From my childhood I was thought how god love , cared and protected everyone of us and why we should love him back and why we should live in a certain way to please him. But when I see the senseless violence around us ( Dambulla , Fort , Dehiwela Bombs ) I somehow tend to doubt the caring and protecting part. This question arises every time something violent happens around me, but I never thought about asking a priest or someone about it, but last night when I was reading a book I got a nice explanation for that question. No it’s not the Bible. It’s a book called Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. If you don’t know who Dan Brown is he’s the one who wrote Da Vinci Code, One of the most read books in the world. Below is a part of a conversation in that book, between a priest (PR) and a Swiss guard (SG) who had the same question as me.
PR: ‘You are confused because the Bible describes God as an omnipotent and benevolent deity.’
SG: ‘Exactly.’
PR: ‘Omnipotent-benevolent simply means the God is all-powerful and well-meaning.’
SG: ‘I understand the concept. Its just … there seems to be a contradiction.’
PR: ‘Yes, The contradiction is pain. Man’s starvation, war, sickness…’
SG: ‘Exactly! , Terrible things happen in this world, Human tragedy seems like proof that God could not possibly be both all-powerful and well-meaning. If he loves us and has the power to change our situation, He would prevent our pain, wouldn’t he?’
PR: ‘Would he?’
PR: ‘Do you have children, Lieutenant’
SG: ‘No, signore’
PR: ‘Imagine you had an eight-year old son … would you love him?’
SG: ‘Of course.’
PR: ‘Would you do everything in your power to prevent pain in his life?’
SG: ‘Of course.’
PR: ‘Would you let him skateboard.’
SG: ‘Yeah, I guess.’
SG: ‘Sure, I’d let him skateboard, but I’ll tell him to be careful.’
PR: ‘So as this child’s father you would give him some basic, good advice and then let him go off and make his own mistakes?’
SG: ‘I wouldn’t run behind him and mollycoddle him if that’s what you mean?’
PR: ‘But what if he fell and skinned his knee?’
SG: ‘He would learn to be more careful.’
PR: ‘So although you have the power to interfere and prevent your child’s pain, you would choose to show your love by letting him learn his own lessons?’
SG: ‘Of course. Pain is part of growing up. It’s how we learn.’
PR: ‘Exactly.’
So what do you think, Gods is showing his love by letting us learn our own mistakes? Although a war cannot be compared to skating there are some similarities.
Hmm first of all I’m happy to start this conversation. Please this is a sensitive topic so let us all speak about our opinions rather than saying mine correct and yours not.
My answer is somewhat very simple. I don’t know God is there or not. Don’t even care if he looks after us or not(Pretty obvious he is not). I know what is good and bad. So basically if I try to do the good as much as I can.I can be very happy. I most of the time its the the good and bad you do, which will effect you… I told most of the time with a reason.. Any way lets try to do good as much as we can. And avoid being bad.
I would love to as a Q …who do you love most ? God or Mom ?