Archbishop Lefebvre must be turning in his grave to see what they are doing in his Society.
https://www.quora.com/If-God-is-in-control-and-causes-all-things-to-work-for-the-good-in-believers-how-do-things-like-the-h0Ɩ0cαųst-happen Quiet down now children. It's story time.If God is in control and causes all things to work for the good in believers, how do things like the h0Ɩ0cαųst happen?13 Answers
Paul Robinson, Professor and AuthorAnswered Dec 5Imagine that one day, in a far-off world, three new countries came into being with three new rulers. These three rulers had immense powers to rule their people; they were so powerful that they could even control the minds of the nation’s citizens, if they wanted to. But each of the rulers had a very different idea about how his nation should be run.
The first ruler, named Shu Gar Dadie, governed the nation of Secularia. His idea was that the very best thing for his people was to let them do whatever they want. He would try to govern them as little as possible, so that they could have full exercise of their free will. For Shu, absolute liberty was the core element of humanity, the supreme law for human existence. To execute this law, he would make sure that, if this or that person did not have the resources to be able to do what he or she wanted, the ‘government’ would provide it for free.
Shu was immensely happy with his plan, as he was convinced that his nation would be the best civilization that ever existed, and so he immediately put his plan into execution. The citizens of Secularia started pouring into the government offices, asking for all manner of things that they desired. If they asked for a comfortable house to live in, the government would build it. If they asked for advanced public transportation, the government would widen the roads and lay down the rails for the trains. If they asked for new equipment for farming the countryside, the government would hasten to supply it.
What Shu found, however, was that, over time, most people did not ask for these things. He started to get many alcoholics who wanted free liquor, sɛҳuąƖ predators who wanted free pornography and prostitutes, unwed mothers who wanted unlimited abortions, generally disgruntled malcontents who wanted a hitman to knock off their least-favorite person, obsessive gamblers demanding another supply of $10000 for their next spree on the poker machines.
Prime Minister Dadie was a bit surprised at these requests, but he was a man of principle. The will of the people is supreme! He would give them everything that their hearts desire; their will was his will. If he inflicted punishments, laid down laws, or exhorted his people to this or that type of behavior, that would only be to constrain their free will and so hamper their humanity. No, Dadie was a man of strict policy and he would stay with the plan.
After ten years of PM Dadie’s rule, Secularia crumbled, becoming the shortest-lived country in human history. To this day, if you visit the former site of its capital city, you can hardly find a trace of it, such was the thoroughness of the self-destruction its citizens worked on themselves and on one another by their unbridled wills.
The second ruler, the lord of Puritania, was named Calvin N. John. He completely despised Shu Gar and all of his hopeless policies. Calvin wanted his land to be full of order and regularity. He did not want there to be any lying, cheating, or stealing; no murdering, no sɛҳuąƖ disorders, no evil anywhere at any time.
Cal began by issuing his decrees and threatening severe punishments for those who disobeyed them. At first, the populace was terrified of King Cal and was careful not to fall awry of the laws. But, over time, the atmosphere in Puritania became oppressive. Some people wanted to break the law out of defiance, just to manifest that they had a will of their own.
That was when the public executions began. King Cal used them and other means to inspire a greater fear in the people, so that they would refrain from doing any evil. But he found that the more force and terror he used, the more the populace was spinning out of control with bursts of rebellion. It was chafing under a rule that managed minor details with the same rigor as the most basic laws.
This was when King Cal decided that he had to employ mind control to achieve perfect regularity in his realm. He looked into the minds of all of the citizens at every moment. When someone was getting ready to speak a lie, King Cal would distract his mind. When a married man would begin to lust after an unmarried woman, King Cal would blot her out of his memory. When anyone started to have the first movements of anger, King Cal would step in and quiet the mind. While at the beginning, Calvin only did this occasionally, he realized, over time, that he would have to control all the minds all the time if he was to have any real order. He could not let go of any of his citizens for a moment; he could not ever trust them to think the right thoughts to will the right choices.
The results were quite effective: murder, adultery, lying, stealing, all evils were wiped out of Puritania. But a strange thing happened to the people. They started to realize that their minds and so also their activities were being controlled. They began to fear to do anything on their own, to have any of their own personal thoughts. For, if they did, they knew that some force would grab their minds and take them over, something they did not want to happen. It was like always being about to take a step on your own and always being prevented from taking it. At Sisyphus—who was condemned by the gods to roll a rock up a hill forever—could at least roll his rock most of the way up the hill. The subjects of King Cal could not even begin the first step of their own activity. Thus, the best thing to think and do was
nothing.
Today, if you go to Puritania, you will see the cleanest and most methodical cities in the universe. But, if you stare into the face of someone there, you do not see anything, just a blank, soulless, zombie-like gaze into the near distance.
