Genesis says: “1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Creation out of Nothing) — THEN: God gives order to the chaos of The Creation; He gives order to the chaos after The Creation (Still a “Work in progress”? — Is the plan of Creation still unfolding? I think so…) “2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters (The Holy Spirit?).
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.”
,
Scripture clearly states that God Created the world out of Nothing — And then he created Order from the Chaos of The Creation.
I believe God’s plan is still unfolding; I believe that Free Will is possibly a bit like the Order being made to the world as part of His mysterious plan. I don’t know, maybe I’m just rambling, but I hope I make a little bit of sense x
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I saw a person suffer and ask why God allowed them to suffer.
Jesus was present in that person and asked why I used my free will to let them suffer on.
Why do we ask these questions when the Ukrainian people suffer, and not the Palestinian people, not the Syrian people, not the Iraqi people, not the Afganian people? Why was our free will not moved by previous wars?
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As soon as I saw your user name I knew this would be an intelligent, reflective comment, thank you, Goat. Merely parroting the free will theory (without expanding on it as you have) is an avoidance of the problem with the theory and of its full implications for us.
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7.23, are you suggesting that Jesus was advocating euthanisia here? If you’re right, it means that he answered your question with a question, meaning he didn’t answer your question at all. Convenient.
Mind, I think the Gospel shows that Jesus had a tendency to do that sort of thing.
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The question about evil and God is the unanswerable one. There has always been evil in our world. There is evil in various manifestations in our world. We can each contain evil within. We see evil on this blog by the presence of a crushing nastiness and vengeance. Words can create evil and desyroy and bring death, spiritually, emotiinally and mentally. For me God only creates what is good and plants goodness only. In the time of JESUS many chose not to respond to his call to be true people of a God of love, mercy, kindness and compassion. Jesus personified the essence of God’s “goodness”. For me God only desires what is best for us. Evil comes from the human heart. As St. Paul says…We can’t have what we want…so we fight for it…we squabble, we fight, we assert our power…We bully, We assert, we become enraged…We carry out awful deeds…The evil we see is a result of people’s inability to mediate, reconcile and see the absolute folly and evil of war and conflict. War and evil are perversions of goodness. Anything that deliberately destroys and dehumanizes and crushes to death is evil. Does God create and allow evil? No because he wants only what is best and good for us. But certainly we ask the questiin abiut God and evil. God is found in the care, kindness and amazing compassion being given to Ukranians thriugh the incredible response of thousands of people all over the world.
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Last week the schools were all sent reminders that they have a responsibility to remain totally impartial and they must be very careful about what is said by teachers and students. Yesterday they were all told to endorse the I stand for the Ukraine movement, schools should have non uniform days with students wearing yellow and blue and paying a pound. The Dept of Education’s Twitter is setting the example. Putin is the baddie, not as bad as Trump or Brexit but nearly and they are all like Hitler is the main message. Schools are collecting tonnes of people’s junk and cast offs to send to the Ukraine it’s like saucepans being turned into spitfires
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Being neutral doesn’t mean siding with megalomaniac dictators. Now run along and start composing your novena to pope Nazinger that he intercede for you with the fuhrer.
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We need to distinguish between ontic evil, e.g. natural disasters and moral evil e.g. murder, oppression. Humans’ moral failures are a sad function of the freedom God has given us. They are not God’s fault.
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8.54, so, are ontic evils God’s fault?
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11.40
Some are humanity’s fault – global warming, reduction of the ozone layer. Creation is a work in progress. God shares his work of creation with us.
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God in order for his plan for our salvation to happen he has to have evil in his plan.
I am puzzled about the fallen apostle Judas. If God needed him to be evil so that we could be saved does that mean that Judas carried out God’s will and that he had no free will in the betraying of Jesus. I am puzzled.
Is Judas saved after all because he carried out God’s will to be evil?
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Catch yourself on! God didn’t have to have evil in his plan for our salvation, but he did have to have perfect love. This was provided by Jesus.
Remember the plan for our salvation implies the danger we were already in.
God doesn’t need evil to save the world, but he entered an evil world, in the person of Christ, to redeem it.
God did not will Judas’ betrayal, this was Judas’ own choice.
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‘God doesn’t need evil to save the world’
Yes he does, otherwise there’s nothing to save the world from.
