Why Does God Love Us? — I Don’t Know

One of my friends, who is also in the philosophy class I help teach, emailed me several weeks ago asking why God loves us?  It’s a great question.  In light of our sin and the darkness within us why would a perfectly moral and holy being love us?  I responded to her question and I thought I’d share it online here.  So, to jump to the end and give you my answer up front: I have no idea why God loves us.

This is one of those things that you can surely put the puzzle pieces together to say that God is just and that God is loving. Any philosophy of religion text or systematic theology can articulate the theological coherence of these things.  The hardest thing about this is that, like you, I still don’t get it. It’s certainly not a simple answer in my opinion.  I’m an existentialist at heart.  I think we find ourselves on the scene thrusted into existence without any ability to say otherwise.

Can You Lose Your Salvation? A Molinist’s Perspective

^FOCUS:  Can a born-again believer lose his or her salvation while simultaneously affirming God’s sovereignty and human free will while being consistent with Scripture?[1]

An Examination of the Perseverance of the Saints Doctrine

Apostolic warnings against apostasy pose a difficulty for the classic doctrine of perseverance of the saints because either the warnings seem superfluous or else it seems possible for the believer to fall away after all.  The attempt to construe the warnings as the means by which God effects perseverance fails to distinguish the classical doctrine from a Molinist doctrine, according to which believers can fall away but if fact will not due to God’s extrinsically efficacious grace.  A Molinist perspective is coherent and, unlike the classical doctrine does not render superfluous the apostolic admonitions.[2]

The traditional doctrine of perseverance states that not only will the saints maintain grace and salvation, but literally cannot fall from grace.  (It is very important to approach these and understand these texts in light of appropriate exegesis.) However, this seems to ignore numerous Scriptures, which warn the danger of apostasy of those who deliberately fall from grace:

Rom. 11:17-24; I Cor. 9:27; Gal. 5:4; Col. 1:23; I Thess. 3:5; I Tim. 1:19-20; II Tim. 2:17-18; Jas. 5:19-20; II Pet. 2:20-22; I Jn. 5:16

Perhaps the most prominent:

Therefore leaving the elementary teachings about the Christ, let us press on the maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, ²of instruction about washings and laying on of hands, and the resurrection of the death and eternal judgment.  ³And this we will do, if God permits.  ⁴For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, ⁵and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, ⁶and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.  ⁷For ground that drinks the rain which often falls on it and brings for the vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God; ⁸but if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed and it ends up being burned.  Heb. 6:1-8 (NASB)

The Theological Advantages of Molinism

For a context of where I’m coming from concerning Molinism please see my previous posts:

1. Middle Knowledge in a Nutshell
2. Why I’m Not an Arminian
3. Why I’m Not a Calvinist
4. God Controls Everything–Good and Bad
5. Overpower–Is God Ultimately Responsible for Everything?
6. The Pelagian Equivocation
7. The Singular Redemption View of the Atonement
8. Does God Ever Literally Change His Mind?–Yes
9. Is a Molinist Concept of Providence Discomforting?
10. Word of the Week Wednesday: Supralapsarianism

Advantages

1. Holds a high view of God’s sovereignty while holding to an equal and uncompromising view of human free will.
2. Provides a better model for understanding how it is simultaneously true that God’s decree of election while His rejection of the unbeliever is conditional.
3. Affirms the genuine desire on the part of God for all to be saved in His universal salvific will  (which is problematic for the Calvinist) claiming that God loved the whole world (John 3:16) yet, Christ has a particular love for the Church (Eph. 5:25).
4. God control’s all things, but does not cause all things.

