Why doesn't God always punish sin?

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear all,

Even the title of this suggested thread is, I know, debatable, since many may find the word 'punish' too harsh and simplistic, and it may not even be Orthodox to think of God as 'punishing' us. It sure feels like 'punishment' when calamity does happen, though - especially if it happens as a direct consequence of our own failures and weaknesses! But this is a real question for me: why doesn't God always appear to punish sin, or conversely always appear to reward virtue?

I guess part of the answer is in the question, in the sense that, if His actions and responses were so obviously apparent to all, there would be no need for faith. If God punished sin and rewarded virtue every single time, only a fool would be able to doubt His existence or knowingly choose to act in opposition to His commandments. So maybe creaturely freedom is vouchsafed by the very fact that the ways of divine justice are not immediately apparent to all. But the price of this privacy seems so astonishingly high! Surely all this suffering and injustice does not have to take place, just so that we are left free to choose to respond to Him with a 'yes' or 'no'? Or does it? If so, my question is: why?

In Christ
Byron

[Herman Blaydoe]

Dear all,

Even the title of this suggested thread is, I know, debatable, since many may find the word 'punish' too harsh and simplistic, and it may not even be Orthodox to think of God as 'punishing' us. It sure feels like 'punishment' when calamity does happen, though - especially if it happens as a direct consequence of our own failures and weaknesses! But this is a real question for me: why doesn't God always appear to punish sin, or conversely always appear to reward virtue?

I guess part of the answer is in the question, in the sense that, if His actions and responses were so obviously apparent to all, there would be no need for faith. If God punished sin and rewarded virtue every single time, only a fool would be able to doubt His existence or knowingly choose to act in opposition to His commandments. So maybe creaturely freedom is vouchsafed by the very fact that the ways of divine justice are not immediately apparent to all. But the price of this privacy seems so astonishingly high! Surely all this suffering and injustice does not have to take place, just so that we are left free to choose to respond to Him with a 'yes' or 'no'? Or does it? If so, my question is: why?

In Christ
Byron

Because, my dear man, sin is NOT a crime to be punished. It is a sickness to be healed.

When the vase falls and breaks, do you punish it for breaking?

Answer my questions then I'll try to answer yours. Is that fair?

Herman the Pooh

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear Herman,


When the vase falls and breaks, do you punish it for breaking?

Answer my questions then I'll try to answer yours. Is that fair? Of course you're right, as I said the idea that sin deserves or earns punishment is not strictly speaking Orthodox. Sin is a sickness, and sinners are to be treated therapeutically, healed, not punished. Yet how can we explain the fact that the Greek word for hell, kolasis, means 'punishment'? And if the medicine used to treat an illness, even here on this side of death, tastes bitter, or where the doctor must perform surgery (even without anaesthetic in some cases), then even medical treatment can be excruciatingly painful, which to us means that it is in practice indistinguishable from the pain of punishment, but for the admittedly hugely significant difference in meaning between human vindictive punishment, which is never particularly constructive, and divine discipline (I'm reaching for terms here) which always has our ultimate benefit in mind. The wages of sin is death. Is that a punishment, or a prognosis? We Orthodox see it as prognosis, but the result is the same. I may feel a lot better being told I must hurt for my own good, than simply being told I deserve a course of pain for being worthless vermin, but boy - it really hurts, either way!

So dear Herman, it's nice to hear from you; please excuse my intense turn of phrase, I'm putting this in emotive terms, to give a sense of what I'm trying to convey. My question is still, why do sinners sometimes flourish, and saints sometimes (rather frequently) suffer unimaginable tortures?

In Christ
Byron

[Herman Blaydoe]

My question is still, why do sinners sometimes flourish, and saints sometimes (rather frequently) suffer unimaginable tortures?

In Christ
Byron

Why does iron get stronger when you heat it and beat on it? Why must silver and gold be "punished" to be refined?

I admit you ask a fair question, the Psalmist do the same. The difference is they answer their own question. Christ answers the question in His sermon on the mount.

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blesses are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are you, when men curse and revile you and say all manner of evil falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great will be your reward in Heaven.

Bad things happen to good people so that even better things can happen. Lazarus and the rich man. Job. Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his brothers so that he could save them all from famine and set the stage for the precursor to Pascha. Look at what happened to Him who is perfect. Was Christ being punished? Some in the west might say so, but I think they miss the point.

