prot. Maxim Kozlov

Why does God allow the death of children, monstrous wars, natural cataclysms?

Let's start with the fact that this question is in any other worldview, except for Christian, in essence, there is no answer. Any non-Christian answer is reduced either to statement, which is there such a thing, it cannot be different; or to hopeless hope that, together with progress, the times will come when there will be no wars nor disease and humanity will open the mystery of the unknown life expectancy and development of abilities; Either - and this is perhaps the highest, what a non-Christian thought rose to the Stoikov, - that since a person is given only two opportunities, like a dog tied to the cart: or run behind her, or, if you don't want to run, dragging after rushing sides According to stones, everything is explained only by Fatum, which is inhaling us into an unknown.

The answer that the evangelical evangelism gives to this question is reduced to one very decisive statement: yes, there are illness in it with a sin of illness, cataclysms, war, incomprehensible and unprofitable human intelligence, but in this terrifying world for his salvation It was not an angel, not a prophet, not a teacher of morality, but God became part of this world. This is the core of our faith: God became part of this world, absolutely identical to us so that it is from the inside to reverse.

And so we know that there are no tears of a baby who would not be a rider in the kingdom of heaven. No grief, which would not be overweight and defeated when a person at the end of his way will meet Christ. There is nothing unfair, unreasonable, unrealized, which would not be replenished where God would be in all in all ().

And this is the only true answer, because the Savior came to our world so that, dividing all this horror with us and all this sorrow, to transform it from the inside, and not to switch the buttons and reconfigure the program ...

From the book "400 questions and answers about faith, church and christian life." Edition of the Sretensky Monastery, 2004

Disputes between the brahmanas and Buddhists-atheists were seriously flawed by half an hour before Christ. After all, faith in a loving cherry manager or brahma - the Creator of the Universe, existed already. The main argument of Buddhists against Brahmins in this topic was just this. The good of the Creator could not create a world full of suffering. According to Buddhism, life itself is suffering. All trials about the fact that they say this sinful people with these freedom of choice are abused, does not withstand critics, and here at least two reasons: first, God had to provide the boundaries of the permissible freedom of man, and he himself created it, with his inclinations Brutal, otherwise he is not alignment. Why then accuse a man if he himself created him like that? Secondly, it concerns not only a person. Because any animal is a much more cruel creature than a person. Comrades who are talking about unity with nature somehow forget that animals are generally devoid of pity and kill each other often ...

"In the world, so much madness, which excuses God can only that he does not exist," once said Stendal. The whole history of mankind is the history of suffering. The time of the centuries of people pursue endless wars, violence, harassment and bullying, creepy crimes, the most severe execution, who blames the triumph of injustice. Even in peacetime, the earthlings torment and destroy the diseases, hunger and all sorts of natural cataclysms. And, it would seem, indeed, well, why did the Lord never brought the order on earth, allowing so much evil and allows his creatures so to suffer?

Temptation of Adam and Eve

If there is no God, then all the earthly madness can be explained solely by human dullness, natural selection, an eternal struggle for a place under the sun and ridiculous chance. But in this case, the very existence of people and their suffering, in fact, become smaller and hopeless. From the point of view of Orthodox Christians - everything in the world has a deep meaning and can be explained ....

Suffering is pain, unknown, loneliness, humiliation, illness, weakness, fears. And we all have suffering in any field of life: spiritual, mental, physical, material, personal. Why do we suffer?

The world created by God was not intended for suffering, but as a result of the sin of the first people, the Devil brought suffering to the Earth.
The devil confused the first people. He sowed in their hearts of doubt towards God. To this day, using different situations, the devil does everything so that we stop believing God.

Christ did not cancel suffering

Interestingly, Christ, having come to Earth, did not cancel the suffering, but he himself experienced everything that we are transported on this earth. Moreover, he voluntarily took our pain. This is written in the 53rd chapter of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah: "He was condom and Ulochered before people, the husband of sorrow and who had denied illness, and we disgasted their face from him; He was despised, and we put it in anything. But he took over our gestances and ...

David Wesus - the most famous English of theologians of our days. Peru David Wise belongs to dozens of theological books, his teachings are recorded on audio and video tapes, which allows millions of people to understand the great secrets of Scripture and help many respond to pressing vital problems.

Many people ask me a question about suffering. I know this feeling - I survived the personal tragedy in the family circle. But I ask myself: why did I not suffer more? Many Christians feel the same, their question is not why they suffer, and why they do not suffer more, taking into account all that we have done God. I am amazed that we are still alive. Like a minister, I saw a lot of suffering. I think the servant rank second after doctors and nurses in this regard, in front of their eyes there are as many people carrying suffering and pain. I applied to God to get the calmness of the soul, because my mind asked me the same question: "Why, ...

Answers Archbishop of Yekaterinburg and Verkhotursky for the questions of the viewers of the Orthodox television company "Union".

- "In the program" News "showed a children's home. It was very brutally treated with children: the older children beat the younger (children - schoolchildren 7-8 years old). How did the Lord God allow young children to suffer so much? They are so punished. "

- We shift our sins on God. The Lord is nothing to do with what children beat or offend. The Lord gave every person a free will. A person should be a reasonable creature to act in the truth of God, according to the rules of life on Earth, which the Lord established a man. But since people retreated from God, from the truth of God, from moral life, they violate the law, and they receive punishment from God.

We need more effort and effort to attach to raise people in morality, spirituality, in fear of God, so that they are not evil and their malice ...