‘he entered an evil world’
You mean that world he created? That one? Where he could have stopped evil but didn’t?
Didn’t think this through very carefully, did you. 😂
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12.38 ‘yes he does (need evil) otherwise there’s nothing to save the world from’. A classic case of shooting yourself in the foot here! 😂
Why would evil help God to save the world from evil?
Didn’t think that one through, did ya?
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Bp Pat, the New “Armadas” copy Macarthur’s line, namely that evil instigated by them from their position of power over us, by inducing us to join in, is God’s “Swill”. First they steal our time, then our personalities. (In some cases, the inspired figurehead is not the real leader.) If we join one of their “charisms” or orders and get sent on mission, we find we are being made extortioners or strong armers for ever after the order of Gobbledygook. Emeritus Ratzinger’s elbow jogger Bertone got him to omit those from the list of disordered ontological states. It is difficult to drop out of those outfits. Catholicism had some simple bits in it and we never needed the permission of a chaotic “council” or “synod” or any slogans or enactings of “communion” to stay free of what wasn’t in line with Jesus’ teachings and Holy Spirit providence. Real commitment is witnessed solely by your sole self in baptismal promises (not vows, oaths, bonds, binds or ties) at Easter vigil, and by “hearing” Mass without going up (which was acceptable in the “bad” days).
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We can only say, ‘God is there, in the suffering’. We cannot say any more. Doubt and uncertainty are central to our faith.
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“There is more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds”.
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THE TRIAL OF GOD IN AUSCHWITZ
As noted above, Jewish prisoners in a barrack at Auschwitz question why God has let this happen to them, His chosen people, and decide to try God in absentia to get at the answer. This becomes an extended debate on why God permits evil. The first theory proposed, that God must allow people to choose actions that lead to horrible results because human freedom of will is such an important value– a solution many consider the true one– is rejected with contempt, and the debate continues. Finally, one of the men reviews the record of God’s deeds in the Hebrew Bible, and draws the conclusion that the true answer is that God is not good. He states this so powerfully that the others accept it, and there is a moment of silence. “So what do we do?” says one. “We pray,” says the proposer of the theory grimly, and they rise, face one way and begin to pray.
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In the earliest biblical writings evil clearly comes from God.
The hint would be that there isn’t anywhere else for it to come from, anyway!
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10.40, God himself could choose to commit evil, since he is not hostage to his nature.
Evil does not exist, since it is simply an absence of good.
As God was free to make that original choice between good and evil, then we, too, are free to make that choice, since we are of God: made in his image, with the capacity for his chosen nature.
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What? In the earliest biblical writings evil comes from God. You’re coddin. Which writings? I thought evil came from that serpent character in the garden of Eden
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And where did the serpent come from?
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Tommy at 11:33 In Job. This was before the devil was invented to try to get round precisely this problem. Actually since there was a time before anything created existed the only place in Christian theology that evil can come from, is God.
11:01 You have just said that God chose to create evil and come from the opposite side of the problem. The classical problem is that God is all good and all powerful so could prevent evil but doesn’t. If he doesn’t choose to stop it he isn’t God because he’s not all good and all love.
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10.48
Support your claim by an example that evil in the earliest biblical passages, evil ‘clearly’ comes from God.
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12:47 I already have 🤣
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Chris at 11:01. I never thought we would get a Christian Scientist commenting here- welcome! Actually I thought Christian Science had died out because of its adherents’ refusal to believe in illness, but that’s another matter 🥺
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12.35, I most emphatically did not say that God chose to create evil. I said God ‘COULD choose to commit evil’.
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Chris at 1:51 Nah.
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10.34, sooooo … they prayed out of fear of an evil god?
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This problem looks much different in polytheistic cosmologies where evil is usually based on one of them (for example Loki in the northern European pantheon) and the gods aren’t omnipotent like they must be in monotheism. Actually technically in Vodou the Lwa aren’t gods and there is a single god behind them but God isn’t involved and isn’t omnipotent.
The problem arises with having a single God who is the origin of everything – it will always arise.
In this I think the secular and social explanations of how we behave have the advantage.
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Any Scotland people know of Fr Mournian in Rutherglen? He keeps making a big thing in his newsletter about gentlemen needing to remove hats before entering Church as a mark of respect yet women are allowed to wear theirs.
