Dave, the part of the Rabbi's conclusion that I disagree with is that God is limited in power, with one exception provided.

The entire Christian story contains many items that one must accept by faith. I was going to list several of them, but since I believe that this is a forum to share ideas and not to prosyletize I will refrain. Two of God's characteristics germaine to this discussion are his goodness and his power. Obviously, some believe that he (sorry for the gender issue - I do not believe God to be male but "it" is just way too impersonal for my taste) cannot be both good and all powerful. For them, to say that God is powerful enough to eliminate evil and yet not good enough to do so is a contradiction that prevents them from believing in God.

My rhetorical question to such a person is this: How can we who are finite mortal beings ascribe such attributes as omniscience, infiniteness and immortality to a being we call God, and in the same breath deny him the very attributes that we claim we ascribe to him? (If I could use italics, the phrase from the comma would be italicized) That is to say, if we claim we attribute omniscience to God, why is that we limit HIS view of knowlege to what WE know? If we label an event in our life as "evil", and we ask why God would allow such an evil to exist if he knew it was going to exist and was powerful enough to make it not exist, then we are positing that we know *everything* about the situation and there can be no other answer but to submit to our wish. So we conclude thusly: an omniscient God can be either all powerful, or good, but he cannot be both.

I submit that he can be omniscient, all powerful and good. The key lies in fully submitting to the concept that he is all knowing, and by recongnizing a fourth characteristic (there are many) of his nature, and that is his redemptive nature. In regard to the first, the more we fully admit to and allow God to be omniscient, the more we recognize our own fallibility and weakness. This, I believe, is a major aspect of faith in general. If I ascribe omniscience to God, I must ascribe omniscience in HIS view of the world, not just mine. Likewise goodness and power. If I ascribe all power and all goodness to God, it must be power and goodness as HE reveals, not just as I might imagine. Thus, I have no doubt that he knew my aunt was going to be murdered. I have no doubt that he could have used many designs to have made sure she was not murdered. But she was. Is God any less God because my aunt was murdered, or because my dad died of cancer?

In my arguments with God, which as I posted earlier, have been intense and frequent, I am always led back to God's redemptive nature. God does not prevent "evil" from occuring not because he is unwilling or unable or just not good enough. Evil exists because man wants it to exist. The holocaust happened because Hitler and Himler designed it. My aunt was murdered because her murderer chose to be a freaked out socio-path. A family was wiped out by a driver who chose to drink himself incoherent and then drive the wrong way down the interstate. But in each situation God has provided a way for the humans devastated by these "evils" to overcome them. Forgiveness. Social action. Rising up to eliminate prejudice and hatred. Working in homeless shelters. Working to rehabilitate and rebuild broken lives. Working to eliminate sexual abuse and to comfort those who are tragically victims of such abuses. In short, we who so choose to be, can become instruments of God's power and goodness to achieve the elimination of evil one human life at a time. I know that sounds utopian, and is probably an unreachable star. But I am hopelessly committed to being a Don Quixote de La Mancha.

And so, in the most kind and gentle way that I can, I would like to turn the question around and ask Laura to explain the goodness of Mother Teresa, the bravery of Jonas Salk, the courage of Martin Luther King, and the list could go on. I would say that, given man's almost indescribable tendency to create and inflict evil on each other, she would have a more difficult time explaining the existance of good and those that overcome evil than I would have explaining the existance of evil and those that try to destroy good.

Once again, sorry for the length of the post. And I apologize if any think I am trying to force my views on others. I am simply trying to verbalize some thoughts about my long and torturous journey. I do not claim that this journey is over, nor that I have all the answers. I am just tilting at the windmills in my life, but with every windmill I tilt at I believe I learn a little bit more.

Freightdawg