Is God Cruel?

Is God Cruel?

    “One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license.”                         

                                            —P. J. O’Rourke

The following answer may not be complete, and there’s nothing that anyone can say to soothe the heart-wrenching sorrow of the loss of a loved one who died for no apparent reason.  However, even the most seemingly pointless suffering or death does serve one purpose; it is a monument to and a reminder of God’s commitment to our free will.  This may sound analytical at first, but its implications are truly profound.  If we are to have any meaning for our existence, we must have the ability to live and die with the freedom to make our own choices, free from the supernatural carrot and stick, enabling us to reap the rewards or the anguish of our own decisions.

Free will seems like such a trivial answer for all our senseless tragedies, but only if we don’t credit free will with its true value.  If there’s to be meaning for our lives, it must be through the exercise of free will.  This is not just for our benefit so that we may know that the choices we made were our own.  It’s also so that God may know as well that what we do is our decision, not what He created us to be or do.  This also gives the added benefit for God of a capacity to be surprised or delighted and to gain the eventual companionship of truly independent souls.

Some may reasonably ask, how can or why would an omnipotent God limit his omnipotence?  The paradoxical answer (question?) is, wouldn’t God be limited if He weren’t able to limit Himself, to set something beyond His own power, to bestow a portion of His power on others? 

Consider this short divine comedy:

***BIG BANG!***

           <<><>><<><>>

       <<><><><>><<><><><>>

<<><>The Universe Begins<><>>

God: Gabriel, isn't this a beautiful universe I created?
Gabriel: Yes Boss.
God: (Sigh).  Adam, what about you, what do you think of the universe?
Adam (voice of Eddie Murphy):  Oh, it’s absolutely delightful. I particularly like those sparkly little galaxies, and you just can't beat a brilliant sunset by the ocean or a thunderstorm over the Grand Canyon. I won't even go into women, you hit the jackpot with that one.  But those black holes are a holy terror. And WHY is everything SO----FAR----APART.  Man-o-man, the nearest star is 4 light years away. What were you thinking? And couldn't you at least do something about those damn mosquitoes. I hope I'm not stepping on any toes here, but if I'd have arranged things......
God: (Sigh)………(Smile)

 All this may be of little comfort for our sorrows now, but even the smallest soul stirs ripples and eddies in our universe, and our anguish at their loss is but a blink against the backdrop of eternity. 

"What we do in life, echoes in eternity", Maximus, Gladiator.