Jeremiah Asks: Why Do Good Things Happen to Bad People?
Jeremiah asks an age-old question (I will omit block quotes to keep the formatting appealing):
Jeremiah’s Question
12 Righteous are You, O Lord, when I plead with You;
Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?
2 You have planted them, yes, they have taken root;
They grow, yes, they bear fruit.
You are near in their mouth
But far from their mind.
3 But You, O Lord, know me;
You have seen me,
And You have tested my heart toward You.
Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter,
And prepare them for the day of slaughter.
4 How long will the land mourn,
And the herbs of every field wither?
The beasts and birds are consumed,
For the wickedness of those who dwell there,
Because they said, “He will not see our final end.”
The Lord Answers Jeremiah
5 “If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you,
Then how can you contend with horses?
And if in the land of peace,
In which you trusted, they wearied you,
Then how will you do in the floodplain[a] of the Jordan?
6 For even your brothers, the house of your father,
Even they have dealt treacherously with you;
Yes, they have called a multitude after you.
Do not believe them,
Even though they speak smooth words to you.
7 “I have forsaken My house, I have left My heritage;
I have given the dearly beloved of My soul into the hand of her enemies.
8 My heritage is to Me like a lion in the forest;
It cries out against Me;
Therefore I have hated it.
9 My heritage is to Me like a speckled vulture;
The vultures all around are against her.
Come, assemble all the beasts of the field,
Bring them to devour!
10 “Many rulers[b] have destroyed My vineyard,
They have trodden My portion underfoot;
They have made My pleasant portion a desolate wilderness.
11 They have made it desolate;
Desolate, it mourns to Me;
The whole land is made desolate,
Because no one takes it to heart.
12 The plunderers have come
On all the desolate heights in the wilderness,
For the sword of the Lord shall devour
From one end of the land to the other end of the land;
No flesh shall have peace.
13 They have sown wheat but reaped thorns;
They have put themselves to pain but do not profit.
But be ashamed of your harvest
Because of the fierce anger of the Lord.”
14 Thus says the Lord: “Against all My evil neighbors who touch the inheritance which I have caused My people Israel to inherit—behold, I will pluck them out of their land and pluck out the house of Judah from among them. 15 Then it shall be, after I have plucked them out, that I will return and have compassion on them and bring them back, everyone to his heritage and everyone to his land. 16 And it shall be, if they will learn carefully the ways of My people, to swear by My name, ‘As the Lord lives,’ as they taught My people to swear by Baal, then they shall be established in the midst of My people. 17 But if they do not obey, I will utterly pluck up and destroy that nation,” says the Lord.
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I totally understand Jeremiah’s question, but I’m not sure I fully understand the Lord’s response. Anyone?
Good people mixed among bad people=bad nations. God punishes bad nations by using other bad nations. Good people suffer as a result.
The postscript explains God will reward those nations subservient to him later and place everything back where it belongs, but will thoroughly punish nations not subservient to him.
I suppose I don’t really take these types of questions, like ‘Why do Good things happen to bad people?’ or the far more pretentious ‘Why do bad things happen to good people?’ seriously because it seems virtually everyone almost automatically, reflexively, defines themselves as one of the ‘good guys.’
That gets to the crux of the argument. We all see ourselves as good and every one else is bad. It is based on the victim mentality. Many think that life isn’t fair and see themselves struggling to get by when everything/everyone is out to get them.
Part of the problem is judging others. The other part is judging ourselves. There is no definition of good or bad. It is subjective.
Life happens to all people. It isn’t fair or unfair.
It’s usually Cosmo Kramer’s fault:
Kramer: [Realizing that the robbery was his fault] Look, Jerry, I’m sorry, I’m uh, you have insurance, right buddy?
Jerry: No.
Kramer: How can you not have insurance?
Jerry: Because…I spent my money on the Clapgo D. 29, it’s the most impenetrable lock on the market today…it has only one design flaw:the door… [closing door] must be closed!
Kramer: Jerry! I’m gonna find your stuff. I’m gonna solve it, I’m on the case, buddy, I’m on the case!
Jerry: Yeah, don’t investigate, don’t pay me back, it was an accident.
Kramer: I made a mistake.
Elaine: These things happen.
Kramer: I’m human
At least I’ve never stolen bread from an old lady…….