I will let others expand on "the point". I'm done stating the obvious.

Herman the obvious Pooh

[Sean M.]

I don't see the problem with thinking that God punishes(or disciplines) some people for their own benefit. The question is does he punish others, knowing that the punishment will have no beneficial effect in regards to that persons salvation? I really don't know the answer to that, would God waste his time trying to discipline a person who he knows will not respond to it by changing their ways?

I'm reminded of Antiochus IV in 2Maccabess who God punishes with an incurable and invisible blow(2Maccabess9:5), but it seems God did this to protect the Jews. Then we have the example were God punishes Heliodorus when he tries to pillage the temple(2Maccabess3:22-28), and he later converted.

I believe it is intrinsic to Gods nature to punish sin, whether it is in this life or the life to come.

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Byron,

Thank you for an interesting opening post; and to Herman and others for thoughtful replies already posted.

This is of course the classic question of all religious belief, not just Christianity; but it is particularly potent in Christianity, since we profess belief in a God who is both all-loving and all-powerful, implying that he has the desire to do good for all, and the power to do whatsoever he desires. So - and this question has been asked for two millennia - how is it that some suffering abides? Some good sees no reward? Etc.

I've only a few moments to write just now, so will offer nothing other than a thought on a dimension to this discussion that might be interesting. As this question has been asked, and answers pondered, all throughout Christian history, it might be fruitful to examine how it was raised and considered by some key figures in the patristic heritage - both positively, and in ways that were ultimately rejected. I'm thinking here in particular of the considerations posed by Irenaeus, Origen and Athanasius as three key examples -- but we could of course bring in others as people wish. But at least with these three as starting points, we can see three very distinct approaches to the question, one of which is fantastically creative and compelling, but ultimately deemed heretical; the other two maintained in the Church, yet somewhat different in their approach.

If we were to look at these in some detail, there could be fruit for some real insight into what remains a question asked in every generation.

INXC, Dcn Matthew

[Father David Moser]

I don't see the problem with thinking that God punishes(or disciplines) some people for their own benefit. ...
I believe it is intrinsic to Gods nature to punish sin, whether it is in this life or the life to come.

In this whole discussion, I think that the concept or meaning of "punishment" needs to be examined. From a psychological point of view the purpose of punishment is to extinguish an undesirable behavior. It is an effective tool in the arsenal of a behavioral psychologist - but it is not a panacea. In this sense God punishes "undesirable behavior" in order to extinguish it - but He does not rely totally on that one tool. Punishment, in order to be an effective part of behavior change must be paired with teaching new behavior. Thus God never punishes undesirable behavior without providing an alternative path of behavior that is more desirable and leads to reward. What this does is provide a choice for the organism in which the two options are weighted - but the choice is still up to he organism which road to take. An animal will almost always choose the path that avoids punishment and leads to reward. A man however is endowed with free will by God and so can choose to overrule this rational choice and choose instead to continue on the destructive course eschewing the reward. This is why, in the scripture, punishment does not always "work" properly - not because God presents a flawed choice, but because men make flawed choices.

Another way to view punishment, or rather adverse occurrences, is to consider it as an attention getting mechanism. Before you can lead a person (or even an animal) in a new direction, you first have to get their attention. One of the most important basic tasks in obedience training for dogs is to get the dog to be alert to the master so that even the smallest signal can be recognized and followed. The alert dog is always looking at the master, checking for signs, anticipating even the next instruction. But if the dog isn't attending, then you have to get its attention - a sharp sound, a jerk on the leash, whatever. God sometimes uses what we call "punishment" simply as a device to get our attention. Sometimes it takes only a little prompt for us to attend to God's voice and other times we have to be hit over the head with a 2x4 like a stubborn mule.

In both of the above cases "punishment" is not without purpose or simply a means of "making up a debt" but rather fulfills a positive purpose in leading us along and teaching us about the path of salvation. What we call "punishment" is more complex than it looks on the surface. Another very necessary component here is one of perspective. God uses short lived, temporal situations in order to create in us eternal characteristics. If we do not accept or believe in the eternal, then the value of the temporal is vastly inflated. However, when we take into account the relative value of the eternal, then the temporal becomes minor. Better in that case that we endure some minor temporal suffering in order to gain major eternal benefit. The importance of what we sometimes consider to be punishment wanes when it is placed into this context.