The third and final kingdom was ruled by someone named Realist E. Wisdom. When his people were wondering whether they should call him ‘king’ or ‘president’ or ‘grand poohbah’, he suggested that they just refer to him as Father Wisdom. They did this and also decided to name the kingdom Realia after him.
Father Wisdom wanted the very best for his citizens. He realized that this was not always what they wanted for themselves and so that he would have to assist them. At the same time, he did not want to assist them to the point that he took away their free will. That would not be the best for them, as then they would no longer be human.
As such, Father Wisdom decided on a compromise: he would go ahead and influence their choices, but he would do so in such a way that his influence would not take away the freedom of those choices. He would map out the way for them to find happiness, but not force them to follow it.
There were several things that Father Wisdom did to achieve this delicate balance. First of all, he made sure that every child in the kingdom was born with a pre-programmed guide for how to achieve happiness through the good and avoid the unhappiness of evil. He called this guide Conscience 1.0.
The guide worked pretty well as far as it goes, but it certainly did not take away the free will of the people in Realia. There were not a few people who did not like the pre-programmed rules and wrote a new program which they called Conscience Warp and which they claimed was far superior to Conscience 1.0. Over time, so many people were installing Conscience Warp on their children that there were not many copies of Conscience 1.0 left.
This is why Father Wisdom needed to provide some additional help. He did this in three main ways. The first way was to send some delegates out periodically in his name to remind people of the right path to happiness and show them how much damage Conscience Warp was doing to the population. When this happened, some people would listen to the delegates and get back on track with Conscience 1.0, though generally, they were not well received. Once, Father Wisdom sent his son Carnate Wisdom to help people get back on track, because so many were irrationally opposed to his assistance. During C. Wisdom’s visit to the population, he codified Conscience 1.0, so it would not get lost and also expanded and clarified it into the Conscience Deposit. In order to make his visit lasting, he established an organization to keep track of the CD and try to promote it throughout the nation. Though Carnate was killed by the promoters of Conscience Warp, he came back from the dead and Father Wisdom gave him the power to be at many places at once throughout the kingdom, in something called the Real Presence. This was the most powerful means for him to assist his organization to hold on to CD and lead the universal CD community to happiness.
The second way was to provide each person with little mental nudges throughout their life, delicate impulses to do the right thing, each of which he called a ‘freedom act’. Some people appreciated these nudges, while others totally ignored them.
The third and final way was to guarantee a free and open line of appeals. Those who wanted his help, who really saw him as their father, and who liked his freedom acts, could call upon him at any time and be assured of a hearing. All they had to do was open their hands, put them together, and look to the sky. It might take a while for the help to arrive, but it would eventually do so.
Despite all these efforts to lead his people to happiness and assist them to be perfect, Father Wisdom realized that, as long as free will existed, there would always be evil. He could not take evil away without taking free will away. But he did not like Calvin John’s solution to this difficulty and so he decided to deal with evil and its attendant sufferings in such a way that he would not take away either free will or evil, but he would bring the best possible outcome from the existence of evil. What he decided on was a punishment and re
wards based system that would correspond both to his own providential arrangements for his people’s welfare and their pursuit of their best interests. Basically, he announced to his people that he would keep track of all of the deeds and decisions they made throughout their entire life. Then, when each of Realia’s denizens died, they would pass on to one of his other kingdoms. Before doing so, the tally for their entire life would be taken and their punishment or reward would be assigned to them.
Those who were unjust during their life and had paid no attention to CD and what was best for them would reside in Hocky Styx, where all such people live. Those who were just during their life, did good and avoided evil would go to Cloud Empyrean. Once you passed on to these other regions of Father Wisdom’s domains, there was no possibility of changing your conscience. You would either have the Conscience Warp or the Conscience Deposit forever and so would be fixed in either the bad or the good that you had chosen.
It was in this way that Father Wisdom was able to attain the best solution for dealing with his citizens’ use or abuse of their free will. He would assist his people to be good, but would not force them. For those who choose to accept his assistance, no matter what they suffer in their life in Realia, good will come out of it—a personal good for themselves, a communal good for those around them, and a final and lasting good in Cloud Empyrean: a personal good because they are most fulfilled in following Father Wisdom; a communal good because that results in the most harmonious and peaceful society; and a lasting good because they get to enjoy both of those goods forever after death in the Empyrean.
For those who refuse Father Wisdom’s assistance, well, they are not really going to have a good time doing what is worst for themselves in Realia. But, then, they will have hell to pay afterwards when they get to Hocky Styx. In this way, no matter what happens in Realia, it all comes out right in the end.
If the third ruler is God, then I think there is an adequate answer for suffering in this life. If the first or the second ruler is God, then suffering in this life would seem to be meaningless.