Miles Davis, the legendary jazz musician, said, “If you understood everything I said, you’d be me.” His thoughts, experiences, and creative processes were uniquely his own, and others’ understanding of those things was not possible, nor expected.
So, God, we have a question for YOU! “What about the starving children in Syria? What about human suffering?!”
At Harvard more than once or twice I was asked things like, “All smart people are atheists (untrue of course – 60-65% of Nobel Prize winners in Physics in the last 120 years knew God had to exist and said so), so why are you obviously NOT an atheist? And if there’s a God, why are there starving children in Syria?“
First of all, it was man, ignoring everything Jesus did and taught, who destroyed Syria, Ukraine, and so many other wicked, destructive, and hateful things throughout history. Yeah, yeah religion was involved in many of those things, but not true faith or true obedience to God, nor true “religion.“ A lot has been done in the name of some man-made god, by those practicing the man-made placebo and emotional pacifier of rituals and dogmas. Those things are exactly opposite of what Jesus taught, and opposite of the solutions that Jesus would have presented.
Man makes the mess. God’s way would’ve never led to that outcome.
Second of all, as Miles Davis said, if you understood everything about God, you would BE God. And you’re not. I’m not. It’s above our pay grade to know what’s going to happen six months from now, or sixteen years from now, that made today’s events necessary. It is far from obvious to us how God will work man’s foolishness, pride and selfishness into the tapestry of the ultimate outcome. People like you and I rising up to the call of what’s in front of us, testing us and building our character — that’s part of the plan. I’m OK not being able to explain everything — because as Miles said, I’m not Him. We don’t have to be. He’s competent and trustworthy.
Thirdly, some people “want” to be so-called atheists because they don’t want to be accountable. That is not honest. The objections are un-researched, not thorough, and not “actually” about logic or science. I know that stuff very well. It’s not that. It’s about pride and selfishness, and a desire to be god, rather than be accountable to an active, involved Creator.
Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.
