A God Who Suffers

I just finished my final course for seminary, so I now feel an incredible freedom to read any book that I choose to read! Yippee! I ordered a few used books off of Ebay, and I just finished the first book to arrive: "Night" by Elie Wiesel. It’s one of the most captivating and haunting books I have ever read. "Night" is Wiesel’s autobiographical account of living through the holocaust as a young teenage boy. If you have not read this book, I highly recommend it. It is difficult to stomach, but it is also inspirational and deeply moving.

In the most interesting passage of the book, Wiesel recounts a story of a likeable and sweet Jewish boy who is brutally hung to death by the Nazi SS. He writes:

“But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light was still breathing…And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet extinguished. Behind me I heard the (a man) asking, ‘For God’s sake, where is God?’ And from within me, I heard a voice answer: ‘Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows.’”

As a boy Wiesel passionately believed in God and even desired to become a rabbi, but the holocaust made him lose all faith in God. I wonder if his experience would have been any different if he had believed in a suffering savior, a God who descended to human form and suffered an atrocious death on a cross. I cannot pretend to imagine the horror that Wiesel suffered in the midst of Nazi oppression and the horrors of the concentration camps, but I wonder if his faith in God could have survived if he was a Christian and knew the suffering of Christ. It seems to me that the only faith that would have had a chance of surviving such a horrendous experience is the Christian faith.

Existential Suffering

I just finished reading an extremely moving book called Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff. It is Wolterstorff’s journal of sorrow following the tragic death of his twenty-five year old son who died in a climbing accident. The book reminded me a lot of Lewis’ A Grief Observed. Wolterstorff’s and Lewis’ journeys through grief are considerably different, but both books give us a deeply personal account of suffering. Both give us hope that God can be trusted, even in the midst of tragic and unexplainable pain.
These books remind me that philosophical arguments are often rendered powerless in the face of existential suffering. Reason provides little comfort to those whose loved ones have tragically died. It is difficult to see the point of philosophical arguments through eyes soaked with tears. In times of great personal suffering, it is the resources of divine revelation that give us hope. The suffering of Christ reminds us that we do not suffer alone. The Resurrection reminds us that death has been conquered. The presence of the Holy Spirit fills us and allows us to go on living despite our pain.

Mr. Blasphemy

I’m trying to avoid writing overly-long, self-indulgent posts on this blog, so when this post starting getting way too long, I divided it into two separate posts, both dealing with the problem of evil in the form of natural disasters.

A friend of mine told me about some short, sitcom-like sketches on youtube called “Mr. Deity.” The sketches portray God as the bumbling CEO of the universe. There are currently 8 or 9 episodes, and the first one pokes fun at why God allowed so much evil in the universe. (I’m not recommending that you watch these clips, especially if you are easily offended. They are very antagonistic toward Christianity and aim at insulting almost everything I believe as a Christian)

In the first episode, Mr. Deity is having a conversation with his consultant Larry about what evils he should allow into his creation. About half-way through the episode, Larry brings up the topic of natural disasters:

Larry – “Umm, well, the next one, I checked with the boys down on research on this, and they said we’re safe to leave it out.”
Mr. Deity – “What is it?”
Larry – “It’s that natural disasters compliment; the earthquakes, floods, tsunamis….”
Mr. Deity – “Yeah, I need to have that in.”
Larry – “But sir, I spoke with the head of R&D. He said if we leave this out, it’s not going to affect anybody’s freewill or violate any natural law or anything, and since you’re already way over quota on the gratuitous pain and suffering…”
Mr. Deity – (interrupting Larry) “Here’s the thing, if we take it out, it’s going to be way too easy for people to believe in me.”
Larry – “No, sir, let me go over the list: holocausts, torture, and Downs syndrome. Those three alone, make it kind of hard to believe in you.”

The creators of Mr. Deity see the challenge that natural disasters pose for Christianity. Why do earthquakes happen? Why did God allow hundreds of thousands of people to be tragically killed in the tsunami that struck Southeast Asia? These are really tough questions.

The Devil Did It

I recently finished a book entitled The Doors of the Sea: Where was God in the Tsunami? by David Hart. It is a tiny book with a glossy cover, but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s a simplistic pop-Christian read like The Prayer of Jabez. Hart is a serious theologian whose style of writing is almost as challenging as the problem of evil itself. He presents his defense of God’s goodness by cloaking it in poetic and archaic language. On almost every page the reader encounters words like “interlocutors,” “stochastic,” and “lachrymose”. It’s a great little book, but be sure to have a dictionary nearby!

Hart is from the Eastern Orthodox tradition, so his approach of theodicy tends a bit more toward Irenaeus than Augustine. He is very critical of Calvinists who consider natural evil like the tsunamis as being a part of God’s sovereign plan. Hart argues that God is wholly good, and therefore never causes any inherently evil event. Horrendous evils should never be attributed to the hand of God.