More serious than questions about miracles or relationships between science and the Bible, is a painful problem, why have no obey affect why children are born blind, why a promising life collapses in the heal itself or why there is social injustice. Why all the time wars flash, in which thousands of innocent people die, children burn alive, and many for all their lives turn into rips?

In the classic stage, this problem sounds like this: either God almost, but not kindly and does not want to put an end to evil, or God is kind, but not omnipotent if he cannot stop evil.

There is a general trend to blame God for evil and suffering and impose all responsibility for them for them.

There is no simple answer to this difficult question. It is impossible to take this issue easily or scholastic. As they say in the famous expression, "there are no scars from those who did not have RAS." But this question should be remembered by some factors.

We should never ...

Maximillian Deville Supreme Mind (101421) 7 years ago Sad it all ...
Especially if you think about what, as a rule, do not write on the graves.
On the causes of death.
Oh yes, of course, I want to believe that it was a quick painless death.
The child falls asleep ... And wakes up already in Paradise, the Poto, that good God saw such a terrestrial angel and decided to make heavenly angel.
But it does not happen ... So it does not always happen.
It could be some terrible and unpleasant injuries ...
I heard somehow the news about the raped 2-khletnyy girl ...
It could be heavy innate diseases from which the child is painfully dying for several months, or even years.

Options that God decided to postpone the best thing on earth on the sky, rejected ...
For why in such ways?
Kara parents?
Interesting interpretation of God. . punishing parents, saturated torment on nothing ...

Why does God admit wars?

P. I. Rogozin

Why does God admit wars?

Download WinZip (Word 97)

"Durcely you arrived now.
In then, you will have wars "(2 pairs. 16: 9)

Why does God allow such atrocities? "," Why does God do not do so that there was no war? " These questions were all on the mouth and literally hung in the air during the two world wars. Now that the ominous clouds of mutual extermination are condensed again in the world, the question is: "Why does God admit war?" - again becomes vital and relevant.

For the historical stage, we have experienced, there is no more acute topic than the "inevitable clash" of two mutually exclusive camps ... everyone is asked questions: "What is the day coming to us?" And "How will it end?"

How to avoid war - the main problem of our generation. All other problems moved to the background.

In his centuries-old apostasy from God, a person reached such limits when he should or ...

Will we be waiting for us in the future, similar to the World Flood? Why does good God allow the mass death and suffering of people? Is it possible to fear a catastrophe of a Christian correctly and how can you defeat this fear?

For that God sends people disasters like a flood, earthquake, etc.?

Same such a question - "For what?" - From a Christian point of view is incorrect. When it comes to suffering from the whole people during a disaster, to explain this catastrophe of the action of an angry God can only be possible from the position of pagan religions, but not from those ideas about God, which are open to the Gospel. True, and in the Old Testament, too, you can also find the mention of God angry at the people, about God - Avenger for evil, about God - the ruin of sinners. But the Old Testament Revelation was given to one, quite concrete people, based on its level of intellectual, moral and general cultural development. And in those days, this level among the people of Israel was little different from the culture ...

Why does God admit evil?

Nature evil - the area of \u200b\u200bhidden knowledge

Our mind is not the mind of the Lord or even Angels, therefore a number of Categories of Being are simply unrecognizable due to the nature of our consciousness. In addition, as science would not leave, there is a part of knowledge that will never become the property of humanity by virtue of its "secrecy". In the Bible, this is stated in the Bible, for example, in the book of Deuteronomy (29:29): "The hidden knowledge belongs to the Lord, and the open (that is, which can be opened by scientific means) - to us and our sons to the century."

Guess on initial origin of evil can be built infinitely. No one has an exhaustive response, because This question refers to the category of "hidden knowledge." We are just dealing with the axiom of the real existence of the evil, with which they are forced to fight. To succeed in this case, it is necessary to clearly imagine ...

This question is the most common of all that people ask about God. If God loves everyone, then why evil people flourish, and innocent die? Why would God not intervene: would help them, saved, got rid of their troubles.
... Millions of people died during World War II. Innocent people are dying and today along the whole earth. Children are born in defective, adolescents are injured, adults become disabled, older people are paralyzed. Wherever you look - they kill everywhere, deceive, steal, rob. And who is the victim? Mostly defenseless, innocent people are children, old people.
You ask: Where does God look? Doesn't he love people? Didn't he have created a man? Why does he not help then? Why does it all this? After all, still in his power! To understand this and find out whether it is possible to solve the problems today before mankind, it is necessary to return to the very beginning.

1. Battle of two kingdoms
As the Bible tells, even before the creation of a person, Lucifer, the main one ...

Why does God allow such suffering?

You're all right away, because all is yours, drew-lovely Lord.
You are mistaken, you will be mistaken and, resembling them, what they are sinful, do you feel that they, retreat from evil, believed in you, Lord. Possessing the power, you will judge condescendingly and manage us with the great mercy, for your power is always in your will.

(Prem. 11, 27; 12, 2, 18).

My thoughts are not your thoughts nor your paths - my paths, says the Lord. But as the sky above the ground, so my ways are above your ways, and my thoughts are above your thoughts.

(Is. 55, 8-9).

If we judged ourselves, they would not be tried. Being tried, we punish the Lord not to be convicted with the world.

(1 Cor. 11, 31-32).

God would not want to give us sorrels, but our trouble is that without sorry we do not know how to escape!

Priest of Dionysius.

That is why she (land) and called Yudol crying; But people alone cry, while others will jump, but the last ...