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What a load of its my-church-and – y’all – will-abide-by-MY-dresscode nonsense!
I recall a priest yanking a beanie off a teenage guy in the queue for confession. The poor mite was as bald as a coot, he was undergoing chemotherapy. He got up and left in tears. The priest didn’t care and just walked on into his box.
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Shocking.
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Aw but shure it would have bin okay to wear a pointy hat or one of those quaint biretta type ones!
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11:20am No wonder so few teenagers go to Church. What is it with priests and yanking garments off young men?
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Not surprised. He does seem to be a nice enough man but has limited people skills by the sound of it. Given a plum Parish after 4 years ordained and still wet behind the ears.
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He is a real operator, very interested in women, oh not in that way!!! Don’t be silly. No, no he grooms old women for the cash. They are really his cash cows.
Interesting the exodus from the Chapel House since he became PP: FR. Reilly moved out within weeks, the deacon in months.
One of the few of that vintage, mind you, not to come from broken and dysfunctional backgrounds: Byrne , Ross Campbell, Fr. P. DENY. Wouldn’t say that is all they have in common tho!
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Yes he’s a good prayerful man but in to dressing up I’m pretty sure, so odd. Some of these young men get power mad. Look at St Paul’s Whiteinch
In Glasgow. The young Administrator there uses a fair portion of his newsletter every single week asking for money yet they have plenty in the bank. This week he points out it costs £100 a month to live stream services and he has a invoice for £3k for smoke alarms.
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Remove their tops and wee Ben will take off his bottoms!
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Fr is correct. We need to abandon the failed BoomerChurch model. What works is right here. Women cover their hair in a church. Men remove their hats or head coverings. It is traditional. The matter needs no further thought.
Still a little sensitivity or gentleness of praxis can be wise. Beanie wearers are nearly always young men going prematurely bald, for whatever reason. Yanking beanies off is stupid.
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Where is God in Ukraine? The question suggests its own answer. God is in all who suffer in Ukraine, in all who do good in Ukraine, in all who call for an end to the slaughter in Ukraine.
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I hope you’re not implying he isn’t also in the Russian troops committing war crimes. Talk about trying to avoid the problem….
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12.28, absolutely correct! I implied no such thing. So no need for either of us to avoid the problem. Whatever that is?
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Is God in Putin?
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Pat at 12:43 Yes you know he is because he is everywhere 🐏
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In my opinion, Satan is in control of Putin, not God.
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Pat at 12:57 Ah you didn’t say in control. I meant he is in Putin because he is everywhere. As it happens I am not a Christian and don’t believe in Satan so wouldn’t see him in control of Putin. I think Putin is in control and he’s a megalomaniac. I also think the past few years have stretched the idea of civil liberties and autonomy of states beyond breaking point. I do think this has obviously been coming for years and other states should have done more to intervene in Russia, however can also see that if you start that it’s dangerously easy to end up in Putin’s position.
I honestly think human behaviour is stupid and self sabotaging enough on its own to not need a devil to explain it.
For the record I think our race and planet are clearly doomed and it’s because of humanity, not any divinity or devil. Of course life will end naturally on this planet when the sun dies but I think humans will end it first.
I’m also uncomfortably aware that I’ve just basically spelled out the free will explanation for evil!
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12.43, yes, God is in Putin, but Putin is not in God here.
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Putin has rejected God and is allowing himself to be influenced by Satan.
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
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I get the impression Putin is a sort of operator who sees the use of religion, but cares little for it, seeing it as a role to play.
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God is with people like these in this article who are on a mission to help the people of Ukraine: https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/0308/1285137-ireland-aid-convoy/
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11.35, God knows. 😀
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I am beginning to have some sympathy with those who say the Catholic religion (or even anything approximating to Christianity) isn’t taught any more after reading the comments today. People have obviously thought about this problem but because they’re not keeping hold of all the aspects of Christian theology (which together create this problem) they’re ending up solving it in ways which take them out of Christian theology at all, like the absence of God or God choosing to do evil. 😱
Where’s Magna Carta when you want him. He would have had something interesting and thought provoking to say about this.
One thing is very clear: MMM is right that the number of no religion people in the future will continue to rise because you’re all wandering that way. 🚴
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@ 12:57pm
Here! Here! you are correct.