So, if God does not cause tsunamis, where do they come from? Hart believes that we should take the New Testament worldview more seriously. The NT authors were not sterile, modern theists who philosophized about the problem of evil. They were passionate followers of the Messiah who believed that a cosmic battle was being waged between good and evil. They were confident that God would be victorious in the end, but they also believed that evil spirits were at work in the world. So, what causes horrible natural evils? Hart suggests that it may be demons and devils.

Let me reiterate, Hart is not some crazy televangelist on cable TV. He is a scholarly theologian. He believes that the best way to explain all evils, natural and moral, is to attribute it to free beings. Humans cause much of the moral evil that we experience. Perhaps free, spiritual beings cause much of the other evils.

Hart doesn’t fully develop his view. He suggests this as an explanation of evil, and then moves on. I find his suggestion interesting, but I also wonder if it really settles the issue. I would have to ask, why does a good God allow these evil spirits to wreak havoc on humans who do not know that these spirits are acting? Couldn’t an all-powerful and good God stop events like tsunamis? Hart’s book is interesting, but not fully convincing.

One Hell of a Problem

I remember a conversation that the Simpsons had as they drove home from church one day….

Marge: “So, what did you children learn about today?”
Bart: “Hell.”
Homer: “Bart!”
Bart: “Well, that's what we learned about. I sure as hell can't tell you we learned about hell unless I say "hell," can I?”
Homer: “Eh, The lad has a point.”
Bart: “Hell, yes!”
Marge: “Bart!”
Bart: (Singing) “Hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell.”
Marge: “Bart, you're no longer in Sunday school. Don't swear!”

Hell is a lot bigger problem for Christians than its use as a swear word. It may be the biggest problem of evil we face. Who can imagine an evil greater than the evil of unending torment? Suffering in life is bad enough, but at least it eventually ends. The traditional understanding of hell is that of eternal suffering. Can you envision that? I’m such a sissy that I can hardly stand to be sick or in pain for one day. An eternity of pain more severe than any pain I have suffered in this life is unimaginable.

Hell also raises some pretty tough questions about God’s character. How could a perfectly good and loving God cast people into an eternal existence of torture? How could a just God penalize temporal, earthly sins, with a never-ending punishment for those sins? This seems to be a greater injustice than cutting off a child’s hand for stealing a cookie or hanging a man for telling a lie. James Mill believed the concept of hell is so cruel that it undermines the belief in a good God. He wrote, “all ages and nations have represented their gods as wicked, in constantly increasing progression…till they reached the most perfect conception of wickedness which the human mind can devise, and have called this God, and prostrated themselves before it.” While I disagree with Mill’s final judgment, I can certainly see his point. It’s hard to view the author of everlasting torment as a God of love.

I don’t have any great solution to the problem of hell right now. I haven’t become a universalist. I probably would become a universalist if it wasn’t for my conviction that I am not smarter than Scripture or the tradition of the church that affirms a doctrine of hell. I think C.S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce was probably the most helpful book for me reconciling some of these issues, but I still have a lot of unanswered questions.

Right now, my only decisive conclusion is this: Christians need to be careful about how they talk about hell to unbelievers if they want Christianity to be taken seriously. If we talk about hell, we must speak about it in such a way that makes it an intelligible reality, a reality that somehow corresponds to the Triune God who is both loving and good.

Miscarriage and the Problem of Evil

This is a bleak post to start out a blog, but it’s what’s been on my mind…

We found out a little over a month ago that Jill was pregnant, and we were pretty excited. We don’t have any children, so this was life-changing news. We started making lots of plans looking forward to our future.

Last week Jill miscarried. It was one of the saddest days of my life. It’s been a rough week.

Today, I’ve been reading J. L .Mackie’s Evil and Omnipotence and Alvin Plantinga’s The Free Will Defense regarding the problem of evil. I’ve been thinking a lot about the problem of evil lately. When we consider all of the evil in the world, it is hard to reconcile it with a good and all-powerful God. This is a huge issue for the Christian faith, and Christians need to be prepared to give answers to those who use it to discredit the faith.

It struck me today, as I was reflecting on this problem for Christianity, that I haven’t thought about our miscarriage as part of the problem of evil. The miscarriage broke our hearts, and I certainly don’t have any explanation as to why a good God would allow this to happen. But, this tragedy hasn’t shaken my faith or made me think that there is a contradiction between God’s goodness and his power. I find it strange that the theoretical problem of evil has made me question my view of God more than the experience of personal evil. In the midst of personal evil, I don’t find myself seeking answers to tough questions. I find myself seeking grace and comfort from the very God who doesn’t always make sense.