One major problem Bishop Barron has in his video about the the problem of evil, is that he never distinguishes a difference between an earthquake and genocide. This may be because, from a perspective of moral objectivity, God is equally evil for allowing either one, even if man is only 'evil' for actively engaging in one and doing nothing to help those who are victims of the other.
That one is caused by man, and the other is anthropomorphized into being "caused" by a God, as if God does things (like send plagues, famines, and floods) for the same reasons men commit genocide, is simply ignored by Christians and Barron alike.
Barron then goes on to argue that "God can never be construed as the cause of evil, because God is love, therefore God cannot will something wicked, or evil."
Here are just some examples that Barron will no doubt use one of his magical "interpretive methods" to convince us that God, far from being a serial killer who created the world as torture device to teach his victims to "appreciate the value of life" like the serial killer in the horror movie Saw, is really just a fluffy bunny rabbit that wants to snuggle with us all the live long day, and then eat our brains.
“And now go, and thou shalt smite Amalec and Hierim and all that belongs to him, and thou shalt not save anything of him alive, but thou shalt utterly destroy him: and thou shalt devote him and all his to [destruction], and thou shalt spare nothing belonging to him; and thou shalt slay both man and woman, and infant and suckling, and calf and sheep, and camel and ass.” (1 Samuel 15:3)
“Samaria shall be utterly destroyed: for she has resisted her God; they shall fall by the sword, and their sucklings shall be dashed against the ground, and their women and child ripped up.” (Hosea 13:16)
“And he went up thence to Baethel: and as he was going up by the way there came up also little children from the city, and mocked him, and said to him, Go up, bald-head, go up. And he turned after them, and saw them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And, behold, there came out two bears out of the wood, and they tore forty and two children of them.” (2 Kings 2:23-24)
“Blessed [shall he be] who shall seize and dash thine infants against the rock.” (Ps. 137:9)
“Behold, I will stir up against you the Medes, who do not regard silver, neither have they need of gold. 18 They shall break the bows of the young men; and they shall have no mercy on your children; nor shall their eyes spare thy children.” (Isaiah 13:17-18)
“And if any man has a disobedient and contentious son, who hearkens not to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother, and they should correct him, and he should not hearken to them; then shall his father and his mother take hold of him, and bring him forth to the elders of his city, and to the gate of the place: and they shall say to the men of their city, This our son is disobedient and contentious, he hearkens not to our voice, he is a reveler and a drunkard. And the men of his city shall stone him with stones, and he shall die; and thou shalt remove the evil one from yourselves, and the rest shall hear and fear.” (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
“And God told Abraham, Take thy son, the beloved one, whom thou hast loved– Isaac, and go into the high land, and offer him there for a whole-burnt-offering on one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” (Genesis 22:2)
But Barron assures the world his "God" is not evil incarnate for such commands, but only "permits certain evils in his creation, by basically choosing to not be somewhere. God, in other words, is like the referee in a professional wrestling match, who knows damn well that people will break all the rules when he leaves the ring, but out of respect for our "free will," he chooses to leave the ring anyway.
And God does this, Barron assures us, "to bring about a greater good."In this respect, everything from genocide to child rape by Catholic priests is simply God's way of "bringing about a greater good" - whatever in the hell that even means.
But if anyone asks Fr. Barron what exactly is that "greater good" that could possibly come from allowing the likes of a Hitler or a Stalin, or even from allowing the evils of Inquisitions or the sufferings of countless others who were tortured, killed or even raped by his own Catholic Church, Barron's response to all of this is "we'll see."
It's just not clear if Barron would consider it heaven or hell to have to spend eternity showing telling the parents of all the children who have ever been murdered or raped by the likes of some genocidal maniac, serial killer, or priest, and consoling them with assuring them that such "evil" is simply the means by which God works his magic to produce some greater good, that is all just part of some "divine plan." As for what his "God" has in store for him for spreading such obvious lies in the name of his dear, departed, Christ, I guess "we'll see."
By this reasoning, aborting Hitler and Stalin would've been an "evil" that would've clearly brought about a far, far, greater good, the same way the flood so obviously did, much like the murder of millions of Native Americans and the enslavement of millions of Africans, and all in the name of Christianity. Praise baby Jesus!
While Barron would surely argue that any and all of the horrors perpetrated by believers of Nazism or Communism, was proof of the need to abandon those "belief systems" post haste, when followers of his own sacred "belief system" engage in similar such acts, in devotion to a "God" who has only committed or ordered the commission of such horrors on a world wide scale (see above, or the Old Testament in general for details), he not only ignores his own Bible, or finds a way to reinterpret it into a "love" story, but claims Christians should have "faith," trust in the lord, and just "wait and see."
