|
|
If God is like this
On the first day of January 2005 there was an
item in the Timaru Herald which attacked God. By this
I mean, the writer attacked God by questioning the basic teachings about the
God of the Bible, suggesting (or implying) that this God was either
deficient, imperfect or perhaps not even real. Such attacks have been
made countless times, and many great writers have replied, including Augustine
and C.S. Lewis, but as time passes these works tend to be placed further back
on the shelf, which usually encourages new writers to repeat, in different
words, much the same set of arguments in God's defense. This is yet another of
these defenses. We will deal with the item from the Herald bit by bit.
“How did a God considered all-powerful
and benevolent allow
In our response, we will move through a series
of views which all deal in some way with the question. Like pieces of a jigsaw,
each view will support the others, and, hopefully, present a reasonable answer.
Cause and Effect.
I was sitting at a meal with friends one day
when one of the people at the table, a child, asked me why Christians 'give
thanks' for their food. I replied by asking where the food came from. She said,
“the shop”. I asked her where did the shop
get the food from? She said, “The farms”.
From there the origin of the food was a mystery. I explained that the farmers
got their seeds and animals from the parent plants and parent animals.
“Where did they come from?” Their parents.
I repeated this chain back for a few generations and the girl realized that all
things in the present are connected by a process of cause and effect, to all
things in the past. This principle has been exploited in a few movies, in which
time-travellers go back to the past and alter
something, which alters the future. Causes always have effects, and effects
always have causes.
If one tracks back through the generations, one
must inevitably arrive at a First Cause. In practical terms, this means there
must have been a set of original waves on the ocean, birds in the trees, fish in the sea. Life itself must have had a beginning, and
since life can come only from life, there must have been a first life – a
chicken before their was an egg. The tsunami
therefore, is the effect of a cause, which in turn was the effect of another
cause. If we follow this back far enough, we come to an event which rearranged
this planet, the global flood of Noah's day. Before that we have a world which
was far better, but inhabited by wicked rebels. The flood was sent as a
punishment to destroy these rebels. Before the rebels were there we can go
back, through a decreasing population, to a first couple, Adam and Eve, who
became the first rebels against God, and as a result the world was cursed. So
the origin of the tsunami was the curse, which was put on the planet by God, but
it was not God's 'fault' because it came as a result of Man's sin. Man is
therefore the one at fault. If Man had been obedient, there never would have
been a tsunami.
We must not underestimate the importance of this
view because it shifts the blame off God and on to the correct villain, Man.
All things are bound in an ABSOLUTE way to the causes which preceded them. It
is an inescapable phenomenon. Just as the act of writing this essay, and your reading of it are going to cause other
things to happen, and conversely not cause other things to happen, the whole
universe operates on the same principle. Man sinned, (Cause), and the world was
changed (Effect).
Take some simple examples:
A batsman hits a ball, a point is scored - one
crucial point. The game is won. The team will be in the final. A gun is fired,
a bullet misses its target, and the would-be target, a man of high aspirations,
rising to prominence orders the massacre of ten thousand. A scientist nears
completion of a major project but on the evening before his publishing, he runs
out of milk for his cup of tea, so he walks to the shop, and is struck by a
car. His invention is never completed. Thousands die. A downed pilot wanders in
a desert and turns east instead of south, and perishes. If he had turned south
he would have found water, survived, and gone on to become a minister in the
government because his brother, a friend of the Prime minister, was ready to
nominate him. A manuscript arrives on an editor's desk on the very day he has
toothache. Due to a miserable disposition the editor cannot concentrate and it
is returned. On any other day it would have been received and published,
becoming a major addition to the literature of the decade – which
happened many years later.
More obscure causes are hidden in our own lives,
and are usually not even noticed unless they are specifically considered. Take,
for instance, our parents. Every child is different, and some enjoy a good home
life, while others wander from adult to adult like orphans. Did we pick your
childhood friends? Did we choose our general diet? We have been born into a
certain environment, a certain culture, a certain district. We have certain
genetically inherited features. We are the effect of many causes, though we
must not try to blame them for everything.