Shut up, you old bag!
You very, very bad man, Jerry.
Bad man? Could my mother have been wrong?
“There is no definition of good or bad. It is subjective.”
Doxa, for those who are grappling with this idea.
Cosmo,
“That gets to the crux of the argument. We all see ourselves as good and every one else is bad. It is based on the victim mentality.”
Then either you also see yourself in that way, and thus suffer from the very same “victim mentality”, or not all of us see ourselves as good while everyone else is bad. For example I see myself as good as I can be, and everyone else as good as they can be, while recognize both my views of what is bad for me and other people’s views of what is bad for themselves.
“Many think that life isn’t fair and see themselves struggling to get by when everything/everyone is out to get them.”
Many think otherwise.
And?
“Part of the problem is judging others. The other part is judging ourselves.”
But you just judged others, and tacitly you judged yourself by way of distinguishing yourself first from “everyone” which of course can’t work, and then second by the “many”.
“There is no definition of good or bad.”
Sure there is. There are definitions in existence when people act in defining those terms.
“It is subjective.”
Then why are you appealing to an inter-subjective standard when making that claim? Clearly what you are saying is not designed to only appeal to the minds of a specific set of individuals, or rocks or trees, but any and all individuals. You are appealing to the objective reality of what humans are, and importantly to the concepts of objective truth and objective falsehoods.
You are presenting an objective truth about the world, including the world of mankind, but the content of what you are doing contradicts what you are doing.
“Life happens to all people.”
You mean experiences?
“It isn’t fair or unfair.”
People’s actions are certainly fair or unfair. It is not as if what you do is the choice of a demon.
There are definitions of good and bad, but no universal ones. To some, murdering infidels is good. To others sacrificing the world to avoid minor interference to one person is good, whilst to yet others infringing freedom a small amount to help a great many would be good.
Each of us could in principle believe we were good whilst acting very differently from eachother. We do posses conscience and guilt feelings, which inform most of us that we are not all good, and we do bad things sometimes. However, I presume that we justify to ourselves as good any consistent, long term actions that we intend to continue. What some see as evil, the perpetrators might see as a solution to a problem.
Well, whether we actually possess a conscience is up for discussion.
Harold:
Do you really think it is a coincidence that no matter how much effort you put into making arguments like morality is subjective, there are no universal definitions of good and bad, and so on, that your activity is always totally indistinguishable from a universal ethic for how to think and argue?
Why is it that even the most nihilistic of anti-moralists, when they argue their case for why the rest of us are deluded and wrong, always and without exception stay within a confined set of ethical norms of argument, such as integrating he law of non-contradiction?
Why don’t we ever see philosophers and/or formal logicians, who are perhaps the people in the world most likely to conclusively prove what you are suggesting is obviously true, why don’t we ever see them write critiques of ethics and critiques of morality that look like:
“The proof that there is no universal ethic is schnarkle@$683cjwidjrj738+-$3!!!!!!”
Or
“There is no universal ethic there is a universal ethic.”
???
Why do we always see these people make their case against universal ethics intentionally abide by those rock solid common logical rules of semantics and logic, such as incorporating the law of non-contradiction? Obviously they don’t have to do that. They could write books full of meaningless symbols. Or even books full of blank pages.
If you agree with the above, you don’t actually believe there is no universal ethic. You believe there is, you just say otherwise.
But what if someone did provide such a proof attempt in the form of random seemingly meaningless symbols? Surely we have to consider the possibility that it could in principle be done, thus nullifying everything I said above.
Or would it?
If such an action constituted proof, then anything I say would also be a proof. In other words, no matter what anyone says, everything that is said constitutes a proof that there is a universal ethic. Nobody could argue otherwise without appealing to the very ethic of thought that they are attempted to prove is avoidable.
Universal ethic of how to think and argue is not morality. There is no ‘ethical norms of argument’ that is the same as morality. I’m not sure what exact definition of morality you are using, but what makes you think rules of logic have anything to do with morality?
if someone decides to make up mathematical rules in proving the pythagorean theorem, and ends up way off, do you consider some sort of immoral behavior occurring there?