Human history is the most real history of torment and suffering. At all times, people pursued war, violence, humiliation, cruel crimes and executions. Even now, when there is no war (at least we) people still exterminate fatal diseases, hunger and various natural cataclysms. Why does our creator can't induce order on Earth, why allows evil to rule the world and makes suffering to its creations? Answers to these and many other questions can be found by reading this article entirely.

WHAT ADAMU showed an apple? The first people living on Earth were in happiness, because they lived not just on Earth, but in paradise. But suddenly Adam and Eve arrived frivolously: they listened to Zmia-tempter, thereby violated the sole God's commandment. It was worth it only to taste the forbidden apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, as the whole world was instantly attacked by evil, and the nature of all the living was freer: many animals became predatory, harmful insects appeared ...

As a response to the question - "Why does God allow suffering?", We are interviewed with Archbishop Yekaterinburg and Verkhotur Kirill. In his interview, Vladyka is responsible for other equally important issues.
- "In the program" News "showed a children's home. It was very brutally treated with children: the older children beat the younger (children - schoolchildren 7-8 years old). How did the Lord God allow young children to suffer so much? They are so punished. "
- We shift our sins on God. The Lord is nothing to do with what children beat or offend. The Lord gave every person a free will. A person should be a reasonable creature to act in the truth of God, according to the rules of life on Earth, which the Lord established a man. But since people retreated from God, from the truth of God, from moral life, they violate the law, and they receive punishment from God.
You do not need to blame in this God. We need to blame ourselves.

We need more effort and effort to attach to educate ...

Why does God allow the suffering of innocent? Does this mean? How can you combine faith in the omnipotent, loving God and such blatant injustice? Reflects the Bishop Smolensky and Vyazemsky Panteleimon. Again bombing. 1941 year. Photo B. Yaroslavseva

Honored suffering easier to accept

Probably easier to die for a high idea, maybe you can dying in the name of love, you can safely go to death if you committed a hard crime and understand that the punishment is worthy. It happens, criminals themselves want them to punish them. In the lives of saints there is a story about one robber who killed many people, including children. In those days, criminals sometimes hid from justice in the monasteries. The monks lived separately, they wore special clothes, behind which it was possible to hide. This robber also went to the monastery and was adopted by monks. At first he deceived them, but then he repeated and received forgiveness from God - every sinner receives forgiveness from God if he sincerely rushes in ...

This lesson is devoted entirely to the problem of the theodice, that is, the exercises, which coordinates faith in God with the presence of suffering, various disasters in the world, evil. Although this term was introduced in the XVII century, but the problem itself is known since ancient times. If God is omnipotent and infinitely good (i.e. good) creature, then why various natural disasters, war, illness and death occur in the world? Every day I do not come about new terrible events. It would seem that if God exists, wishes everyone a general good and is powerful enough to achieve everything he wants, then nothing of the listed should be! But daily we face in the world with evil and suffering, and therefore, or God wishes the existence of all this (i.e., he does not all be worse), or he does not reach everything that wishes (that is not omnipotent), or God does not There is at all. In the religions of the world, this difficult issue is resolved in different ways. For example, ancient Polyteraism simply replaced the Almighty God with a lot of small ...

Good day! From your response about "what God is", I realized that this is the Creator of our visible world and everything in it, and once on Earth the face of God appeared in Jesus Christ. If this is true, then I have a question, what is happening now with the world in which we live? I'm talking about war, terrorism and the idea of \u200b\u200bthe Golden Billion. That is, if God created our world, then why did the mass destruction made about 20-25 million people from 41 to 45 years old? Did these 20 million were sinful in past lives and during these years they redeemed their sins at the cost of their own life? I think that either that God about whom we say - not omnipotently either it is not God at all, to whom I need to seek for it does not help. Can he who created entire worlds - allow the death of his creations? Thank. Sincerely yours, Ilya

The priest Philip Parfenov answers:

Hello again, Ilya!

Questions in the spirit of yours asked about 3,000 years ago, and there is a book of Job in the Bible, where the righteous makes tight claims to God, similar to yours, being in a state of boring, call ... In the end, he is God, not answering right on All the hard questions, after which all the inclined issues are removed, - they refuse them. This is a kind of long and deployed parable. Its essence is such that it is important to some live and personal contact with God, and then a lot will appear in the other light. Ask God, contact him! Maybe not immediately, but over time and something will be given to you ... And the questions will still remain - God is primarily the mystery. Suppose at least for a second that your ideas about God can be quite far from what God is actually! It is at least a bit, but can help. How much is God allegiaut, and why does he allow so much evil? I do not know ... God is potentially much more powerful than all of us, but as far as he is in fact, I also do not know. On the Divine Liturgy, the most important service of the Orthodox Church, we pray: "You are in distinct, unknown, invisible, incomprehensible ..." This is the most accurate thing that we can say about it, and about it - all Scripture! If God was understood for us, he would definitely not be God by definition. This, too, I can argue with all the confidence. And about the rest - only in troubled guesses and assumptions ... And if you carefully look at the Scripture, first of all, the New Testament, then there is the fate of Christ, God embodied in a human image. He resurrected the dead, healed from incurable diseases and ... allowed him to be abruptly and ultimately become the most humiliating and painful execution of the time - crucifixion (so they did with the latest slaves of the Roman Empire, and in the Jewish law such a person was considered damned). So, if God allowed to do this with his unique and unique and born son, is it surprising that he allows something like that with others? Scripture, by the way, originally did not promise anyone easy life. Jesus himself warned about the sorrowful fate of his students. Today, when I write to you, the Holiday Exaltation of the Cross is also a reminder of this ... "Take your own cross and follow me," as Jesus said. But after the cross, notice, follows the resurrection! And life with physical death does not end. If it were limited only to this biological form, then in fact, we are unhappy all people if we hope for Christ only in this life, not believing on His Resurrection and in the final resurrection of the dead, as the Apostle Paul wrote to Corinthians (1 Cor. 15: 12-19). And God opened one important truth to the Apostle Paul: " my strength is performed in the weakness"(2 Cor. 12: 9). Yes, God often in this visible world is most likely beaten than Silen. His paths, his tactics are mysterious ... He does not subordinate and does not force anyone - the people themselves do. He gives freedom to everyone to express themselves and in good, which urgently urged, and in bad too. Alternative to this? Perhaps the world, where everything would be worked out, is debugged, predictable, as in the mechanism, but then there would be no freedom in this world ... and there would be no life!