Returning to the child at the table, I was able
to show how the food I gave thanks for was joined to the first food created by
God. In this sense I was, like Adam and Eve, thanking God for the first food,
received almost directly from His hand.
One of the unfortunate side effects of being
“fallen” is our lack of discernment of connectedness. The
generation alive today always tends to think it is the only generation which
has any relevancy, but every generation has thought the same thing.
Consciousness gives us the illusion of false immediacy. The true perspective is
more like being a single tooth on a long comb – we are but visitors to
consciousness, soon to pass away. There are many more teeth to come.
Cause and effect is two-sided of course. It
would be irresponsible to omit the positive side, which is probably the one
most forgotten. Why is it, when disaster strikes, that people begin to question
the benevolence and power of God, yet when life is a deep pleasure, they almost
never give thanks? Could it be the sinful heart of Man prefers to fling insults
at God rather than thanks?
Life is a patchwork of good and bad, as we subjectively
decide. Rain for one farmer is a blessing, but for another it is a curse. It is
the same rain, but each farmer sees it in a different way. One man may receive
a promotion and drive home in a new car, while another man on the same factory
floor, loses his job and has to sell his gold watch to pay the food bill. The
man with the promotion may be unhappy because now he must pay higher taxes,
higher insurance, and work longer hours. The man who lost his job may be happy
because now he is rid of a daily grind, and his dream of being a full-time
painter is finally possible. One woman may have three normal, healthy children,
and think they are a burden, while another woman may have three retarded
children and think of them as a blessing. Our attitude decides a great deal,
while the daily events of life provide us with opportunities to make value
judgments of our own. As the saying goes, “Two men looked through the
prison bars, one saw mud, the other stars.”
The Herald item goes on to say:
“Why did you do this to us, God? What did we do to upset you?”
asked a woman in
On TV the pictures of the aftermath of the
tsunami showed wreckage, but also a shrine set up for Mahatma Ghandi, and the piles of bodies, stacked in body-bags in temples.
The fact that the land hit by the tsunami was well supplied with temples and
shrines ought to sound a warning. These people were not Christians, but
idol-worshippers. The first of the Ten Commandments, given by the true God,
warns Mankind about worshipping anything, or anyone but the true God.
Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu all reject the
revelation of God in Jesus Christ. All three religions turn their backs on the
Man who claimed to be the Son of God, and who worked many miracles to prove his
claims. Jesus alone died and rose from the grave. Jesus alone is the only
acceptable sacrifice for sin. Jesus alone is the one to be worshipped, and
served as Lord. Ask any Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu if they put Jesus at the
center of their lives and they will say no, they do not. Yet the Bible says:
“And Jesus said to them, I am
the bread of life: he that comes to me shall never hunger; and he that believes
on me shall never thirst.” John 6:35. ”I am the good shepherd: the
good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.” John 10:11. “And this is life eternal, that they
might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You
have sent.” John 17:3. “For there is one God, and
one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” 1 Timothy 2:5
So where does this place the three
religions? They are rebels against the truth, refusing to worship the one true
God, and choosing rather to follow the wrong beliefs of alternatives. This
places them on exactly the same footing as the people before the global flood.
If the tsunami was sent as a punishment, then it was a merciful one.
Judgment.
In the Bible the most obvious parallel to the
recent tsunamis is the Biblical, or global flood,
which God sent to destroy the whole world, as described in Genesis 6-8. The
reason for this flood is explained to us, by God Himself. Mankind had become
too wicked to escape punishment. Instead of obeying God, and living in harmony
with Him, the world's population at that time had turned to astrology,
alternative religion and other corrupt practices, and despite 120 years of
warning by Noah, not a soul repented. Is there any similarity between the
people of Noah's day and the people who lived along the coastal areas where the
tsunamis struck? Yes, great similarities. Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists have
all turned away from the True God, and His Son Jesus Christ, and have followed
the vain teachings of false religion and polluted philosophy. Many of them may
not be aware of their rebellion, having been raised from birth in their
religion, but the fact remains, they are not obeying Jesus. Thanks to the
media, TV and Radio, millions of Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus have had access
to the gospel, yet they still refuse to accept Jesus, so they really have no
excuse when judgment comes.