That one is caused by man, and the other is anthropomorphized into being "caused" by a God, as if God does things (like send plagues, famines, and floods) for the same reasons men commit genocide, is simply ignored by Christians and Barron alike.
Barron then goes on to argue that "God can never be construed as the cause of evil, because God is love, therefore God cannot will something wicked, or evil."
Here are just some examples that Barron will no doubt use one of his magical "interpretive methods" to convince us that God, far from being a serial killer who created the world as torture device to teach his victims to "appreciate the value of life" like the serial killer in the horror movie Saw, is really just a fluffy bunny rabbit that wants to snuggle with us all the live long day, and then eat our brains.
“And now go, and thou shalt smite Amalec and Hierim and all that belongs to him, and thou shalt not save anything of him alive, but thou shalt utterly destroy him: and thou shalt devote him and all his to [destruction], and thou shalt spare nothing belonging to him; and thou shalt slay both man and woman, and infant and suckling, and calf and sheep, and camel and ass.” (1 Samuel 15:3)
“Samaria shall be utterly destroyed: for she has resisted her God; they shall fall by the sword, and their sucklings shall be dashed against the ground, and their women and child ripped up.” (Hosea 13:16)
“And he went up thence to Baethel: and as he was going up by the way there came up also little children from the city, and mocked him, and said to him, Go up, bald-head, go up. And he turned after them, and saw them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And, behold, there came out two bears out of the wood, and they tore forty and two children of them.” (2 Kings 2:23-24)
“Blessed [shall he be] who shall seize and dash thine infants against the rock.” (Ps. 137:9)
“Behold, I will stir up against you the Medes, who do not regard silver, neither have they need of gold. 18 They shall break the bows of the young men; and they shall have no mercy on your children; nor shall their eyes spare thy children.” (Isaiah 13:17-18)
“And if any man has a disobedient and contentious son, who hearkens not to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother, and they should correct him, and he should not hearken to them; then shall his father and his mother take hold of him, and bring him forth to the elders of his city, and to the gate of the place: and they shall say to the men of their city, This our son is disobedient and contentious, he hearkens not to our voice, he is a reveler and a drunkard. And the men of his city shall stone him with stones, and he shall die; and thou shalt remove the evil one from yourselves, and the rest shall hear and fear.” (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
“And God told Abraham, Take thy son, the beloved one, whom thou hast loved– Isaac, and go into the high land, and offer him there for a whole-burnt-offering on one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.” (Genesis 22:2)
But Barron assures the world his "God" is not evil incarnate for such commands, but only "permits certain evils in his creation, by basically choosing to not be somewhere. God, in other words, is like the referee in a professional wrestling match, who knows damn well that people will break all the rules when he leaves the ring, but out of respect for our "free will," he chooses to leave the ring anyway.
And God does this, Barron assures us, "to bring about a greater good."In this respect, everything from genocide to child rape by Catholic priests is simply God's way of "bringing about a greater good" - whatever in the hell that even means.
But if anyone asks Fr. Barron what exactly is that "greater good" that could possibly come from allowing the likes of a Hitler or a Stalin, or even from allowing the evils of Inquisitions or the sufferings of countless others who were tortured, killed or even raped by his own Catholic Church, Barron's response to all of this is "we'll see."
It's just not clear if Barron would consider it heaven or hell to have to spend eternity showing telling the parents of all the children who have ever been murdered or raped by the likes of some genocidal maniac, serial killer, or priest, and consoling them with assuring them that such "evil" is simply the means by which God works his magic to produce some greater good, that is all just part of some "divine plan." As for what his "God" has in store for him for spreading such obvious lies in the name of his dear, departed, Christ, I guess "we'll see."
By this reasoning, aborting Hitler and Stalin would've been an "evil" that would've clearly brought about a far, far, greater good, the same way the flood so obviously did, much like the murder of millions of Native Americans and the enslavement of millions of Africans, and all in the name of Christianity. Praise baby Jesus!
While Barron would surely argue that any and all of the horrors perpetrated by believers of Nazism or Communism, was proof of the need to abandon those "belief systems" post haste, when followers of his own sacred "belief system" engage in similar such acts, in devotion to a "God" who has only committed or ordered the commission of such horrors on a world wide scale (see above, or the Old Testament in general for details), he not only ignores his own Bible, or finds a way to reinterpret it into a "love" story, but claims Christians should have "faith," trust in the lord, and just "wait and see."
People like Barron have a hard time reconciling the interventionist God of Christianity with the God of the philosophers that values free will above all else.
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