Apologetics & Illness

[Paul of Tarsus]

Unless you live under a rock, then you're all aware that illness is a big factor in our lives. Even if you're very lucky and live free of illness, you probably know somebody who struggles with sickness. How can illness be explained within the context of Christianity? Why would a God allow sickness?

As far as I know, neither Jesus nor any of his apostles were ever said to be sick. None of them are described as blind, deaf, or lame. They did believe that various infirmities are caused by demons, and the cure was to cast the demons out. According to the gospel, these healing activities attracted great multitudes of people seeking delivery from their afflictions. So obviously illness was a major factor in the lives of those who were contemporaneous with Jesus.

One thing I've noticed about sickness is that it does not discriminate based on faith. It doesn't care what your beliefs are. That's why, for example, people gathering to worship is strongly discouraged due to the risk of Covid 19.

[JehovahsWitness]

WAS ADAM CURSED?

A CURSE has been defined as : a solemn utterance intended to invoke a supernatural power to inflict harm or punishment on someone or something.

GENESIS 3: 17-19

And to Adam he said: “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and ate from the tree concerning which I gave you this command, ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground on your account. In pain you will eat its produce all the days of your life. 18 It will grow thorns and thistles for you, and you must eat the vegetation of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Whether God made a "solemn utterance" or not be cannot be sure, arguably his above sentencing and condemnation could be considered as such. In any case , what we do we know is that in the bible Adam was indeed punished since the punishment for eating from the tree of life was DEATH and the bible reports Adam did indeed Adam die.


DID ADAM'S SIN INTRODUCE HIM TO SICKNESS AND DISEASE?

The biblical narrative documents Adam as living for nearly 1000 years before dying. Evidently then he was physically extremely robust. We do not know if he eventually suffered any aliments we now commonly associate with aging after the Edenic judgement, but given what we presently know about the human condition, it seems reasonable to conclude he did not die in good health. If disease is defined as "a disorder of structure or function" and death the complete cessestion of all bodily function, then death is the worst disease if all. Logically then, by introducing "the ultimate terminal disease" death to the world, Adam can also be considered the one who introduced it's preliminary ... susceptibility to sickness.




JW

To learn more please go to other posts related to...

ORIGINAL SIN , SICKNESS and .... DEATH

[nobspeople]

[Replying to Paul of Tarsus in post #30]

So if you come down with the flu, then you attribute it to Adam's sin?

Not trying to speak for anyone else, but YES, this is what I was taught, in a sense.
Basically, everything "bad" was a direct result of humanity's sin. Which never made sense then and still doesn't, logically. But this is what's taught in many Christian churches.

What you're posting here is one of the reasons apologetics is in such disarray. Is a sick woman to believe her illness originated six thousand years ago when a snake turned out to be more convincing than an all-mighty God? With "answers" like that, it's no wonder we are losing the culture war.

Absolutely. It's amazing, to me, what the human mind can create and convince us to believe in spite of common sense and logic. Belief is a powerful, powerful thing.

[Paul of Tarsus]

Absolutely. It's amazing, to me, what the human mind can create and convince us to believe in spite of common sense and logic. Belief is a powerful, powerful thing.

I call it "bias." Bias is the phenomenon of favoring one's own beliefs over competing beliefs without good evidence to do so. None of us are immune to bias, and the first step against bias is our recognition that we have one.

[JehovahsWitness]

Please explain exactly what happened to Adam's body as a result of what he did that resulted in an imperfect body.

I cannot do that since the bible does not provided that information.

What it does indicate however, as I said is that being a direct creation of God he was perfect but that his disobedience resulted in his dying from old age or sickness, and that this physical eventuality would not have happened had he not sinned (compare Deut 32:4; Rom 5:12)

Very convenient absence of information.

Convenient for whom? Are you implying that I or someone else destroyed or somehow manipulated evidence that was hitherto available in offer to further an agenda? What I said was simply a fact, which I for one ses ais neither convenient nor inconvenient.

That's just a case of filling in the gaps with whatever one's personal biases prefer.

If one's "preference" is to favour a conclusion based on the sound analysis of available information then that is I'm sure you agree a good thing*. If, on the other and you are acccusing me personally of eisegesis* you do well to be prepared to support the accusation with something other than its existence.








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Is favouring one interpretation over another necessarily a bad thing ? [this post]
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Is everyone on earth guilty of eisegesis?
viewtopic.php?p=1028189#p1028189

* Exegesis is legitimate interpretation which "reads out of' the text what the original author or authors meant to convey. Eisegesis, on the other hand, reads into the text what the interpreter wishes to find or thinks he finds there. It expresses the reader's own subjective ideas, not the meaning which is in the text.

To learn more please go to other posts related to...