Fr David Moser

[Andreas Moran]

Dear Byron,

So - and this question has been asked for two millennia - how is it that some suffering abides? Some good sees no reward? Etc.



And for more than two millennia. It is said that Epicurus posed the question in this way (talking of God):

Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent.
Is He able, but not willing? Then He is not good.
Is He both able and willing? Whence, then, is evil?
Is He neither able nor willing? Then He is not God.

But are we to expect that He would prevent evil in an instant? If He is in the process of preventing evil and will eventually abolish it, then He is omnipotent, good, and God. In the meantime, as imperfect and immature beings (so Irenaeus) in a fallen world, but possessing free will, we are free to make good or bad choices (evil resulting from the latter) and so grow to spiritual maturity if we desire good and sometimes do it and repent of bad choices. A fallen world in which people are free to choose good or evil is not inconsistent with God's being omnipotent and good.

[Sean M.]

God sometimes uses what we call "punishment" simply as a device to get our attention. Sometimes it takes only a little prompt for us to attend to God's voice and other times we have to be hit over the head with a 2x4 like a stubborn mule.

I thought of the story of Jonah when I read this, a story that always makes me chuckle when I read it.

[Nina]

In addition to the very good posts in this thread, we see that Fathers mention that God is not punishing people (if He did we can't live for more than some minutes after all the sinning we commit). They bring as an example the story of Job and say that Job was tested because of the accuser (Satana). Many of us will view what happened to Job as punishment but it is not true. Same as when good things happen to us it is not a reward because we were good. We can't be good without God's grace. Also the story came to mind of the monk and the angel who traveled and the monk saw the angel "punish" the good people and "reward" the bad. When he puzzled asked about the angel's actions, the angel said that God permitted certain things seemingly bad to happen to the good people for the salvation of their souls and their families'.

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear all,

The quality of responses to my initial question is truly an 'embarrassment of riches'. Serves me right, for aiming at the big ones!

It makes me wonder about sin. We've spoken of it as sickness, in need of healing, and this I feel is one of the most appropriate ways of looking at what happens to our soul when in one way or another we choose to become estranged from our Creator. It has also been viewed as disobedience, transgression, an infraction of divine law which as Sean points out, will by definition be met by punishment. The Lord's Prayer refers to 'debt', an economic analogy I suppose.

God in the OT appears at times to 'send' blows (as in 2 Maccabees 9:5) for sins, in the manner of talion law: an eye for an eye, Genesis 9:6 "Whoever sheds a man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." But does OT law still apply in NT times?

Nina and others have mentioned Job. I don't know what that was about! Why let Satan have his wicked way with a good servant? And what did Job's cattle, or his first set of children, do to deserve their fate?

Fr David is surely right to suggest the issue is
more complex than it looks on the surface But I'm not sure taking eternity into account is part of the solution, or part of the initial problem, since unless we have been specially blessed with intimations of the spiritual world, we can 'only' rely on dogma to tell us that neither space nor time are limited to the immediately apparent. If we can accept dogma at face value - and I would suggest this is a good thing for those who can do so and yet not become 'dogmatic' in the negative modern sense of closing one's mind through preconceptions - then the issue resolves itself: all will become clear in the next life, where it paradoxically may no longer even need to be clarified, for all the unceasing joy to be had. But if we are less than simple in our faith, we (I speak for myself) probably need something 'in hand' first, before we can begin to accept dogma. And some clarity or insight into the apparent scandal of undeserved suffering or unmerited reward, may go some way to offering consolation.

Personally, I no longer feel I need equations. OK, sometimes I still do, but most of the time I'd be happy just to reach some sort of personal peace with my limited experience of what Dostoyevsky described as 'Crime and Punishment'. I feel Fr Dcn Matthew is pointing us in the right direction, the detailed study of what individual fathers have had to say.