The Crohn’s Chronicles: Second Thoughts

As many of you know, I’ve been battling Crohn’s disease for seven years now.  Most recently I’ve been struggling through a flare up that has lasted over a month now.  I’ve been treated as an outpatient for this flare up with antibiotics, steroids, and painkillers.  This past Thursday I had an appointment with my gastrointestinal doctor.  I want to add that this was a very timely appointment for if I had not been going to see this doctor I would have been going to the hospital because I was in so… much… pain… The doctor came in and asked about my medications and I told him I’ve gotten worse since being on them.  He saw the amount of pain I was in and within one minute of him seeing me he said, “I’m sending you to the hospital.”  My doctor’s concern was that I may need to have an emergency surgery to remove this section of my intestines (which doesn’t necessarily fix the problem in the long run anyways, 50% of the time the Crohn’s returns).  On the drive to the hospital my mind started to feel overwhelmed and I told my wife, “I’m so tired of being in pain…”

My doctor was kind enough to call the emergency room prior to us leaving his office to notify them that I was on my way.  When we arrived all I had to do was tell them my name and that I was a rush admittance. I waited for no more than two minutes and they got me into an ER room.  They hooked me up to a saline/potassium IV and gave me a morphine injection to help the ease my pain. The next moment they brought me my favorite, beloved, most hated hospital beverage–vanilla flavored barium (for my CT scan I was about to have).  Barium is disgusting. Leah (my wife) sat by my side and encouraged me the whole entire time.  Mid-drink Leah told me, “We’ve still got to see this as a blessing, Max.”  This statement has dominated most of my thoughts since that Thursday morning.

I recently wrote a blog post on the blessings of having a disease.  It’s so easy to look back on to something and try to pull the good out of it.  It’s hard to look forward and expect bad things to happen and to pull the good from it then simply because the definitions of the situations have yet to be set, it’s unknown.  The hardest thing to do is in the midst of pain, look at yourself, keep a straight face and tell yourself that you honestly believe that there is good in this.  The morphine didn’t do much for me in the ER.  Not much longer than fifteen minutes after my first injection I needed another.  The nurse told me that I had been given enough morphine to hold me over for two hours.

Allow me to give a context for my pain levels this past month.  I don’t quite know how to compare the actual physical pain to something more recognizable but I’ve always said it’s like digesting glass or someone reaching into your gut, squeezing intestines and twisting them around.  My mother has recently been diagnosed with Crohn’s (she was diagnosed this past month amidst all of this).  She has said the pain is similar to child-birth (and I’ve heard many people compare the pain to child-birth as well).  Anyways, the pain has progressively grown more in frequency and intensity in the last month.  Sometimes the day would be great with minimal problems–others a blur from coping with it.  I went through three bottles of [prescription] pain killers in one month trying to deal with this.  The last week leading up to this most recent hospital visit got so bad that I started to develop back pains.  I’ve had back pains in the past so I figured it was just another problem that could be treated with back rubs and Icy-Hot.  I soon came to learn that my back pain was from Crohn’s.

Well, to resume the story, I wasn’t in the ER very long at all and I never did get my [needed] injection of morphine.  While in the ER the pain got so bad again that I gave myself a fever.  I arrived at the hospital with a 98.6 degree temperature.  Modestly, I wasn’t in the ER for over an hour.  By the time I got to my room I developed a 100.4 degree fever.  My RN came into my room as I was being wheeled in and she promptly went to get me some morphine and made a comment to someone roughly similar to, “Why are they not giving him morphine? Do they not see how much pain he is in?” You couldn’t have played Bach’s Fugue in C-Sharp Minor and tell me that this nurse’s words weren’t sweeter music to my ears.  My nurse told me that my fever was developed by my attempts of dealing with the pain.  When I was being wheeled into my room that first time I noticed that I was on the oncology floor.  I asked the nurse if she knew something that I didn’t and why I was on the oncology floor.  She said that the oncology unit specializes in pain control and that it was the best place for me to be at the time.  She made me smile at that (which also helped remove oncology-related questions and concerns).