I will give another words of the apostle - "I want to go faith, not a vision" (2 Cor. 5: 7). And not knowing, add to this. If everything could be seen for us, very clear and clearly, it would be a solid knowledge, and then there would be no need for the faith in faith. But again, again calls us all the Scriptures. TO faith as trust God, and at the same time and loyalty He as well confidencein those things invisible, which we can not clearly show and explain.

Sincerely, the priest Philip Parfenov.

Will we be waiting for us in the future, similar to the World Flood? Why does good God allow the mass death and suffering of people? Is it possible to fear a catastrophe of a Christian correctly and how can you defeat this fear?

For that God sends people disasters like a flood, earthquake, etc.?

Same such a question - "For what?" - From a Christian point of view is incorrect. When it comes to suffering from the whole people during a disaster, to explain this catastrophe of the action of an angry God can only be possible from the position of pagan religions, but not from those ideas about God, which are open to the Gospel. True, and in the Old Testament, too, you can also find the mention of God angry at the people, about God - Avenger for evil, about God - the ruin of sinners. But the Old Testament Revelation was given to one, quite concrete people, based on its level of intellectual, moral and general cultural development. And in those days, this level from the people of Israel was not much different from the culture of the pagan tribes surrounding Israel. And the image of the Terrible God, punishing people for their sins, was simply the most clear for Jews of the Old Testament era. St. John Zlatoust writes directly about this: "When you hear the words" rage "and" anger "in relation to God, then we do not know anything about them: these are words of condescension. The deity is alien to all of the same, the saying is so in order to bring the subject to the understanding of people more rude. "

With the coming of Christ, the embodied God, any allegory, images and cultural interpretations were superfluous and meaningless. The evangelical story of Christ is straight, without any allegory shows what the properties of God are actually. Can he delete the elements? Yes of course. But it does not erase Christ from the face of the city of the city along with their inhabitants, on the contrary - tame a storm, deadly frightened Galilee fishermen. The fire from the sky on the heads of heretic-Samarian on the heads, but forbids his disciples to think about him in the Old Testament categories: ... and they entered the village of Samaryanskoye to prepare for him; But there did not take it, because he had a kind of traveling to Jerusalem. Seeing his disciples, Jacob and John, said: Lord! Want if we say that the fire come out from the sky and destroyed them, as Elijah did? But he, contacting them, forbade them and said: You do not know what you are the Spirit; For the Son of Human came not to destroy the souls of human, but save. And went to another village (LK 9: 52-56).

On the pages of the Gospel, such a completeness of the ideas about God, which even disciples of Christ were not easy to perceive. "It's not to destroy, but save" - \u200b\u200bhow to understand these words, if we are talking about the same God, who once said during the time of Noah: And here, I will give a flood to earth to destroy all the flesh in which there is Spirit of life, under the skies; All that is on earth will lose life (Gen. 6:17).

It would seem - that's a direct and clear indication on the cause of the cataclysm, which destroyed antediluvian mankind: God destroyed people for their sins. At such an understanding of the Bible, the apostles were raised, similarly, they were going to act with the residents of the Samarist village - sinners, refused to accept the Messiah. And suddenly, he hears from Christ the reproach is that their understanding of the relationship of God with sinners is incorrect. The same reproach then, in the Gefseiman Garden, hear the apostle Peter, who tried to defend Christ from the temple guard who came with the sword in his hands. If you carefully consider all such situations described in the Gospel, the conclusion will be quite unambiguous: Christ - the wrong God showed his not limited power over nature and elements, but never used this power to punish people for their sins. He miraculously fled the lack of food and drink, healed the disease, returned his eyesight and the ability to move, resurrected the dead. But nowhere will we find a mention in the Gospel of how Christ crawled the flood or arranged an earthquake.

Although, of course, the connection of human sin and the catastrophe occurring on earth in Christianity is no case denied. But to reduce this connection only to the primitive scheme "Man sinned - God punished" it would be fundamentally wrong.

How this may be to be kind of God to kill during the Flood almost allhumanity?

And he saw the Lord, which is great corruption of people on earth, and that all the thoughts and thinking of their hearts were evil at all time; And the Lord repented, which created a man on earth, and raised in his heart. And the Lord said: I will destroy from the face of the earth of the people, whom I created, from a person to cattle, and the reptiles and birds of Heavenly, I will destroy, for I repented that I created them (Gen. 6: 5-7).

This biblical text sounds very scary and causes many complaints of both the most diverse critics of Christianity and some believers. But, remembering the thought of Anthony of the Great that "... it is ridiculous to think so that the deity is good or thin because of the human deeds," it would be as ridiculous to believe that the Lord can actually "raise" or "repent." All this is definitely, only images designed to show the whole depth of moral depravity of ancillary mankind, according to PRP. Ephraim Sirina, "... who came to such an extent of the impresentation that he would not bring anything to repent of God."

