Real Christianity doesn鈥檛 offer easy, comforting or quick answers to the plain fact of evil, said the Atlantic School of Theology professor.
鈥淥bviously the human brain tries to find answers and tries to say, 鈥極K this is why it happened.鈥� What do we do if there is no why?鈥� Deane asked. 鈥淣ot everything happens for a reason. Most things don鈥檛 happen for a reason, because God is not a cosmic puppeteer.鈥�
In a world where people are created with free will, human beings will be more than capable of evil, and some will cause pain and suffering for themselves and others, Deane said.
Blaming God for allowing evil, or imagining that God somehow controls everything and therefore must have a reason for letting a man shoot his neighbours, reveals a mechanistic and mistaken idea of who God is, said Deane. The freedom God gave human beings is a gift and God isn鈥檛 going to take it back so that we won鈥檛 hurt ourselves with it.
鈥淚n this freedom, we can and sometimes will do horrific things,鈥� Deane said. 鈥淭his suffering we endure after these horrific things is not part of a grand strategy. It鱿鱼视频app not something God wants. It鱿鱼视频app not something that God delights in.鈥�
A Christian response to death and tragedy doesn鈥檛 magically appear because we go to church, Deane said.
鈥淚t involves a skill 鈥� a skill in going through the pain, not in diminishing it, not trying to wash it away with easy answers,鈥� he said. 鈥淎t the same time, not being overwhelmed by it. Because we do have hope 鈥� not the hope that it鱿鱼视频app all part of God鱿鱼视频app brilliant plan, but the hope that God is real and eternal and life is real and that those people who have died are in a better place.鈥