The Question of God

I have been having a great conversation over at my other blog with a commenter called Happy.. here is a part of one of his comments.. it hits to the heart of his response:

All I am stating is that the model of a omnipotent and ultimately moral God is inconsistent with what we observe in the real world. My point is that only a Utopian world can be consistent with such a God. In my humble opinion the very reason that we do not live in such a Utopian society leaves us with the following options: Either he does not exist, or he exists but is not omnipotent, or he exists, is omnipotent but simply unwilling to help which would make him immoral.

I think that many have this kind of view of God's role in the universe and those folks are stymied when people think differently. Here is one of the responses I had for Happy:

I guess my reactions to much of what you are saying is that I think that your image of what God should be is that of a divine manipulator of creation.. a God that has created a robotic existence.. a God who is afraid of pain.. a God who is not interested in having a relationship with His creation.. a God who doesn't understand what it is to love. That kind of a deity does not attract me at all. Okay if it does you though.

I think that many times people come out of painful situations blaming God for their pain.. many times this sort of reasoning is felt to be consistent with who we imagine God to be. The truth is that God created humans in His image and as such we have the capacity to choose our responses to pain.. we are free to choose His ways or we can choose our ways.. and our choices are a reflection of us and not Him.