God has not repented of anything and did not stop loving people even after their life became a solid evil. And, of course, God participated in the fate of mosted in the sins of mankind, that's just the character of this participation was completely different, than may seem at first glance.

The Bible says that the Lord commanded the only righteous of the dough world to build a huge ship. It was very heavy, time-consuming work, to which Noah left a hundred years. But see what amazing words comments on this construction of the PRP. Ephraim Sirin: "... such a heavy work laid God on the righteous, not wanting to bring the flood to sinners." According to the authoritative interpreter of the Bible, God did not want a flood! So why did the flood still collapsed on the ground?
The fact is that, creating evil, a person violates not at all formal and external towards him of God, but there is a forever of his own brand name, torments and destroys it with his sins. But after all, the nature of a person is not something isolated from the rest of the creation, but on the contrary - is closely connected with him. Moreover, the church legend directly calls man the crown of creation, a certain focus of the entire created being. Therefore, everything that happens in the spiritual life of a person inevitably has the strongest influence on the world around him. So, the Scripture directly indicates that the sin of Adam was cursed by the Earth, who lost their ability to be plentiful after the fall, and that precisely because of human sins, the whole creature is cumulatively worst and suffer from Donyn.
A clear example of this relationship of the spiritual state of humanity with all of nature is an environmental crisis in which people have plunged their planet in just one century of scientific and technological progress. Marina Tsvevaeva wrote in the first half of the last century:

We, with crafts, we, with factories,
What we did with the paradise given
Us? .. Planet, where everything about him -
On items, the talentless scrap?
Glory was broadening rivers
The glory led the cliff.
In the world - there is no place for animate! -
What caused a man?

In response to the Gorky Question, Tsvetaeva today you can state with even greater bitterness: nothing good. Destruction of forests, extermination of whole types of animals, pollution of rivers, atmospheric, near space ... The moral condition of humanity of the HTR era turned out to be a blatant not corresponding to the level of power over the world that people received with the help of science and technology. Of course, ozone holes, and fresh water deficiency, and global warming from a religious point of view can be considered the punishment of God for human Srebrolubie, consoligation and solidity (which, in fact, are the reason for today's unrestrained development of material production and consumption). But here is the question: if the alcoholic burned down alive on his own mattress, which he set up a misinterpretated cigarette, then it is possible to consider such death the punishment from God? Probably, it is still wiser to assume that God simply gave him the opportunity to follow his own sinful will, in which he sturned all his life and who eventually killed him.

Obviously, something similar happened with the doped humanity, whose thoughts were evil at all times. The Bible does not say what evil was specifically expressed, but it was clear that such an unprecedented desire of people to sin was inevitably caused by the same unprecedented cataclysm in nature. Overall God knew about the impending catastrophe and still a hundred years before her, she began to build the ark of salvation, thereby warning about the coming misfortune all of humanity. After all, Noah built his ark without being, in sight of everyone, and this construction itself was essentially a preaching of repentance. Anyone could, if desired, to build the same ship and would save the same way as Noah. And if all people realized the seriousness of the danger threatening and began to build the ark, it would have already mean that they believed God and repent. And then it is quite possible that there would be no flood at all. After all, Ninevia survived, the inhabitants of which also received a warning from the prophet ion about the fact that the measure of their sins exceeded the critical threshold and after forty days Nineve will perish. Residents of the doomed city stopped sinful, and the city survived. But they were not God's God, it was not "anger", he was taken away from themselves, and he had repeatedly eliminated the reason for the reasoned catastrophe.

Unfortunately, the doping mankind turned out to be less reasonable and did not return to God's warnings, although they were released for this much more time. Ephraim Sirin writes:
"God gave people to repentance a hundred years while the ark was built, but they did not repent; He gathered animals, Dotoli them unprecedented, but people did not want to repent; Ranked the world between animals malicious and harmless, and then they did not go. Even after Noah and all the animals entered the ark, God slowed seven more days, leaving the ark door. Surprisingly ... The fact that contemporaries Noahow, seeing everything that was committed out of the ark and in the ark, were not convinced to leave their wicked affairs. "
It's hard to imagine that God has done all this in order to destroy sinful people. Described PRP. Efrem Syrin Events resemble a rescue operation rather, during which for some reason the overwhelming majority of patients suddenly abandoned salvation.
Again, as in the Paradise Garden, a person did not want to believe God. But any one who believed could be saved, like Noah, and it was to this that God called for all the people of the ancient world on the eve of the catastrophe. But, alas, no one, except Noah and his family, did not immediately call the Lord. And what happened to the doped humanity, it is quite possible to determine as a mass suicide through the disbelief of the Word of God.

Probably, the main lesson of this tragedy is that any natural disaster is not an accident and not punitive action by God, but a direct consequence of human sins. And when the unwillingness of people follow goodness becomes the main life principle for them, the Lord does not execute them, but simply ceases to defend them from the consequences of their own sinful life. Not "anger" of God was the cause of human suffering and death at all times, and the evil and the ruthlessness of people to each other and to themselves.

According to the Bible, we are still awaiting global shocks in the future?

Apostle John in Revelation says that there will be a number of other cataclysms to precede this last global catastrophe: and there are lightning, thunder and voices, and there was a great earthquake, which did not happen since people on earth. Such an earthquake! So great! And the city of the Great broke up into three parts, and the towns of pagan fell, and Babylon Great is amented to God to give him a cup of wine rage anger.