But having said this, we have to be very
careful. First we must not assume that the tsunamis struck particularly bad
people, because all people are sinners, all are bad, so all deserve to be
judged, and second, we must not interpret the tsunamis as God's judgment on
just one small portion of Mankind. God has not specifically spoken about these
particular people. The Bible gives us many examples of God's judgment on
various nations, i.e. Egypt, Assyria, Rome, Edom, Israel, Judah, and many
others, each detailed carefully, and their doom pronounced., but there is not a
mention of the area which the tsunamis struck, so we must reserve our opinion.
Willful ignorance.
Another view, which has some credence, is that
the people who died in the tsunamis were living in a naturally dangerous area.
Much of the land they perch their fragile houses on is close to sea level, and
much of it consists of floodplain, so it is liable to be flooded quite easily.
In a similar way, despite the sight of smoke puffing from a volcano's peak,
people are content to build their towns and cities right at the base of the mountain.
In other parts of the world people build houses on top of known fault lines.
There is a prevalent lackadaisical attitude in the human race which says,
“It won't happen to me”, and “Not in my lifetime!” If
the people who chose to live so close to the ocean had seriously considered the
possibility of a tsunami, would they have stayed or moved away? We think they
would have stayed. This would account for the large numbers of tourist hotels
and holiday houses along the coastline. Is it therefore correct to blame God
for something which could have been prevented?
Jesus told a story about a wise man and a
foolish man, who both built houses, but one built on sand, and the other into a
rock. When storms came, the wise man's house stood firm. While this is definitely
not a story about building houses, but lives, it illustrates perfectly how God
expects humans to use their common sense, to plan ahead, and to be wise in
their activities. If we lived in earthquake-prone lands, we would not build
with drystone walls of rocks balanced on each other.
If we lived in flood-prone areas, we would not build down into the ground, but
upwards, on posts. Apply this principle further and we have a whole gamut of
wise choices. Too many sweets can cause tooth decay, too much alcohol can ruin
the liver, too much food can cause obesity, too much exercise can cause
exhaustion, to much speed can cause an accident, too much sun can cause burns
and skin cancer, too many late nights can cause weariness . . . humans cannot
avoid the consequences of their choices, whether good or bad.
This brings us, as you can see, right back to
the matter of cause and effect again. Theologically speaking, God is the First
Cause, and Man is the Second. Man cannot hold God responsible for Second Cause
effects. It was not God who stripped the forests from the land, and increased
run-off, and thus caused flooding in parts of the north island, NZ last year.
It was Man who denuded the land. It was Man who hunted to extinction many of
the plants and animals he needed. It was Man who plundered and burned native
forests. It was Man who sprayed the land with toxic chemicals. It was Man who
started wars, who poisoned wells, who burned and pillaged, and destroyed his
own kind and the lands he need for crops. It was Man who spread STDs by failing
to restrain his urges. It was Man who invented animism, atheism, evolution,
humanism, and so on. Man is the author of his own misery, and God cannot, and
MUST not be held accountable for what Man chooses to inflict on himself.
Take the Jewish nation in the days of Jesus, for
example. Here was a Man, who had worked publicly for about three years,
performed thousands of astounding miracles, spoken words of incredible wisdom,
never sinned, who died and rose, who ascended into heaven, yet many Jewish
leaders totally rejected him. Jesus warned them that if they turned their backs
on him,
As we write this essay, thousands of bodies are
being collected and buried. We are not unmoved by the reality of the disaster,
and we are not so unfeeling as to sit in some detached, mental state and resort
to unfeeling intellectualism. The tsunami was a terrible event, and we are
saddened by it. However, it is, in our opinion, foul play to throw mud at God,
as if He was somehow the deliberate cause of the tsunami, when we know He never
acts without love.