In Christ
Byron

[M.C. Steenberg]

Dear Byron and others,

To begin bringing in some specific considerations from the patristic era, let me offer a characterisation of the treatment offered by one of the great speculative expositors on the question - whose response was ultimately deemed inappropriate and wrong -- Origen of Alexandria. Even though his response was rejected (and parts of it were specifically amongst the targets of the anathematisations of 553), the manner in which he approaches the question is revealing, since it shows the way the human mind tries to 'make sense' of the mystery of sin and evil.

Origen's considerations amount to essentially this:

God is all-good and all-powerful, and desires what is good for His creatures.
As such, what we would expect of God is that each person is born good; and beyond this, that everyone is given 'equal opportunity' of good in this life. In other words, it would make little sense to think that a good God who loves all, would create some 'better' or 'worse off' than others.
The only way that an inequality of good/suffering amongst humanity can be explained is through sin: namely, one is worse off because one has transgressed more; or one is better off because one has transgressed less and remained more faithful. It is inconceivable to think that God would arbitrarily punish or cause suffering amongst some but not others; all suffering and pain are the result of sin, for which one must be personally responsible. This only re-inforces the idea that all should be born equally, since at birth we presume persons have had their beginning -- so all should come into the world of equal goodness and freedom of suffering, and pain and suffering should arise only as one grows and sins and brings this upon himself.
However, this is not in fact what we see in the world around us. Instead, we see tremendous evil and suffering; and we see suffering in radically unequal measure, not from later life but from even the moment of birth. Some are born in pious, righteous, affluent families with essentially an assurance of a 'furtherance in all good things', whilst others are born in atheistic environments, poverty-stricken and diseased from birth, apparently doomed to a life of pain, suffering and agony.
As a logical conclusion then, we must speculate that birth is not the beginning. Since suffering is always a consequence of one's sin, the fact that some are born in suffering means they must have already had an opportunity to sin; and thus we must speculate that there is some phase of our existence before birth, in which we can and do rebel from God, and in response to which we are born according to different measures of blessedness or suffering, according to the degree of our rebellion.
This is not to say that God is being unmerciful: for we must understand all suffering to be redemption - for surely Christ Himself gives the example that suffering is not merely an evil, but something that can render good. Therefore, the apparent inequality of suffering and blessedness in the world is in fact the deliberate, pastoral response to God to each one's sins, and therefore each one's needs, aimed to provide just the chastisement required for redemption.


This, in a nutshell, is Origen's approach (which you will find explained in his De principiis, 2.9.7, 8 (http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04122.htm) - as well as elsewhere in that work). Clearly, it has substantial and dramatic problems, and cannot suffice as a Christian explanation of the mystery of suffering. As people pointed out in Origen's own day, its speculations require such a debasement of certain Scriptural testimony on the unique creation of man in the womb, and depends on a much broader vision of the pre-existence of souls, that it can little suffice as a truly Scripturally-compatible view. But it certainly does something that most others in his day did not: it gives positive value to suffering, drawn from the image of Christ who suffered for mankind, rather than simply taking as wrote that all suffering is evil, and the presence of suffering is unjust. Origen was able to see both pain/suffer and joy/peace as God's active, compassionate responses to human activity.

Origen's system, again, doesn't work. It is logically compelling; but in its details draws in all sorts of metaphysical presuppositions and speculations that really render it untenable (the only modern group which professes to be Christian and also attempts to maintain something essentially similar, are the Mormons). However, examining how he came to his system does remind us of some dimensions of the discussion we sometimes forget: that suffering and evil have to be seen in historical, developmental terms; that 'punishment' (more properly chastisement) is always corrective, whatever its form or severity; that suffering is not solely an evil, but can be reclaimed for good.

So perhaps his thoughts can provoke some questions in our own:

In the question 'Why doesn't God always punish sin?', are we adequately taking stock of the developmental nature of the human person and the human race? Does sin have to be punished 'now', immediately, in order for us to be satisfied that God is responding to it?
To what degree are we trying to force a notion of 'punishment' as vengeance or retribution upon a God who consistently teaches and shows us that punishment is really chastisement (which is a word, in Greek, that comes from the same root as 'to teach, to instruct')? And if we consider God's response to sin in these terms, does it cause us to re-frame our question(s)?