And every island ran away, and the mountains did not become, and hail, magnitude in talent, fell from the sky on people; And the people of God for ulcers from hail, because the ulcer from him was very hard (Rev 16: 18-21).

Is it possible to assume that tragedies are sent to certain peoples or countries for their sins?

In the same way, it would be possible to ask, for example: "Does it correct that the liver cirrhosis is sent an alcoholic for his sin of drunkenness?" Of course, the righteous or sinful life of a separate person or the whole people affect the external circumstances of their lives. This circumstance may well be a disaster - an earthquake or flood.

This dependence of the life of people from their moral state is called the Holy Fathers by the law of spiritual. Unfortunately, today, people about this law do not know anything practically, therefore they do not find answers to questions about the ratio of human sins and subsequent rewards. Therefore, we give the words of the pretext of the devotee, in which the saint explains this problem from the point of view of the spiritual law:
"God did not create death and does not rejoice in the death of living; It is not given to the actions of anger's passion, does not make it fictures the ways to punish the sins, does not change according to the dignity of each, but everything created the wisdom, predetermined, so that everything was tried under spiritual law. For this reason, he did not tell Adam and Eve "... that day, in which you taste for a prohibited fetus, I will die you"; But, warning and claiming them, presented the law of the truth, saying: on the day, in which you taste from him, die death (Gen. 2:17). In general, God established, to every case, and kindly, and evil, it followed naturally proper retribution. Retreat is not fiction in each case, as some who do not know the law of spiritual think. "

At first glance, here you can see a direct analogy with the karmic principle of rejection or with atheistic determinism, in which each event in the life of the world is the inevitable consequence of previous events. However, this is just the apparent analogy. According to Christian verbation, in addition to spiritual reasons and their consequences, there is also an almighty God, which can break the connection between human sin and it seemingly inevitable results. Speaking figuratively, in karmic teachings, a busty boom must hit the goal, even if the man who put her man suddenly realized that this arrow was directed in his son. In Christianity, such a "sinful arrow" God can even stop in a millimeter of the goal or even after defeating the goal. Therefore, even the most terrible catastrophes that people or whole nations have already brought themselves over their sins, God can prevent if people decide whether they will coordinate their sinful lifestyle, and will begin to live righteously. This situation is described in biblical history about the prophet ion, when the repentance of Ninevei residents saved their city from an imminent death.

Therefore, it would be more correct to say that disasters are not sent to people, but are popping by a god loving them, but they are alive only to the extent that may be useful for us. This is the punishment of God. But not in the legal sense, but in the initial, root value of this word - the order, learning, tool for correction. There is another very important point here: our personal attitude towards such a lot of God. If we consider the floods, catastrophe or even the usual disease of any person in the categories "For what" and consider these disasters to the punishment sent from God for sins, then it is very easy to go to the condemnation of this person or even the whole people. Indeed, why not imitate God in his attitude to punished sinners? However, God does not send disaster people, but only pops for them to happen - as a consequence of human sins. And waiting for us not to ruthless condemnation of such punished people, but a completely different relationship to them. Here's how the Reverend Avva Dorofey writes about this: "... everything that aghesives us, i.e., all sorrowful, who is to punish our punishment for the viciousness, like that: hunger, morbonts, earthquake, duplicity, disease, brave - all this happens Not for the favor, but there is friendly when God burns it to this for our benefit. But God does not want us to want this or contributed to this. For example, as I said, there is a consigning will of God for the fact that the city is ruined, but God does not want us - because there is His will to ruin the city - they themselves put the fire and set fire to it or that we take the axes and began to destroy it. God also burns so that someone is in sorrow or in illness, but although the will of God and so that he is sad, but God does not want, so that we have seal it or to say: since there is the will of God to go He was sick, let's not regret it. This God does not want; Does not want us to serve as his will. He wishes, on the contrary, to see us so good, so that we do not want what he is in dangerous. "

Is it true that believing is forbidden to panic and afraid of a catastrophe - because "on all the willGod "and without her" will not fall from the head of a person even hairs "?

The point is not in some kind of formal ban. And at all there are no future disasters to be afraid to be afraid of a person, and very other things, much more close and obvious. Each believer should someday ask a simple question: how does God participate in the rejection that we get for the sin that we did? For sound reasoning, the answers may be three:
God strengthens the natural consequences of our sin to punish us as much as possible.
God does not participate in this punishment, completely and unpolished him in the area of \u200b\u200bthe action of a certain "automatic" reward principle.
God makes various means so that the patterns of our sins do not destroy us completely and that we, even sinless, have the opportunity to repent and escape.
The first option even considering no sense: this is a picture that does not have the slightest confirmation in the Gospel. The second one, too, can not be attributed to Christianity: this is a karmic world-uponymation in its pure form, where there is no place for God. Only the third option corresponds to that knowledge about God, which we are opening up by the Holy Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church. It is thanks to this, the action of God, the "restraining" consequences of our sins, we still exist on this land, despite the fact that the world of millennia lies in evil because of our sinful life.

Saint Isaac Sirin writes: "Be a preacher of the goodness of God, because God will bother you, unworthy, and because you should not see a lot of you, but the recovery is not visible on you; And for small things that you have done, he gives you great. Do not call God's right, because justice does not know his deeds. Although David calls him a redeference and fair, but his son opened to us that he was good and good. "

And since we are soon, Christians, believe in this - the good and benevolent God, then at all not the coming disasters, floods and earthquakes should be afraid. All this will be just a certain divine instrument of our salvation at that moment of history, when all other ways are already useless for us.