We also need to rethink our understanding of
God. The Herald article is typical of the smallness of Man's view:
“Traditionally, the Judeo-Christian
God, considered the most supreme and perfect being in the universe, has been
ascribed the following necessary attributes: omniscience (all-knowing), omnipresence
(present everywhere at all times and at once), omnipotence (almighty and
powerful) and benevolence (all good and caring). How, then, did a God as
powerful and benevolent as this allow such a thing to happen? If he is
benevolent then he cannot also be omnipotent, for a God who has both these
attributes would have wanted to, cared to, and been able to prevent such a
catastrophe.
Perhaps, though omnipotent, he is not
benevolent. That might explain why, although it was within his power to stop
the tsunami, he simply chose not to: God has his own reasons and we are not to
ask why. However, this answer will not suffice since by definition God is
perfect. Being perfect, he must of necessity not merely be omnipotent but
benevolent as well.”
The above reasonings
show a great lack of understanding. Certainly, if God is reduced to a few
simple expressions, one may juggle with them and prove some sort of
inconsistency, but the definitions (of which only four are here listed) are
quite inadequate.
By way of illustration, let us imagine two
children walking along together. One child says to the other, “Your
mother is good at cooking, and funny.” The other child says, “Yes,
and she's very good at cricket too!” The first child, in his naivety, had
an incomplete picture of the other boy's mother, and now, with the addition of
“cricket” he thinks he has a complete picture. We know he is very
wrong. There is a lot more to the child's mother than just three attributes.
Take another illustration. Suppose we said to
you that our solar system consisted of one sun and three planets. You might
say, yes, there are three planets, but there are also six others. The first
definition was true, but inadequate. There was a time, not long ago, when
astronomers knew nothing of Pluto. There was also a time when astronomers
thought the rings of Saturn were plane and simple. Recent discoveries have
shown that not only does Saturn have many rings, but that there are also spoke
shapes radiating through the rings. As Man explores, he finds more information.
The same is true of our definition of God. We cannot limit him to a mere
four-part list: omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, and benevolence. There
is a lot more to God than this.
Think of a child again. When first born a baby
stares unblinking at mother from the bottom of a bassinet. Later, the child
walks about the house. Gradually the child understands a world of new concepts,
until it reaches adulthood, and even then it is occasionally surprised by
hidden qualities in its mother. “I didn't know you could ski!”,
“I didn't know you went to
As well as this, the reasoning in the Herald
item is faulty. To say that God is all-knowing must mean that He never needs to
learn anything. If He knows everything, (just sticking with the logic for a
moment) He cannot think, because thinking means working something out, and if
God knows everything, He never needs to work anything out – hence, God
cannot think. How demeaning and limiting this reasoning is! How degrading! By
compressing God into a single word (omniscient) the Herald writer has made a
puppet of God, a mere decoration, which he can now tie a string to and drag
about like a toy.
If God is like that, then we think God is not
big enough, or grand enough, or wonderful enough to be worthy of our praise and
worship. His universe, along with Him, becomes small and miserly. He is demoted
to the status of a demigod, or worse.
The writer to the Herald suggests that God is
omnipotent, or all powerful. Logically, if God is all powerful He can do
anything, so why did He not prevent the tsunami? But this simplification of God
is quite stupid, because it is patently obvious that God cannot do many things.
He cannot sin, He cannot lie, cheat or deceive. He
cannot steal, or break a promise, or fail in His plans. There are hundreds of
things which are absolutely impossible to God, so to label Him as omnipotent is
almost a nonsense.
The solution to the dilemma of defining God is
to sort out the true statements about Him from the nonsense statements.