THE BIBLE , HERMENEUTICS* and ... BEST TRANSLATION

* bible interpretation

[Overcomer]

[Replying to Paul of Tarsus in post #25]

Paul of Tarsus wrote:

So God automatically gets the credit for good, and we humans are blamed for authoring evil. How do you explain all the good that people do? Most of us don't make a practice of doing evil.

We are made in God's image which means we were made with the ability to do good. However, that ability has been damaged by sin. Therefore, we are capable of doing good while still being born with sin natures.

My point was that sin entered the world because of Adam and Eve's bad choice, made because the devil made them question God's love which, by the way, is still one of the devil's favourite lies about God which still influences people today in spite of Christ's death on our behalf, done in love.

As to why God allowed them that choice, it's because he created humankind to be in a loving relationship with him. True love must be given freely, not coerced. But if you give someone the freedom to love you, you give them the freedom NOT to love you. True love includes trust. Adam and Even didn't trust God's love for them. Using the free will that they had (because they were created in God's image and God has free will), they made the wrong choice and sin entered the world.

[Overcomer]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #23]

Diffulgia wrote:

It's the same word used to describe the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" in Genesis 2:9 and the "evil" that consumes man's heart continually in Genesis 6:5.

Good point, Diffulgia. Thanks for making it. It's important because philosophers distinguish between two types of evil: moral and natural. The word used in those verses from Genesis refers to moral evil for which God is not responsible and which is not, as I said, a created entity.

The passage in Isaiah is talking about natural evil. That's why it can be legitimately translated as "woe" or "calamity". But again, it is not a created entity in the way we understand God as Creator, that is, a Creator who has made the universe out of nothing, from scratch, so to speak. Natural evil exists because we live in a fallen world, but, as I noted, according to Genesis, everything that God made was good.

And the Bible makes it clear that God hates evil and all its ramifications. That's why he sent Jesus, to deal with evil. It will be totally eradicated when he returns.

https://decisionmagazine.com/things-god-hates/

https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/th ... and-rescue

[brunumb]

And the Bible makes it clear that God hates evil and all its ramifications. That's why he sent Jesus, to deal with evil.

In terms of evil in the world, it's obvious that Jesus achieved absolutely nothing.

It will be totally eradicated when he returns.

He didn't manage it the first time around so why should we expect any better the second time? Even more significant is the question of exactly how he can eliminate evil without compromising our free will.

[JehovahsWitness]

It will be totally eradicated when he returns.

He didn't manage it the first time around so why should we expect any better the second time?

The godless and the faithless see no reason to. People of faith accept the bible accounts of Jesus' extraordinary powers as evidence he was indeed the promisesd Messiah, the Son of the Almighty. Thus we believe his promise to return in kingdom power.



JW

To learn more please go to other posts related to...

MESSIANIC PROPHECY, LAST DAYS and ...THE SECOND COMING *

*The Return of Christ

[JehovahsWitness]

Even more significant is the question of exactly how he can eliminate evil without compromising our free will.

I doubt if you ever have or ever will provide a clear definition of what free will actually is. In the absence of such a definition, far from being significant question it is in fact meaningless.


JW

[Compassionist]

Unless you live under a rock, then you're all aware that illness is a big factor in our lives. Even if you're very lucky and live free of illness, you probably know somebody who struggles with sickness. How can illness be explained within the context of Christianity? Why would a God allow sickness?

As far as I know, neither Jesus nor any of his apostles were ever said to be sick. None of them are described as blind, deaf, or lame. They did believe that various infirmities are caused by demons, and the cure was to cast the demons out. According to the gospel, these healing activities attracted great multitudes of people seeking delivery from their afflictions. So obviously illness was a major factor in the lives of those who were contemporaneous with Jesus.

One thing I've noticed about sickness is that it does not discriminate based on faith. It doesn't care what your beliefs are. That's why, for example, people gathering to worship is strongly discouraged due to the risk of Covid 19.

The explanation is that we evolved in a reality which does not care about us. That's why 99.9% of all the species to evolve so far on Earth are already extinct. Out of the 102.2 billion humans who have been born so far on Earth, only 7.8 billion are still alive - 94.4 billion humans have already died and the rest will die, too.

"He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” Illnesses are not caused by demons. Christians don't miraculously become fluent in other languages without having to learn them like the non-Christians. They are certainly not immune to deadly poison. There are 2,173,180,000 Christians on Earth currently. If they were to drink deadly poison and be unharmed that would be a great demonstration of the claims of the Bible but I guarantee that they will die if they were to drink a lethal dose of poison. This is because the Bible is false and unethical. Faith healings are scams. Please see Given God's many atrocities, the Biblical God is evil (imaginary or real). Please see https://www.evilbible.com and http://skepticsannotatedbible.com Thank you.