Edgework

After many decades of defending God, I still keep coming face-to-face with sincere people of faith who maintain that God is the author of everything that happens, including evil. In a sermon I preached in 2004, I described the thought pattern I was hearing from fellow believers as follows:

God is sovereign. So everything that happens in this world happens by his design. When the tragedy is too horrific, it is conceded that maybe it wasn’t God’s idea, or his action, but since he is sovereign, he at least must have given permission for it to happen. And always Romans 8:28 is the clincher, “all things work together for good to them that love God.” Sometimes it is said that God is weaving a beautiful tapestry which we can only see from the bottom side with all its random strands of thread. Once we will get to see the tapestry from God’s point of view it will all make sense. On occasion it is suggested that the tragedy was fair punishment for an ungodly life. Or that God is, in the tragedy, testing you so you can know how strong you really are.

There is so much to say, and indeed books have been written on this subject. I will restrict myself to a few summary statements for those who are still blaming God for evil, followed by a lengthy quote from Brad Jersak.

1. Blaming God for everything that happens is an easy way out. It is unfair to the biblical text and human experience to bring the “sovereignty of God” as an unchallenged starting point into the equation when wrestling with the presence of evil in the world. An honest reading of the Bible reveals a loving God who is not fixated so much on control as on Love writ large. Blaming God for bringing on evil or allowing it to further God’s purposes is not the God we see in Jesus Christ. If a loving human father would not do this, how much less our heavenly Father.
2. When read correctly, Romans 8:28 does not lead you to the notion that God has a direct hand in causing misfortunes, tragedies and evil. If you start with a sovereigntist position, the KJV version may appear to support your argument. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God…” could possibly be read to mean that God is working for the good by bringing evil into your life first. But later and better translations do not allow for this view. For example, the NIV reads, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him.” This is much more consistent with the God we learn about through Jesus’ life and teaching. God is always at work attempting to bring something good out of the brokenness that confronts the human condition.
3. We do well to accept the fact that there is an element of randomness to disease, accidents, natural disasters and the effects of crazy choices people make. We should not try to read some logic or divine purpose into tragedies like cancer that strikes me but not my neighbor. Bad stuff happens. That is the way the world works. If you step off a cliff it is gravity – not God – that pulls you down. Sometimes the toilet seat is just up; it doesn’t mean a thing! Yet for some it seems easier to blame God for everything than to come to terms with the randomness with which evil strikes.
4. We can assume that God is good. God is “for” you and is always at work drawing you close even in the midst of suffering. Without this foundation it is easy to lose faith when the going gets tough. In his book Night, Levi Weisel describes how he lost all faith in God when he saw and experienced so much meaningless suffering and death all around him. If you begin with the assumption that God orchestrates such things that, indeed, is a logical conclusion. The Good News is that God is Love.
5. Instead of asking what God is trying to show you through the tragedies of life which God orchestrates, we do better to ask God to open our eyes to the ways in which God is caring for us in the midst of our suffering.

To conclude, I quote Brad Jersak from a recent dialogue I had with him:

It seems to me that we suffer from these monster-God projections at a very deep and instinctual level. In part it goes back to the belief that God is the direct cause of every event…possibly as early as the first lighting strike observed by a hominoid! Fire from heaven; a gift or a curse, depending on if you were good or bad. Then, just as we captured fire, so we thought to capture God within the confines of our limited understanding. Perhaps it’s also a way to comfort: If God sent it, then it has a reason or purpose, rather than being a random and pointless tragedy; a trial to be passed, a lesson to be learned. But the cost of such ‘comfort’ becomes too high when the trial exceeds any possible explanation. Then we’re left broken and bitter at the god who ‘sent’ it.

“This fear has a counterpart: If God didn’t send it, then God sits by and does nothing. This too is tragic, for our Lord has fully participated in our humanity and united himself to us in our suffering. I would like that to mean that his solidarity with me magically removes the suffering, but that’s not the norm. The norm is that we pass through the trials with him. But it is so much more difficult to experience his presence as consolation if you think he sent the suffering and refuses to retract his heavy hand.

A lesson we all need to learn.