Calculating God: Part II

Now in our first post, we noted the character from Calculating God struggling to acknowledge God despite the evidence.

Next, he begins to admit that there could be a God but questions the nature of that God as you will see in this excerpt from Chapter 13.

“How do you explain the existence of cancer? What kind of god would create such a disease?”
“He/she/it may not have created it,” said the deep, translated voice. “… Nor are there an infinite number of possibilities from which God may choose. The specific deployment of reality that included cancer, presumably undesirable, must have also contained something much desired.”
“So he had to take the good with the bad?” I said.

And once again, for the second time in as many posts, I agree with an alien, sort of.

Let me explain. It's not that God desired for things like cancer to exist. In fact, his original creation was perfect and included no such thing. But the possibility for that existed in the balance of his perfect goodness with the possibility of evil.

And after creation, his allowance of free will made the potential for the bad to enter his good - no, make that perfect - creation.

So did God create things like cancer? No. Were they a possibility? Yes.

And what is that something "much desired" that made the risk worth taking? You and me.

God was willing to take the risk of evil, the risk of Lucifer's rebellion, the risk of the snake's seduction of Eve for the chance to commune with his creation. And while the fall banished us from the garden and his perfect presence -- temporarily -- he still desires our communion ... enough to send his own son to suffer evil for our redemption.

Part III coming soon.