And in whatever hopeless catastrophe we will have impede yourself, the Lord always extends us to help us. We can only believe him or, without believing, - to die. This will include the choice of people in recent times. Before the end of the world, rejecting God will be ... Fulfing from fear and expectations of disasters that are coming to the universe (LC 21:26). The same who will save faith, Christ says: when will it start to come true, then they will repel and lift your heads, because your getting rid of yours (LK 21:28). The same signs of the approaching finale of human history will act on people completely differently. For some, these signs will cause fear, despondency and cruel suffering. For others, the joyful news about the soon cessation of all the troubles and misfortunes of humanity and the advent of the new era in the history of this world.

And you need to be afraid of a believer man who is not the coming catastrophe, but the loss of faith in God, as well as their attachment to the benefits of this world. You need to be afraid of your own sins that separate us from God and make it difficult to hope in the earthly life not for his intercession and assistance, but only on earthly institutions: the state, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Army, the police, the wise rulers ... Here is such a sinful arouse of self-soul Be afraid to a believer, and not floods and earthquakes. After all, in a catastrophe of whether, or in its own bed - but each of us before or later will be answered to God and finish your earthly existence. Flood and earthquake can bypass us, but no one else in the world can avoid death. Therefore, although it is not easy, you need to learn to live in such a way to be ready to die and appear on the court of God. There are no other recipes from fear of disasters that are coming to the Universe, the church is not.

We ask God to protect us from the "earthquake, hunger, flooding, fire, sword," knowing that this is for God's relaxation can happen to us. What exactly is this prayer? It turns out, we, knowing that "everything should be to be", we secretly hope that the bowl of this is now?

This is not at all a secret hope. Words "Oh aim to mercifully to hear the voice of prayer our passage and save us from the glad, debris, earthquake, flooding, fire, hail, sword, invasion of the integremmer, internecine branches and every deadly ulcers - the Lord prayes" the priest quite openly utters at Orthodox worship in the temple. And this request is founded on our faith in mercy and the long-suffering of God. We ask the Lord to protect us from the natural consequences of our sins, ask him "... Do not remember the lawlessness and not the people of their people." The basis for hope that God can protect the restful person from the desired results of his past sinful life, can be seen in the Bible: ... I didn't give us any lawlessness to us, and our sins gave us: for how high the sky above the earth, so great The mercy of the Lord to the fear of it (Ps 102: 10-11).

How not to turn the readiness for any troubles into constant depressive expectation of the worst, and humility before God's will and his craft is not confused with Apatia and the abandonment of the struggle for your life?

To talk about how to correctly configure your soul in relation to the coming troubles, only one who survived these misfortunes is morally. But still some minimal ideas about this can and even need to have in advance. In the film "Titanic" (director R. Linderman, 1996) there is a short episode, where the entire depth of this Christian attitude towards the catastrophe is revealed. Among other passengers on the ship travels a large family. Children are completely small, there is no ten older. And so, when the ship has already begun to dive into the water, the family got out, finally, on the deck from the lower tiers, and it turned out that all boats are lowered on the water, which means they are doomed to death. Father of the family in despair confusedly says:
- What have I done? What a brutal joke is like this, give our lives for anything ...
What a wife answers, looking into his eyes:
- We have never been afraid of difficulties, we have always met them with a raised head. You are a good man, Billy Jack. You are honest, hardworking and kind. You are a strong spirit. And for that I love you.
They cover children warmer, sit on the bench and begin to read the prayer "Father our". And at this time, the crowds of people distrailed from the horror of people trying to escape from an imminent death of people along the deck of ...

Probably, this is the only true attitude towards the coming troubles: until the very last moment you do everything you can, to save your loved ones and yourself, hoping for God's help. And if it suddenly it turns out that further efforts no longer make sense - find good words for farewell to your favorite people, and ask the Lord for the adoption of the inevitable. After all, prayer in a similar situation is also a struggle. The struggle against the most apathy and depression that will definitely settle in the soul that has lost prayer. God, but there's consistently when God burns it on us for our benefit. But God does not want us to want this or contributed to this. For example, as I said, there is a consigning will of God for the fact that the city is ruined, but God does not want us - because there is His will to ruin the city - they themselves put the fire and set fire to it or that we take the axes and began to destroy it. God also burns so that someone is in sorrow or in illness, but although the will of God and so that he is sad, but God does not want, so that we have seal it or to say: since there is the will of God to go He was sick, let's not regret it. This God does not want; Does not want us to serve as his will. He wishes, on the contrary, to see us so good, so that we do not want what he is in dangerous. "

Patriarch Kirill, from the word in the temple of Arkhangel Mikhail

Krymsk, July 23, 2012

Patriarch Kirill visits victims from flooding in Krymsk. Photo provided by the press service of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia

Believers people have an understanding that the fishery of God is good and perfect. It is difficult to talk about this in the face of suffering. We cannot penetrate these mysterious, unknown ways of God in our human mind. But we know only one thing - which, since the life of human does not end with the physical death of his body, God creates with us by the will of his what is related to both earthly life and eternity. And if there is no eternity, then everything becomes meaningless - both life, death, and joy, and suffering, - everything loses its meaning, everything becomes some madness. For a person's earth's life is 50, 80 years old, as the Word of God says (Ps 89:10).

