"wonders of him who has perfect knowledge" Job 37

A child is born with no brain why ? The easiest answer is that a combination of physics and science produced a physiological fault all part of the immutable chain of cause and effect which govern events. Given the world as we know it there is no other way ,water must always retain the properties of water otherwise there would be total chaos. Likewise a defective gene just as surely as a poorly constructed bridge must always yield sad results.

But now to the difficult part the familiar ‘ but God is God and can change what he wants so why allow unnecessary suffering?’ So no genetic defects all children are born perfect but the knock on effect of this must logically yield results no genetic defects in children means no genetic abnormalities in adults meaning we all enjoy perfect disease and accident free health God always standing in the way of the bullet and thus by implication immortality . God deals the cards but we are not allowed to see their values or choose a hand. A world of puppets on a string with no choice but compliant response to an invisible and forever mysterious will. A totally different world from the one we inhabit.

So here we are in a world of pain which, if for the sake of argument we accept there is a God ,must mean either God doesn’t care about suffering or worse actively condones it .Alternatively things are as they are for a reason and an act of divine necessity. For me we must decide whether ‘ free will’ is an irreducible component of perfect love or not as if it is and we indeed worship a God of love it becomes necessity. Sadly you can’t have your cake and eat it . No birth defects then what about disease ? Bullets? Starvation ? It’s all or nothing . How can love be ‘ free’ without informed choice and that means our world must be both understandable and with consequences good and bad attached to our actions.

It all seems very hard and something of a conundrum that a God of perfect love was compelled to create an imperfect world brought about by that love. A paradox that he could only solve with his son Jesus and the promise of eternal life.