Why does god allow amputees

A compelling historical case can be constructed for the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, provided one is willing to accept a universe in which God exists. The above response, however, forces me to expose the massive assumption undergirding this objection: the presumption is that if one were to directly witness a miracle, he or she would believe in God as a result. I think this is doubtful.

After all, miracles come to us via our senses and we can always question the reliability of our sensory experiences. We may hide behind probabilities, the gullibility of people, the oddness underneath the ordinary world, or some yet-to-be discovered natural law. This approach will, on occasion, save us from being duped by the cunning charlatan, in addition to happily providing us with a smug sense of superiority over the religious rabble.

However, it may also condemn us to missing the deeper truth about reality — a supernatural realm constantly peeking through the pages of our history, upsetting our paradigms and carrying rumours of another world; a dimension of reality more packed with personhood than some of our physicists have dared to imagine.

The form of objection we are considering in this article also allows us to discuss the hiddenness of God and, again, we are forced to uncover some massive assumptions made by critics. Most significantly, the objection assumes that God is interested only that we grudgingly admit His existence. I Exist. Believe and Obey. We first want to note that none of our answers should be construed as us not empathizing with or downplaying the loss of those who have lost a limb.

Your question seems to merely be a very specific re-articulation of the general argument against God due to the existence of evil. Formally restating your argument:. You could just as easily replace the major premise with anything else unpleasant: why do people lose limbs in the first place?

But once you understand that the problems in this world are a result of sin—tracing back to the Fall in Genesis 3 —we can reconcile the existence of a perfectly good and loving God with the existence of death and suffering. Knowing that, it is nonsensical to blame God for the consequences of our own sin. Even if there were amputees in Bible times, there may not have been as many. Many amputees nowadays lose a limb because of diabetes, dysvascular diseases, or cancer 3 ; doctors in Bible times would not likely have known to amputate for such reasons.

As you suggest, violence was probably the main cause of limb loss in Bible times. But when you accept God and His Word, you can understand how Genesis explains the death and suffering as a result of the failure of humanity, not God.

Amputations are one element of the consequences of death, degradation, and suffering that humanity and all creation bear because of our rebellion and sin Romans But even amid and through that suffering, God works His perfect will Romans , and one day there will be no more pain for His people Revelation Answers in Genesis is an apologetics ministry , dedicated to helping Christians defend their faith and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

Donate Now. View Cart. Peter Galling on January 30, Featured in Feedback. Share: Email Using: Gmail Yahoo! How sad. Or is there a better explanation for this divine bigotry towards our limbless brethren? To better illustrate these options, consider the following thought experiment: A friend of yours recently lost his leg to a roadside mine in Iraq.

If one million people were praying for your friend, and even if prayer had the marginal success rate of only. Despite these odds, we know from the experiences of every other amputee that all the praying in the world will not regenerate his leg, not even when a Herculean effort such as this one has been organized.

Either way, the amputees are left without a natural means of locomotion. Yet, six billion people continue to practice this archaic superstition in the name of hope.