The Boy Scholastic is building an [fake] empire.

But don't tell him! He's enjoying himself far too much, and aren't illusions grand? We can learn so much from them. Inside his new world, he isn't the emperor, or even an important fellow. He is a junior scribe, who dutifully and loyally records what is said and by whom what is done. You mustn't think him anything less than a dreamer, though, for this is everything The Boy Scholastic ever wanted -- to have a duty to perform for good men and to fulfill it. He relishes in the servants heart. So why does he study theology? Because he heard whispers of a man in whom all goodness sees itself fulfilled. He would that his small bit of goodness meet this man too.

I should really stop frustrating myself, but that is exactly where I seem to spend my energies, at least when left to my own devices. Every time I meet a person or read the opinion of someone who has for himself no faith to speak of (Atheists and Agnostics, they call them), I think to myself that, if only they could see what it truly means to be a person of faith (by which I invariably mean a Christian), then they would at once end their tirade against... against their illusion of what God is. Because that's exactly what it is, at least, that's what it is to me. Of course, this is all a matter of perspective isn't it -- I mean, who am I to say that God is the way I see Him and not the way the Atheist sees him? And yet, for the sake of belief in God, we must abandon the views of God which are unbelievable and look instead to the views of God which are believed. And no one believes in the God that the Atheist doesn't believe in and that the Agnostic sees no evidence of.

I understand that I stand to step upon more than a few toes with what I have said and what I am about to say. So I will cut things to the quick and give but one example of what bothers me so. And it comes from a favorite of mine.

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. - Richard Dawkins

Here we see a common complaint about God -- that He does terrible things. There is an inherent problem with that argument, and by inherent I mean to say that the argument violates the very concept of God. I will explain why this is, beginning with a proper, non-terminal understanding of God, that is, a "lowest common denominator" amongst religions about what a monotheistic God is. I will not discuss polytheism, as I provide no defense for any god(s).

To differentiate God from other "superhuman beings", we will qualify Him in response to the following statement:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? - Epicurus

God is that which is omniscient and omnipotent. If he lacked either, he would fall to the rank of 'god' or 'angel/demon/other-possibly-made-up-thing'. Epicurus is right that an object of worship aught not fall short of these two things. Furthermore, the two go hand-in-hand. They unify body and spirit. He is that which has the fullest command over the temporal and the non-temporal. This, for us, will be God.

Now, to say that God is anything bad or good is to say that there is something apart from God by which he might be judged. This violates the notion of God, that he might be judged. The moment we attempt to take God and judge Him as if he were a human (as Dawkins does), we immediately have become confused about what we're discussing, for we can no longer be speaking of God. "Morality" is a strictly human occurance and is determined by the Will of God for men -- this is a necessity derived from a universe in which God exists. And as God always does what is His Will (necessarily), God must be good. To whit: Goodness is the Will of God. We cannot, therefore, object to God on the basis of His action being evil, as the notion is impossible. It is simply a person anthropomorphizing God, one of the biggest "God-fallacies" present on both sides of any God debate.

This, of course, leaves us with an issue which those long before us discussed and which we will, no doubt, continue to address. C.S. Lewis stated it the best when he deemed it "The Problem with Pain." The question of suffering is a long-standing one. There have been plenty of formal arguments, with which I agree and disagree to varying degrees, but in what compels me the most and what I, therefore, will share, is the more emotional side of the argument (you didn't think there existed one for this side of things, did you?)

Pain is a catalyst, and this is a good thing. It forces us to react, to respond, and even if that response is, "Why me?" it is that reflection that leads us to change. Pain causes us to re-examine our existential selves, to look inwards at what there is and, in that way, alter how we process the outwards. St. Augustine's words speak strongly when he says that fire is used to separate the wheat from the chaff, to remove the impurities from the gold. Through our suffering we face our own limitedness, our own need for humility. Through the suffering of others we learn to love and to serve. Without suffering, where is the saint? We can delve into the origins of pain (I follow a very traditional view of pain as a repercussion of the fall of man), but the fact of the matter is that pain is a means by which we may be humbled through the existential rearrangement of self, and in this way, have our eyes opened to God. Pleasure is used in the same way, but we don't seem to have a problem with that, now do we?

This makes God seem awfully manipulative, but think: Knowing what you know now, do you begrudge your mother from making you take your disgusting medicine? It may have tasted terrible, and you may have been mad at her, but it made you better, and the joy of the end result outshines any pain in the arrival.

What speaks, perhaps the loudest, is the following quote. Read it, and then go learn something about Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

"When Jesus bids a man, He calls him to come and die." D. Bonhoeffer