But we believe in eternal life, we feel it spiritually contemplate it at the time of the Divine Liturgy, at the time of the communion of the Holy Taine. Each liturgy begins by the exclamation "Blessed Kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, because through the sacrament we touch eternity. It is the perspective of eternal life that a Christian is called to lick and on joy, and on the sorrow of his life, understanding the limitation, limb of these sorrows. Death is not an absolute phenomenon that destroys human life. And this is our answer to suffering, the meaning of which is so hard to understand. "

Good afternoon, our dear visitors!

Why in the world so much evil and why does God do not stop violence? And if God is, why doesn't he fulfill our requests?

Replies Archimandrite Amvrosiy (Fortree):

"In one book describes such an episode.

Once people gathered, went out in the field and challenged God.

"If you, God, is," they said, "that is why such cruelty reigns in the world, why so many wars, murders, violence, robbery?"

God asked:

- Do you like it?

- Of course not!

"I gave you a loose will, why then you fight, rape, rob?"

The Lord evil does not create. People themselves do it. Clothes generates mole, and mole eats clothes. Iron creates rust, and rust eats iron.

Evil, as such, no. A man gives rise to evil, and this evil devours his soul. When a person sins and does not die in sins (sinful, in a word, thoughts), then he radiates a huge flow of negative energy.

Imagine now that the sin is not one person, but many, what a great amount is going to negative energy - whole oceans! All sorts of terrestrial cataclysms occur: earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, war.

Why is God, many ask if he is omnipotent, will not do so that there was no evil on earth? Why do not make people be kind, live in peace and love?

Imagine that you are a hypnotist and want your children to listen and love you. To do this, you bring them to a somnambulic state in which they are not able to any reasonable choice, and order: "Sit here until I come back. "Eat!" "Stop there is!" "Wish me good night!"

Children, as in a dream, obey you: Foreign hands are wrapped around your neck, silent lips pressed to your face ... would you like such obedience, would you please such love? Hardly. You, of course, want your children to themselves, in their will obey and read you, wishing them only good. You want, however, so that they have freedom of choice.

So God wants to have such children: he gave us, creating his free will, so that we choose between good and evil.

When a person "I" puts on the place of God, then he begins to wait that God will perform all his whims. And if he does not fulfill them, then the person says that there is no God.

It is not for you! Because your soul is unclean, desecrated by sins, in such a soul he cannot live. And God there is God, those people say that he is.

And how to see him? Christ said: "Blessed with a pure heart, for they will see God!" (MF.5: 8). Because when we clean our heart, then the Lord will enter it.

The saint of Ignatius Godproof constantly prayed to the Lord, the prayer sounded all the time in his heart. He called on the name "Jesus" - read Prayer Jesus. He was asked: "Why are you constantly praying?" He answered: "In my heart Jesus."

When the saint, together with Christians, led into the arena, and then let wild beasts on them, the beasts broke them. In the sand, found the heart of the saint - it remains unharmed, and everyone saw that inside the heart gold letters were inscribed - "Jesus". Therefore, they call the saint of Ignatius "The Bogonian", he wore the name of God in his heart. "

Discussion: 2 comments

Good day. But, the father, how then to explain that the evil person hurts the evil kind and good, and why does God do not protect good? After all, kind chose right, he does not make evil. And it turns out that he suffers, meanwhile, as a rascal and the killer, as a rule, still lives long, as if on purpose. Especially incomprehensible to the brothers smaller. What are they sinful? Why a sadist and stigheror kills them, and God allows them to suffer so much, because they are inadless, helpless. Do not believe, father, for their insults from evil people you can sile, because the sinner itself. But for them .. They are blame for themselves before the Lord? If the storage room has a choice: to be such a thing or not, then the tails do not have such a choice, they are helpless against a person. Believe me, the father, so much sufferment brings a person to animals that I am already calm about the suffering of a person. The latter can make a choice, children suffer for their parents .. But when they are tormented and tortured cats or other animal, it seems to be made in me, it seems that you are ready to kill. I know that sin, but not about as humility at this moment and speech is not. God punished me and strongly, although I still pray for my sins, which pardoned. Otherwise, my holy pisil to show mercy to me. I do not ask for what, not pope. And that there are no children - the very guilty. Although healthy and I can, but not. I know for what .. in essence, collecting cats from the streets, they become me like children. Friendly, patients and every moved suffering from man. Incidentally, God gives it to this, it is unfair.
And the second question: if we are all the children of the Lord, why is there everywhere in prayers comes like slaves of God? Do children can be slaves, father?

Reply

1. Hello, Catherine! Christ is Risen!
   The world around us depends first of all from ourselves. You yourself said that you do not know what it finds. Become an evil - here and answer. The world was very distorted when sin entered it. Together with a person suffers the whole world, because the man is crown of creation. All people together are a living organism, and if one suffers, it affects the other. And even animals. We are all evil and from this anger suffers all the spaces of us: both nature, and animals, and people. Start with yourself, and better look at yourself. Next to the holy people around the world is changing, as if returning to the state of paradise, where there was a world between all beings. And the animals begin to serve a person, in the life of the saints we see that the wild lions helped a person.
   The Lord sees evil, and knows what it is. But a person first of all distinguishes the freedom from animals, which the Lord had given us. Therefore, evil or good is a free choice of man. And each for his choice will have to respond.
   The man is creating, the executing commandments of God is Chad God, of course. And so he moves away from slavery sin, and wants to be a slave of love, God's love. Calling yourself with the slaves of God, we do not abolish our son, and we emphasize the desire to renounce the devil, from sin, we want to join God, God's love and to become faithful slaves of God, and not slaves of sin. With God!

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