Let us pause for a moment, and consider some of
the acts of God, as recorded in the Bible, which reveal something of His
character. To begin, He created the whole infinite universe, and the Earth and
all life. Within the confines of this material creation Man was created, at
first perfect, but after he sinned, Man and the whole of creation fell into a
state of degradation. The first recorded act of God was to speak into existence
everything knowable to Man, and the second great act (a response to Adam's sin)
was to reduce or degrade the perfection of creation, and also to place Man in a
responsible position. Despite being made subject to decay and weakness in every
sense, Man is still capable of a reasonable level of communion with his Creator
– but Man usually chooses not to seek this communion, but instead turns
to Manmade and Devlish inventions. As a result, God
has had to act as a Judge, and deal out punishments from time to time, but
always He is restrained by His love and mercy. While some would object to this
view, the fact is, not one human would be left alive if God did not exercise
restraint. God says, “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked . .
. and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” (Ez.18:23)
Paul tells us that “all have sinned”(Rom.5:12)
God would not have destroyed certain nations
except that He is a God of justice and their evil could not go unchecked or
condoned indefinitely. In the case of the Amorites, God gave them hundreds of
years to repent, yet they did not (Gen.15:16), the Egyptians were given 400
years to repent, and as we have said He gave the people of Noah's day 120
years. The proper picture of God is one of patience. Just as a loving parent
holds back the hand of punishment until the child has pushed their luck over
the limit of tolerance, God always holds back judgment for as long as He can.
Remember, although the Jewish leaders rejected Jesus, God waited until 70 AD
before Titus arrived. We can be sure, since God has shown the same consistent
pattern since Creation, that He is the same today. This does to mean that the
tsunamis were God's judgment, but it does mean that, if God had so chosen, He
could have sent a wave 10 times bigger.
Because of the sin of Adam and Eve, the world is
not normal. Things are not as they should be. Mankind is separated from God. Nature
is not always in harmony with him – germs are not always his friend,
neither are viruses. Man is attacked by fungus, sting, barb, bite, venom,
tooth, spine and poison. Mankind is divided by language barriers, and
relationships must be worked at to remain healthy. The weather buffets and
burns, the land floods and blows away as dust. For many people life is a battle
from birth to grave, yet this was never the way God originally intended it to
be. Although evil (moral rebellion) and natural disaster is here, and it is
real, it too is only temporary – part of the great hope which Christians
hold, and one day a new world will come, in which the laws of degradation will
be reversed. Everything will incline towards life, like a ball rolling up a
hill, or a dead stick growing healthy leaves, or an old man becoming a young
boy.
Fallen creation.
Tsunamis are not an isolated event. They are
part of a wide range of 'natural disasters', and should be seen in context.
Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, the world has experienced an almost continuous
battering, by natural disasters – volcanoes, landslides, floods, storms,
tornadoes, whirlwinds, hurricanes, earthquakes, ice ages, blizzards,
hailstones, big freezes, heat-waves, and so on. These events are the result of
Man's rebellion, not God's cruelty. Man brought these things on himself. To
blame God is to side-step the blame.
The writer to the Herald makes the following
statement, “Even if solutions are forthcoming to these philosophical
conundrums, humanely speaking they make little sense. Perhaps that is why some
people remain skeptical about the presence of any divine providence ruling over
us.”
If we read this correctly, what he is saying is
that even if a convincing answer is given, the writer has already decided he
will not believe it. 'Humanely' speaking means, 'speaking as a compassionate
human only', but how can someone be compassionately skeptical? I would suggest
that the writer stops thinking 'humanely' and starts to think Biblically,
because all the answers are in the Bible. Skeptics come in two classes, first
those who are sincerely skeptical, and will change their minds if they are
given good data, and the other kind, who use their skepticism like a
smokescreen to hide from God. The biggest tragedy is really the lack of
understanding. The Islamics, Buddhists and Hindus
have all created a god after their own hearts, and now they cannot reconcile
the disaster with that God. If they had the Biblical view they would see how a
God of love can also allow floods to strike. It is part of the character of the
true God.
The final statement in the Herald article is a
fine piece of skeptical misunderstanding. Speaking of the “love”
which shows so nicely at Christmas, the writer says, “Perhaps this is
the essence, if the legend is true, of what God learned from us when He walked
and suffered as a man among us. Ultimately, the problem of evil confronts us
not as a puzzle to be solved but as a mystery to be experienced.”