“Then either you also see yourself in that way, and thus suffer from the very same “victim mentality”, or not all of us see ourselves as good while everyone else is bad. For example I see myself as good as I can be, and everyone else as good as they can be, while recognize both my views of what is bad for me and other people’s views of what is bad for themselves.”
I see myself as someone who puts out a lot of effort. I don’t consider myself a good or bad person, but one that feels good about my choices. A lot of people hate me, even when I’ve been what is usually considered nice.
“But you just judged others, and tacitly you judged yourself by way of distinguishing yourself first from “everyone” which of course can’t work, and then second by the “many”.”
I can be critical of alcoholism while consuming alcohol, no?
“People’s actions are certainly fair or unfair. It is not as if what you do is the choice of a demon.”
We all identify things as good or bad. Why is money being placed in my hand good? Why is a slap in the face bad? Some like being slapped in the face.
Good or bad is something that is agreed on en masse. We have (to us) horrible atrocities that are perfectly acceptable in other parts of the world. The actions are the same, what changes are the perceptions.
“You mean experiences? ”
Complaining about everything gets us nowhere. If we all sit down and agree that anything can happen to us, then we will learn to better appreciate the current moment.
You raise good questions and a lot of your criticisms are things I actively work on every single day.
Cosmo,
“I see myself as someone who puts out a lot of effort. I don’t consider myself a good or bad person, but one that feels good about my choices. A lot of people hate me, even when I’ve been what is usually considered nice.”
Well I have no reason to hate you, because you have not threatened or actually aggression against either my person or property. Nothing you could ever say or do, as long as the above continues, will be grounds for me hating you.
If others hate you (and there are those who hate me too), even if you did not treat their persons or property in ways they don’t approve, then you ought to pity and look down on them, because you are superior to them, and, if you would find it self-serving to do so, you can always bring them up to your level by educating them on their own selves by finding out why they have such irrational hatred. 100% of the time I have never met any irrational who after having a sufficiently deep conversation and put in the effort to become better, has stayed a hater. Sometimes it takes years and years to do. But it can be done.
Many people believe that because changing hating people for the better takes too much effort, that they have come to believe that the world as such will inevitably have evil. That evil is a necessity. I think all people have the potential to be good. Some just require a lot of help. When I hear people say evil is necessary, I only hear “I am not willing to put in the effort to eliminate it.”
There are a lot of different ways of saying “I choose to be too lazy to do that.” So many. I use them myself from time to time. But I don’t have to if I don’t want to.
“But you just judged others, and tacitly you judged yourself by way of distinguishing yourself first from “everyone” which of course can’t work, and then second by the “many”.”
“I can be critical of alcoholism while consuming alcohol, no?”
For me, if you know you are included, then as long as you explicitly include yourself in any list of people who you disparage for any reason, I will know that what you say is not out of hatred of others. It will be because you are apathetic, or disillusioned. Then I will know what to say next that is good.
“People’s actions are certainly fair or unfair. It is not as if what you do is the choice of a demon.”
“We all identify things as good or bad. Why is money being placed in my hand good? Why is a slap in the face bad? Some like being slapped in the face.”
I think when people say being slapped in the face is bad, they mean a nonconsensual slapping. Perhaps you feel like there is an unavoidable bad in you, whereby it feels good to be slapped by someone. BDSM is a consensual activity where people play out their inner stories and worlds with each other that raises dopamine levels.
“Good or bad is something that is agreed on en masse. We have (to us) horrible atrocities that are perfectly acceptable in other parts of the world. The actions are the same, what changes are the perceptions.”
I don’t agree. Even those who perform the most terrible atrocities, cannot but help abide by universal norms of discourse when justifying those actions.
“Complaining about everything gets us nowhere. If we all sit down and agree that anything can happen to us, then we will learn to better appreciate the current moment.”
I don’t believe that evil against me is inevitable.
“You raise good questions and a lot of your criticisms are things I actively work on every single day.”
I think of those criticisms almost exclusively as comparing and contrasting ideas. I have never met you, so what you write here is from a certain point of view ideas that are in their purest form. Totally abstracted from everything else about you.
Thats an interesting view. Everyone is as good as they can be. But does this mean some were made to not be good?
Also, nobody performs a bad deed in the name of “bad”. Some variant of justification is at play.
