Monday, December 3, 2007

Necessity of Pain

Why does God allow evil to continue in the world?

Because given our fallen, corrupt state, pain is required for God to reform us, to sanctify us -- to bring us into the form He intended before the fall.

My question is, how do we make it clear to unbelievers that we are fallen? Part of the fallen condition is a blindness to the condition itself. Hence, humnanism: people's powerful faith in the ability of man to solve all the problems of the world (if only people would just understand one another better, love one another better, care better for the earth, etc.) Note all the caveats which must be attached to this supposed ability of man to solve everything. These caveats are all symptoms of the fallen state which man most desperately wants to ignore.

Why ignore it? Because the above faith in man is really an enthroning of man above the earth w/out any above him. Acknowledging the fallen state requires recognizing that we have sinned against God, that there is a God above us.