First of all, the Bible never suggests
that God needed to be a man so He could learn how to love. The
fact that Jesus came to Earth was God's great act of love to a sinful,
ungrateful and rebellious planet. “Herein is
love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:10. The conception of Jesus within
the womb of the virgin Mary was the great miracle for which godly people had
been waiting for 4000 years, and with his birth Jesus began a 30 year time of
hardship and difficulty, not because he needed to learn about Man, but so he
could reach manhood and then give his life as the one final sacrifice for
Mankind's sin.
The message of Christmas has been clouded and
confused so much that many people fail to understand what the Bible says about
it. Every year yet another rash of programs pumps out the fact that Santa Claus
is real, and children are given presents which hardly ever relate to the
Biblical basis of the season. Selfishness, materialism, indulgence, profligacy,
hedonism, vanity, gluttony and so on, are all promoted in the name of
Christmas, yet the Bible depicts quite the opposite: two poor peasants in a
stable, watching over a baby in the food trough.
The writer to the Herald takes the side of all unbelievers
when he says “If the legend is true” and then makes the
non-Biblical statement that “evil” is not a puzzle to be solved but
a mystery to be experienced. This assertion is wrong, because the Bible tells
us what evil is, where it began, and how it can be overcome. It is not a puzzle
to be solved, but a reality to be resisted. According to the Bible evil is not
a mystery either. It is easily identified.
Dorothy Sayers wrote, “God chose to make
man as he is – limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death
– (yet) God had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. . .
. He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from Man that
He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human
experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping
restrictions of hard work and lack of money, to the worst horrors of pain and
humiliation, defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man.
He was born in poverty and died in disgrace (yet He) thought it well worth
while.” ('Creed or Chaos' 1949)
Conclusion.
The God of the Bible, as defined in the Bible, and Biblical history from Creation through to today,
together supply all the necessary information to provide Man with a complete
answer as to why events such as the tsunami occur. What skeptics and
unbelievers willfully refuse to accept is that God is not exactly like the God
they would prefer to have, and that He is wiser and more loving than they
understand. His goodness extends to all people, despite their rebellion and
ignorance. Human wickedness needs to be restrained, or checked, at times, so
God is responsible for judgment, though always with the restraint of love and
mercy. God holds Man responsible for Man's own actions. Freedom of choice is
always permitted, but the consequences of choice are seldom obviated. God will
not violate the process of cause and effect simply to make our lives more
comfortable. If He did, Man would become a spoiled, rude brat, breaking and spoiling
things with impunity. Repercussions usually teach us a little caution.
We also need to take into account the fall of
the world, and the fall of Man, from original perfection, into the state in
which we find it today. Human pain and suffering, disasters and accidents, are
all part of this present age, and will not last for ever. Heaven awaits those
who put their trust in the Son of God, Hell awaits those who reject Him, not
because God wants it this way, but because people choose which way they want to
go. Children, babies and others like them cannot be held accountable for their
sins since they are too ignorant to understand, yet they are often damaged or
killed by the foolishness and wickedness of those who should know better.
Animals experience disasters just as much as humans, and not because they are
sinners. “For we know that
the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now.”
Romans 8:22.
The writer to the Herald set up
several 'straw men' and then, not surprisingly, he demolished them. He would
not however, stand a chance against the real God. It is all to
easy to fling nonsensical criticisms at a false god, but let the real God step
forward and critics must speak with reverence and respect.
I leave the last word to C.S.Lewis, “As our earth is to all the stars, so
doubtless are we men and our concerns to all creation; as all the stars are to
space itself, so are all creatures, all thrones and powers . . . to the abyss
of the self-existing Being, who is to us Father and Redeemer and indwelling
Comforter, but of whom no man nor angel can say nor conceive what He is in and
for Himself, or what is the work “which He makes from the beginning to
the end.” For they are all derived and unsubstantial
things.” (The Problem of Pain, page 122)