POST #15: Randomness, and the Believer

Very early on a November morning, four young women students, all seniors from a small Christian College in Oregon, drive in the southbound lanes of Highway 99W. They had enjoyed an evening together in Portland, and were on their way back to their campus. Suddenly, the headlights of a misplaced northbound car appear in the distance, careening in their direction. When the dust and smoke settle, the scene is a tragic one. Three of the student passengers are raced off to the hospital with serious injuries. These three will survive, but the driver, just one month away from her graduation, and the driver of the other car both lay dead at the scene.

When I read of this heart-breaking accident the following day, I found myself formulating in my mind the predictable “purpose” questions. I wondered how they would be framed. We Christians often find solace in the thought that there is an ultimate meaning, some mysterious good divine plan, that plays out in such events. What was the divine purpose in taking a life of promise, so near to launching out with her degree? Why were the three so severely injured? Why were their lives spared, but not that of their friend? Why did God not cause the careening car to miss the students altogether? Of all the southbound cars on that highway that night, why was this car, with its precious cargo of young believers, singled out for the accident?

"Accident." The very word demonstrates our misgivings about questions of purpose. “There is no such thing as an ‘accident’ for the believer.” How often we hear this bold and confident assertion. There is a purpose for everything, we are told. This element of Christian faith could be found in these words, spoken by another student at the college: “Even though we can not understand the reason this happened, God does and there is a reason.” Is there?

This horrible tragedy is just one of a myriad of incidents we might cite. Each of us has a list of such stories, many that touch us personally and profoundly. None strike closer to my heart than the occurrence of life-threatening cancer in my wife. I have found that the “why” questions are seldom productive. But I am asking here whether the “why” questions are even appropriate.

The defenders of Reformed theology assure us everything that happens is “the directive will of God.” Other Christians have made room for the many incomprehensibly horrible events we observe with a sort of toned-down category of divine sovereignty called “the permissive will of God.” Aside from the question of whether this notion is taught in the Bible, is there really any difference between what a sovereign God decrees and what he permits? There is little comfort for grieving families that the loss of their loved one was not directed by God, but merely allowed.

I should have thought that Jesus forever settled this matter in the simple and profound words of the prayer he taught us. “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” Whatever else he meant by that phrase, we can safely conclude that Jesus did not perceive events here on earth to be guided by the will of his Father. Praying believers have the great privilege of bringing the will of God to bear upon events of the earth. But such a truth is senseless if God’s will is already in force. In short, God’s will, permissive or otherwise, is simply not being done on earth at all times.

In coming posts, I will explore with you how randomness might actually serve the purposes of God. But before we do so, it is important that we consider the implications of randomness on the events that touch our lives. Consider with me how randomness, or the lack of randomness, relates to an overarching theme of the Bible: Redemption.

We often credit God with redeeming circumstances in our lives. He has this amazing ability to turn tragedy into glory. He is so adept at redeeming. It is a finely honed specialty of God to take horrible things, redeem them, and make them into wonderful, beautiful things. This is his redemptive genius at work! Now consider with me this question:

Which is more glorious? which speaks of the skill and wisdom of God? redemption set against a backdrop of the tragic and horrible events of randomness? or redemption set against a backdrop of the tragic and horrible events of God’s own making? Is their glory for the man who heroically extinguishes a life-threatening blaze if we later learn that he set the fire in the first place? Is there glory for the one who lines the cloud with silver when he himself first brought the cloud? Shall we celebrate the man who frees the suffering animal from the steel toothed jaws of a cruel trap if we discover that he was also responsible for setting the trap?

It is true, God does at times intervene. When we pray for divine protection, he often, if not always, answers our prayer. But what a strange protector he is if the calamity against which he shields us is the very calamity he first sent our way.

No, I contend that our faith is much more meaningful if randomness is the backdrop. At best, the Bible is ambiguous on the matter. But I would suggest that much of the teaching of the Bible can only make sense if we see randomness as being central to the human experience, even in the life of the believer.

Did God merely execute a cold, calculated plan on that November night on Highway 99W? Or did randomness claim more victims, bringing fresh tears to the eyes of our Father?

What is your response?

POST #8: Theodicy, Standard Christian Arguments

When confronted with the horrible evil of sin and sin’s consequences, rather than launching into an angry diatribe on the injustices of God, or conversely, launching into a defense of the justice of God, we are told that Aaron simply “held his peace” (Leviticus 10:3). For many Jews and Christians, the only appropriate response to the horrors of evil in a universe created and governed by a good, loving, and just God is not to respond at all. They say we must take our place at Aaron’s side, and hold our peace. Many thus object to the very notion of “theodicy”, that branch of theology which seeks to justify God in the face of evil: “as if,” they might object, “God needed us to write his defense brief!” While this approach (or non-approach) to the problem of evil may satisfy some, it fails to move the millions of atheists for whom the very existence of evil is the lynchpin of their unbelief. Nevertheless, if you have found solace and satisfaction in simply accepting evil without giving further consideration to its meaning, then you need read no further. But if like me, you have grappled with the problem of evil, if you believe that the rational minds with which we are endowed naturally seek answers to the riddles of existence, if you are searching for answers that are sensible and satisfying, then I invite you to consider with me the possible meanings of evil in the cosmos.

In this post, we will briefly examine four typical theodicies which have been offered by believers, and we will test them against a set of defined criteria. We will ask, “do they work? have they the compelling force to satisfy the mind of the skeptic? do they give peace to the believer willing to ask the hardest of questions?