INXC, Dcn Matthew

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Fr Dn Matthew wrote:



In the question 'Why doesn't God always punish sin?', are we adequately taking stock of the developmental nature of the human person and the human race? Does sin have to be punished 'now', immediately, in order for us to be satisfied that God is responding to it?
To what degree are we trying to force a notion of 'punishment' as vengeance or retribution upon a God who consistently teaches and shows us that punishment is really chastisement (which is a word, in Greek, that comes from the same root as 'to teach, to instruct')? And if we consider God's response to sin in these terms, does it cause us to re-frame our question(s)?

In the Fathers we often read of the basic instability of life, that the more we grasp at it in a sinful way the more it slips from our hand. This is always referred to as a universal rule which can be applied even more to those whom in our eyes may seem to gain everything in life at no cost while others suffer.

But left here I still think we are in the realm of justice and of trying to equal the scales of life as if our Christian attitude should be that we would be satisfied if we could only see that 'everyone gets theirs' in the end.' There is something deeply unsatisfactory then with the above point, proper in itself, if applied in a total way to God's economy.

What I think then is that we must refine the above with what for example St Maximus pointed out: in sinfullness we pursue pleasure but that we reap pain as a result. This is a universal spiritual law St Maximus explains, built back into the structure of reality so that we turn to God and so that we relate to this life which God has allowed us in a godly way. In other words the suffering which results from sin has an economic or providential aspect to it. It is God's way of guiding us back to what is true and real rather than what is false and illusory.

Of course though this only occurs as a result of free will which is part of the ongoing drama of life. Due to our own instability there are many times when we do not accept God's lessons- we still crave sinful pleasure despite its inevitable results. And in any case acceptance is a process.

Here though only love can cover the open endedness of seeing this. Or the fact that people are free and what this entails. For only love can sense God's love present in this. Otherwise we fall back into the desire to see how God equals the scales; and from this into a vision that is completely nihilist.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Nina]

I don't know what that was about! Why let Satan have his wicked way with a good servant? And what did Job's cattle, or his first set of children, do to deserve their fate?

In Christ
Byron

Satan (Eosphoros) is also God's son, albeit fallen. We are such sinners and God allows us such freedom also in our lives. A good servant like Job has to be tested since God is righteous. As that good servant said to his wife: "Foolish woman we accept good from the hand of God but we do not like to accept the bad" - the bad is not really from God but it is allowed by Him. As for the children, God knows the why... that was the perfect time for them to go... as for the cattle it is the cycle of life, those would have gone in a way or another.

It is difficult to accept to see God's love in what we perceive as misfortunes... but He is there and He knows best and He loves all of us. He does not punish us. He is the Father.

[Byron Jack Gaist]

Dear all,

Fr Raphael wrote:
Otherwise we fall back into the desire to see how God equals the scales; and from this into a vision that is completely nihilistand Nina resonates that with
It is difficult to accept to see God's love in what we perceive as misfortunes... but He is there and He knows best and He loves all of us. Clearly the cold gaze of a completely rational, quantitative distribution of justice is alien to Christianity.

Origen's reasoning, for example, as presented by Fr Dcn Matthew, seems particularly cruel to me not so much in his peculiar teaching on the preexistence of souls, but in maintaining that
Since suffering is always a consequence of one's sin, the fact that some are born in suffering means they must have already had an opportunity to sin; and thus we must speculate that there is some phase of our existence before birth, in which we can and do rebel from God, and in response to which we are born according to different measures of blessedness or suffering, according to the degree of our rebellion. In fairness to Origen, he was writing in the 3rd century, and I suppose it would have been more tempting then to have reached to some metaphysical speculation to justify holding on to the equation sin=suffering.

Fr Raphael refers to
a universal rule which can be applied even more to those whom in our eyes may seem to gain everything in life at no cost while others suffer. But what of the evidence of our senses? We see the wealthy and spoilt flourish, we see the noisy thrive while the needy drown. It takes a leap of the imagination to think that those who are growing fat on pots of flesh are in fact 'missing the point', that
the more we grasp at it in a sinful way the more it slips from our handIn our society, abruptness and grasping are rewarded. So while I agree that the 'rewards' I am referring to here are vulgar and probably full of cholesterol, it's hard to keep that in mind when looking at successful movie stars stylishly cut their slim, elegant figures on the beaches of celebrity.