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Genesis 1-3
Job
Jesus’ teaching
All three shed light on the mystery of evil but the evil of war isn’t a mystery because war is man-made, and literally man made because the male of the species is a warmonger.
The war in Ukraine falls at Putins door and a complete and utter failure of western diplomacy combined with unnecessary provocation regarding Ukraine joining NATO and the European Union.
War is always evil – Aquinas and his just war theory is no longer applicable to modern warfare because mutually assured destruction (MAD) is a real and present evil but let’s not be fasciae and blame God as we only have ourselves to blame.
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This comment 👍
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Satan is a Fallen Angel. God created all good; we corrupt ourselves.
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God could have made us free of the tenancy to be corrupt or evil? Why didn’t he?
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Free will
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God has given us all free will. Evil exists. Sometimes people are lead into temptation by Satan.
If we were made free of the tenancy to be corrupt or evil, we would all be automatons as a previous comment maker correctly pointed out.
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12.51, what makes you think that Magna isn’t contributing today?
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LOL
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Pat I have been reflecting on your question on God and how He (She or It) is involved in the Ukranian horrors. How the Lord is involved in his ongoing and evolving creation is by common consent the most difficult question in all of theology.
I believe that God is present and active throughout his creation; but the manner, the mode of that presence and action is always profoundly mysterious. The universe is the theatre of his loving purpose; yet that same universe is the object of scientific study. The scientist discovers forces and laws of almost endless complexity. The religious person looks at creation with awe and thankfulness and draws on faith in an attempt to fathom its divine purpose. Every advance in scientific knowledge provides the thoughtful believer with further evidence for the splendour of God’s handiwork. But there are also features of creation which are a scandal to our minds and hearts, notably the presence of pain and suffering at the heart of the evolving universe. Thus a structural flaw occurs in a vital blood vessel and a young father or mother dies from irreparable brain damage. The horrors and barbarities in Ukraine are a further example.
God is not glorified by any superficially pious attempts to explain away these shocking happenings. On the presence and meaning of innocent suffering in the world I am forced into virtual silence. I is woven into the mystery of life itself, and as human beings we cannot but pray to be freed from it.
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Thank you Iggy
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Thank the Lord for creating Grindr. It used to be awful lurking in the cold, damp bus station lavatories on my day off for action.
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There are an awful lot of strange and dangerous people on Grindr too 😕
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Most of the strange ones are Priests. Most of the dangerous ones are the outed gays.
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A wise priest chooses a special friend who he can trust for life and usually that’s a fellow priest, not a Grindr profile
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I can think of at least one in Mid Ulster
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I’m not so sure Ukraine and the awful things that are happening there have much to do with God. They have simply to do with the desire for power and the willingness to use violence to gain ends. And a cynical and cold indifference to the damage that is done, physical and human, in the process. Putin is not thinking about God in the slightest. He is only thinking about himself and his position and his survival. I know you religious people like to filter pretty much everything through God, but in reality God has very little influence or impact in this world. If any. We make the world what we want it to be. People like Putin know exactly what they want and he will do what he needs to do to achieve that. God has nothing to do with it. I think some of you are overthinking the matter.
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4.10 pm anon
I think you are correct. One day Putin will face Judgement Day.
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The sooner the better.
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Well he’s certainly not in the Home Office processing the visas for the refugees to the UK.
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Was a Thurles seminarian, then studying for Cloyne, early 2000’s, encountered by the then canon law lecturer, who later moved on maynooth?
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Where’s MMM the day? I’d love to get his take on this.
The very idea of a so-called loving god and the similtaneous existence of evil is a mind-bonkering absurdity.
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6.30: If you are a regular reader, you could write MMM’s thesis for him by now!! Honestly.
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Brendan: My 1:37am comment last night went astray but now posts above.
Thank you +Pat
PS to 7:31. Well at least I’m consistent.
MMM
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Hasn’t it crossed anyone’s mind that Putin is actually obeying the will of God, that he is taking back territory that for centuries was part of the Russian empire and then the USSR?
Now before all the bleeding hearts start piously whinining on about dead children and the like, sure weren’t there these kinds of casualty during especially the last war?