God has delayed punishing Judah for their unrighteousness, and he will use Babylon to punish both Judah and the neighboring nations as part of His eventual plan to deliver Jesus to the world. Daniel makes clear in the early chapters that God rules the nations of men and is controlling the outcomes through the establishment of the church as the final kingdom that will fill the entire earth.
For the question of pain, this isn’t the best passage because it is completely wrapped in context of what God is doing to the world at that time as part of His plan to deliver Christ to the world.
I like Job better, coupled with the passages that describe the throne room of God from Isaiah, Ezekiel and a few other places. Ultimately, like Job, when we are confronted with the incredible spiritual truth of the almighty we no longer complain about our physical pain. We recognize how incredibly inadequate we are in the face of the most holy God and humble ourselves.
That was Job’s response in spite of his physical pain which leaves a lot of readers dissastifed. What about the pain job suffered? It didn’t matter after Job was exposed to the Almighty. Same deal for Ezekiel – after seeing God he sat mute for seven days overwhelmed. Isaiah’s response is well known, “Woe is me, I’m an unclean man of unclean lips”.
This passage has the question, but the answer is couched in context and is addressed to the centuries long judgement of Judah and the surrounding nations as part of God’s plan to deliver the Christ.
But who will name the mountains?
Why do bad things happen to good people.
Well first are we not all sinners?
Second, Was Christ not the ‘Best’ person? What happened to Him?
Third, Could it be that God does not ‘care’ in the eternal perspective, about a moment of suffering?
An example of this is as a parent we take our children to a dentist and the ‘pain’ of seeing the dentist, or even a doctor ( injections, needles, etc ) can be traumatic. Yet we as adults recognize this as something that is important for our children. Why should, when God calls us His children, expect less? As a parent you care the distress of the situation causes on your child but you do it anyway, so to does God allow ‘bad’ things to happen to us to allow us to choose who we will follow. It is always a choice.
Now lets step back a second and say, what if nothing bad happened. Well I can tell you in my own life bad things stir me up to a remembrance of God, to the fleetingness of this life, to the brevity of the sojourn. It also allows me to practice love. For loving one who does well to you is, to be honest, REALLY easy. Loving someone who disagrees or has wronged you takes something more. You have to see them as more than what they see you as and have to be willing to love, unconditionally. It is not easy, but it is rewarding.
Finally if God was not to allow ‘bad’ would He not be the worst dictator out there? He would have to control your thoughts, your feelings, your… life. As a parent is that your goal? Why would we assume God is not attempting to bring us up as His children any differently than we bring up our own children? He teaches correct principles and then lets us fail. And Ha has provided a way by which our ‘debts’ are covered if we but accept it.
People think that God is out to get them. That he says ‘believe in me or be Damned’ Really what He says is, if you do not listen I cannot help you. To the Israelites He spoke harshly at times, but then they ‘knew’ Him and what they should be doing. Do you not speak harshly to someone who has ‘covenanted’ with you when they do not abide by that covenant?
I like God, from all I know about Him. He is a pretty great person. I wish, as so many others before me, that I were not an ‘unclean man of unclean lips’. I know my own failings and at times I feel them more keenly than at other times. But this gives me humility. I see the failings within myself and attempt to fix them. On occasion I manage to do so. Each success brings me a little more joy.
If I were omnipotent I would make sure dentistry was painless.
I wouldn’t. Painful teeth creates jobs. Why do you hate the working man so much?
I didn’t say I would not have painful teeth, just that the dentistry would be painless.
Well said!
This world of physical pain and pleasure was created to teach us Spiritual Truth. Without pain and our motivation to avoid it, we wouldn’t learn Spiritual Truth.
It’s easy to apply this to physical pain – don’t touch a flame or it will burn and hurt your finger.
It’s a harder process to learn Spiritual Truth – don’t sleep around after getting married, or you will emotionally destroy your spouse with your betrayal.
It takes people who have ‘eyes to see and ears to hear’ to learn the Spiritual Truth the physical world is trying to teach us.
And this is from the general revelation, the physical creation. This is not even addressing the Specific Revelation of the Bible, where God tells us what we need to know to have a relationship with Him.
Great comments!
“He [God] is a pretty great person.”
We can all recognize that this statement is HIGHLY problematic, right?
And the Lord said, “I see what you see. Obey me and I will take care of the rest.”