Evil is generally divided into two categories. 1. MORAL EVIL consisting of sin, and all the direct consequences of sin. Moral evil is caused by free moral agents. And, 2. NATURAL EVIL consisting of bad things that happen seemingly outside the causation of man: hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, famines, diseases, genetic disorders, etc. Natural evils, it could be argued, all find their origination in entropy, and are thus the result of the very way in which the Creator fashioned the cosmos. Some might find in these categories some cross-over. Certain diseases, for example, may be caused by or exacerbated by the choices of free moral agents. But it is not our intention to draw a sharp line of distinction. Rather, we wish to identify these two kinds of evil as separate categories for the following purpose: a theodicy that “works” must account for both kinds of evil. This is the first criterion for testing theodicies.

For a theodicy to accomplish its own goal, it must uphold the character of God. A theodicy which leaves us troubling about the honor and consistency of God is no theodicy at all. The Greek philosopher Epicurus laid down the gauntlet some 300 years before Christ when he asked, “Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?” A working theodicy must result in an omnipotent, compassionate God with his honor and integrity firmly intact in the face of a cosmos brimming with evil. This is the second criterion for testing theodicies. Examine with me the standard Christian theodicies in light of these criteria, and judge for yourself.

1) “Evil is created for God’s glory.” For many who subscribe to Reformed Theology (or Calvinism), it is enough to say that all evil exists for the glory of God. God created evil (Isaiah 45:7), they say, for his own ultimate glory. He created a cosmos in which evil was not only possible, but assured, right down to the finest detail. This view suggests that the Holocaust itself originated in the mind of the Creator, and was his intended plan written into the blueprint of the cosmos. Though it is beyond our understanding (I can certainly agree with that!), evil somehow maximizes the glory of God. Certainly not all those in the Reformed camp subscribe to this form of rigid determinism. But many do. This theodicy makes God out to be the author of all sin and natural evil. It further suggests that when God created Satan, he specifically engineered him to rebel just as he did. His fall was written into his design specifications. While this may provide a rational, satisfying answer to some followers of Calvin, I find that it fails to satisfy our second criterion. Epicurus would not be placated. No atheist will be compelled to abandon his skepticism by this argument. And few believers will find the God of this argument consistent with the God they have come to love and trust.

2) “Evil does not exist.” Others will insist that evil, in fact, does not exist as an entity, or as a reality apart from goodness. The argument goes like this: just as darkness is merely the absence of light (we cannot “fill a room with darkness”), and is instantly dispelled by the introduction of light, so evil is merely the absence of goodness. Augustine first introduced this concept. He said that all being is good. Evil is the lack of being, the lack of goodness. From this argument, Augustine moved on to #3 below, stating that evil as we know it originated in the rebellion of mankind, and the rejection of the goodness which God intended to permeate the cosmos. The problem with the idea of evil’s non-existence is that it simply fails to live up to our experience. Particularly in the face of the 20th century horrors, most people find it completely irrational to argue that evil has no independent existence. There is an energy and driving force, a “life” we might say, of evil that goes beyond the mere absence of goodness. This argument fails the tests of reason and experience. But it also fails to account for natural evil, for reasons we will apply to #3, below.

3) “Evil is caused by Man.” Augustine declared, “All evil is either sin or the punishment for sin.” This view suggests that all moral evil is the direct result of the Fall, and the sin that it perpetuates; and that all natural evil is the indirect result of the Fall, a consequence of the curses of Genesis 3:14-19. While this argument might have worked in Augustine’s day, we now understand that it cannot account for all natural evil. The earth is filled with mountains of evidence that the pre-Adamic world included natural disasters of every description: diseases, death, meteorites and thousands of species extinctions. If chronology has any bearing upon causation, we simply can no longer lay the responsibility for evil at the feet of fallen man.

Thus, each of these first three lines of reasoning fail to meet our criteria for a working theodicy. But it is the fourth theodicy argument to which most Christians today subscribe. For many thoughtful believers, it is the only option that holds out the hope of resolving evil’s riddle. Does it pass the test?

4) “Evil is necessary for Free Will to have meaning.” (This theodicy has numerous variations, including the more thoughtful “free-process theology” version espoused by John Polkinghorne and others, for which I feel some affinity. Some may wish to present a cogent and convincing case for the more sophisticated versions of this theodicy, and I welcome them to do so in the comments for this post. For the sake of brevity, I will state this argument in its simplest terms.) The typical line of reasoning goes something like this. In order to have a world in which free moral agents would have a clear choice, and thus be truly free, they must be given a viable alternative to God and goodness; hence, evil. A presupposition is that God considered it desirable to create moral agents who would freely choose him. And while he may bring some influence to bear upon his creatures, he does not use coercion. I have read and heard this line of theodicy reasoning all my life. I must say that it has always left me cold! It describes a God so desirous of creatures who choose him that if the cost is unimaginable innocent human suffering, well, so be it. This sort of ends-justify-the-means rationale leaves us with a monstrous God willing to sacrifice Jewish babies on the altars of Nazi bonfires—they are just the collateral damage—for the gratification of his desire that people have a genuine choice.

Has there ever been a single atheist or agnostic “won over” by any of these standard Christian theodicy arguments? Has a single skeptic ever abandoned his problem-of-evil objection to theism after being confronted with one of these lines of reasoning? I’ve never heard of one. Neither have I read any Christian apologist who is satisfied with his own theodicy argument. Whether its C.S. Lewis, Os Guinness, or John Polkinghorne, each writer closes his argument by confessing his own lack of satisfaction. In his own way, each one declares that we do not have an adequate answer to this riddle. Could it be that we have been looking at evil through the wrong lens? In my next post, I want to suggest an approach to evil’s riddle that does meet the criteria, for me at least, and perhaps, for you as well.