What are you going to say about that, now? Did you think the war against Nazism justified? If you do, you’re implicitly accepting the inevitable casualities among non-combatants, even children. It’s one of those shrugging-my-shoulders moments and saying well, sometimes the innocent have to die so that the rest of us can have peace. And then just getting on with things.
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At last, the authentic Catholic view.
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Hardly. Greek Rite Catholics in Ukraine have suffered abominable seeing churches bombed and taken more recently in Crimea. Of course the Moslem Tatars lost more in Crimea with near 200k expelled or fled only to be replaced by Russians. The madhatter Vigàno doesn’t offer a Catholic view.
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@6.56pm I agree. Z
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8.05 pm
Oh don’t start with the Z symbol.
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We must remember that God is other. The best that we can do is surmise why things happen in the world. We don`t have knowledge of His plan and we can only humanise His plan to make it easier for us to come to terms with.
We can`t blame Him for the evil in the world – that is the fault of mankind. He gave us a list of rules to follow but he gave us freedom of choice. If we decide to ignore the rules of Christianity and do evil, we can`t pass the buck unto God for our weakness and failings.
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7.20 pm
Most true!
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6.56: The comment of a very apathetic, shameful, deranged, selfish and indifferent thug. The deliberate slaughter of any group of people or any individual in war is never justified. We’ve had mad, evil dictators in history and we have another such manifestation of evil today: Putin. People who think like you are complicit in this evil. Shame on you, morally bankrupt thug!
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7.23, now take a deep breath, hold it, and then let go. You’ll feel calmer, and more charitable.
You didn’t answer my question. Was the war against Nazism justified? Should we not have stood up to what Pope Pius XII called the ‘satanic spectre of National Socialism’ and let all them wee Jewish childer die?
You see, war is a coin toss: if you want to save some, like those wee Jewish childer, then others will have to pay the price for it. There’s no getting round that. Aye. War today, as it was in 1939 – ’45, is inevitably ‘total war’, that is, non-combatant casualties are unavoidable and, therefore must be accepted as part of strategy. Only cowards and fools like you think that war can be fought according to some twilight zone version of the Marquess of Queensbury Rules.
So answer my question. Do you believe the war against Nazism, to save all them wee Jewish childer, justified or not. Cowardly cop-outs are not acceptable.
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In my opinion the war against Hitler was not only justified but a moral duty.
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I believe there is more than one way of waging war: there is man’s way, and there is God’s way. The latter is through sincere prayer, love and self-sacrifice.
Prayer can achieve great things. It was Alfred Lord Tennyson who said that “more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.”
He must have been right, because Mary of Fatima, in 1917, said that if enough people did not pray and convert, there would be another and worse war (than the Great War). Guess what happened. WWII.
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Putin needs a bullet between the eyes.
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8.11, would Jesus do that Pat? Put a bullet there? If he did, he’d make a mockery of his command to love enemies.
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I think Jesus would give Putin a Third Eye. I certainly would.
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8.18
Rubbish.
Self defence is accepted In the case of murder. Also defence of the innocent (thousands).
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Pat, you said that good can come out of evil and then gave what you considered examples of this: suffering elicits compassion and aid from others; illness inspires doctors to find cures and treatments.
Neither of these is an example of good coming out of evil, but of good things happening becsuse of evil. If good can come from evil, then evil isn’t really evil at all, but good in disguise.
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I stand corrected. You are right.
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Evil facilitated the Great Famine. Evil facilitated Bloody Sunday.
Count Paul Edward Strzelecki is a forgotten hero from the Great Famine. It was interesting to see The National Museum in Castlebar having an exhibition about his efforts. A good person who did good because of something terrible that was happening because of evil.
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Only the Grace of God is between the saddle and the ground
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Between the saddle and the ground,
Mercy was asked and mercy found.
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I just did a word search, Bp Pat, i.e. Kitty, Kirby, and Silverstream… and move on, nothing to see here.
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God is where he always is Tis us humans that have to manage free choice
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8.46 pm
Most correct.
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Putin has absolutely no intention off stopping, his actions are frightening. First, it’s about what he wants, next his control of Russia. He isn’t going to listen to any European Leaders.
He won’t stop, he has to be stopped. However, he is in his bunker, out of sight, guarded.
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Pat do you intend doing any blogs on little mentioned MIAs?
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