There may be something here about the fact that the God we have chosen to believe in, is a God of love. Clearly we live in a world best described as 'fallen', despite Christ's initiation of redemption, which I personally currently understand as some sort of opening, or an invitation. This is a world created in glory, but one which, not to put too fine a phrase on it, we have turned into a nightmare. Perhaps even in its most pristine postlapsarian condition, in the very earliest days of man's expulsion from Paradise, it was also a nightmare. It may be that technology has helped us buffer to an extent the effects of the cold, natural disasters, predators, and illness; therefore we might be living in a world today which could be described as an improvement, of sorts, on the world of stone-age man. But our mitwelt, our society, is still a nightmare, at least that's my personal experience, and I apologise for the strong phrasing.

So I've been thinking, what's the point of believing in this God of love, with all the clear evidence to the contrary? Are Christians stupid? Judging by the I.Q.s we come across in reading the fathers, this is also clearly not the case! Yet, as one very calm and gentle old monk once told me, if we believe in the gospel, we will inevitably allow ourselves to be exploited. Why should we do this? The old monk did not say very much more, but his words and whole demeanour made a big impression on me. If this is a cruel and unjust world which simply does not square out - so that unfortunately any number of the very best and most sincere intentions to console, simply turns us at some point into Job's comforters - then one may consider two main responses to it: (1) fight with monsters and become one, (2) refuse to become one, and trust that there exists something greater. The latter response is, I think, closer to the Christian one. We know that we will be exploited. We know that even our 'God' will let us down, big time, because that 'God' is not God, but our own conception of Him. Yet we actively choose to behave as if there is a possibility of justice and love; and the wonderful part of it is, that since we have chosen a God whom some would consider one-sided and unrealistic, when it is our turn to be punished - we turn and find a God of love, the awaiting Father of the prodigal son or daughter. God lets Himself be exploited, too.

Of course, this leaves open the question of God's wrath may be. What do others think?

In Christ
Byron

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Byron wrote:



But what of the evidence of our senses? We see the wealthy and spoilt flourish, we see the noisy thrive while the needy drown. It takes a leap of the imagination to think that those who are growing fat on pots of flesh are in fact 'missing the point', that In our society, abruptness and grasping are rewarded. So while I agree that the 'rewards' I am referring to here are vulgar and probably full of cholesterol, it's hard to keep that in mind when looking at successful movie stars stylishly cut their slim, elegant figures on the beaches of celebrity.

You have to understand that I'm coming at this from the perspective of a priest who hears people's confessions. From that point of view I hear everyone's suffering: and from that point of view the suffering caused by sin doesn't go more lightly against the wealthy than the poor.

Of course though by the time such people get to me at confession they have already equalized the scales as it were by acknowledging their sin. Otherwise they wouldn't be at confession. So maybe this is part of the answer to your question.

There is already an equality among all. Not in terms of who deserves what. But rather in terms of the suffering we all endure from sin. Thus the point here for Christians is how we share in this suffering and through this thus touch the lives of all whomever they may be.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Father David Moser]

Satan (Eosphoros) is also God's son, albeit fallen.

I can't let this go unilluminated. Satan is not God's son - There is only one Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Satan, like us, is a creature. He was not born of God but was created by God and he then fell. I think that was Nina's meaning.


Fr David Moser

[Nina]

I can't let this go unilluminated. Satan is not God's son - There is only one Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Satan, like us, is a creature. He was not born of God but was created by God and he then fell. I think that was Nina's meaning.
Fr David Moser


Wow, Father David, thank you sooooo much for clarifying this! I now see how it can be taken.... I am sorry I did not express it more clearly.

Yes, Satan is like us: a creature of God. That is why I said son and not with the capital S as in Son which is for Christ. But this is subtle often and without your elaboration Father it could have been misunderstood. I used the word son for Satan because I wanted to emphasize the goodness of God, Who is so wonderful to all of us and is merciful and allows us so much freedom... as the psalm 130 says "His mercy endures forever! Alleluia!" And not only He is so merciful and good, but God also is righteous and as he gives us freedom/rights He also gives rights to Satan since he is His creature. As The Gospel says we must be merciful to all friends and enemies like our God is also merciful.

Speaking about us, creatures of God, the Apostle urges us to become 'sons of Light'.

[Ben Johnson]

Sometimes the LORD has to step in quickly; other times He gives us time to repent.