My mother-in-law came to visit me within the first few hours of my stay and while she was there I was wheeled out for my CT scan.  She stayed with Leah in the room while I made my way to X-Ray for the scans.  CT scans aren’t my favorite but they don’t last very long.  To help with imaging they inject a radioactive contrast moments prior to the scan.  While being scanned you get a metallic taste in your mouth, a sensation similar to wetting yourself (I don’t know what it is but if they hadn’t warned me about that the first time I would’ve thought I had actually wet myself…), and a feeling of intense heat running through your body.  Well, I got my results later that afternoon.  My intestines had become so inflamed that it had put pressure on and displaced my kidney.  My kidney was responsible for my back pain (lower right back) and the inflammation, directly or indirectly by the kidney, put pressure some nerves, which intensified the pain.

That first night in the hospital, Thursday, I was being taken well care of by the nurses and doctors.  I can honestly say that I’m very impressed with the Lynchburg General Hospital staff.  I had a fairly liberal amount of morphine at my will when needed.  My way of testing my pain levels was taking in a deep breath and trying to sit up.  Breathing in caused the rest of my organs to move around just enough for my intestines to be irritated and sitting up moved my back enough to cringe.  My last injection was at 10 PM Thursday night when I wasn’t feeling much pain any more.  I love my pain killers but I love getting rid of the pain over masking it and I became determined to get out of the hospital.  The rest of my stay was wait-and-see.  I was being pumped full of intense treatment, which was a couple different antibiotics and steroids.  The next day, Friday, the doctor was surprised to see how far I’ve come with all the pain.  He thought for sure I would be in the hospital until at least Monday.  I had an early discharge from the hospital Saturday morning–no surgery needed.

Leah has been such a blessing in my life.  I love my wife so much.  This was the second flare up in six months and she has been by my side every step of the way in prayer and support.  She slept over every night and the last night there she was so worn out from working a fourteen hour work day that while she was cuddling with me in my hospital bed she fell asleep with me in that tiny little bed the whole night.  The nurses thought it was the cutest thing ever.  My mother and her fiancé, Howie, visited me Saturday afternoon, which was quite pleasant and needed.  I love my family so much.

Well, though my physical pain has passed away for the time being, my emotional and spiritual pain has intensified.  I started putting my mind in the way of hard questions.  I don’t want to say I started doubting but I wanted to keep my mind balanced.  I needed to check my balance between my emotions and my academics/intellect.  I started asking questions like: “Is there a God?” and “Why would God allow this?”  Despite my situation, the questions weren’t too hard to deal with and I credit having a strong foundation in my faith to not waver in the trials.  That’s not to say I didn’t have hard questions because I did.  The hard questions and struggles came when I realized that I started living in fear of pain.  I didn’t want to eat anything because I was afraid of the pain.  I likened myself to Dr. House who always seeks a way out of his problems in efforts to avoid his own pain (both physical and non-physical pain). I was pleading with God to just give me a break.  “God, please, no more pain!” I pled with God to just let things going right for once.  I had an emotional break down that night and wept.  I wanted to be done with pain.  I wanted to not worry about finances and whether or not I can afford to have a sandwich with a buddy and not throw off the budget.  I wanted to be able to drive across town and not worry about the gas.  I wanted to have our two vehicles we once had instead of one.  I wanted to have a job with normal work hours or to not stretch for overtime because I know we need the extra money.  I wanted to not be on medicine and if I had to be on medicine, that it not have the side-effects that they do have (breaking out, bloating, digestive problems, mood problems, etc.).

There were so many problems running through my head that I just wanted a break from!  I then stopped and thought about my situation in the bigger scheme and got mad at myself for complaining about it.  I have a house that I can get mad at when the weather rips off the storms windows.  I have family that I can bicker with.  I have a car that I can curse at yell at when it stalls in the middle of an intersection almost causing an accident. I have a job with great employers and coworkers who bend over backwards for me and visit me in the hospital.  I have medicine to treat my problems.  I have a great argument for every problem I have as to why it shouldn’t be a problem to me.  But still… I asked God, in my context, I would like things to go smooth just for a while…

This is where I am right now.  I’m trying to work all this out, hoping for things to smooth for me.  To not have these stresses build up causing me to break down every once in a while.  My life is good, it’s real good.  God has been so great to me.  The hard thing is being okay with it in my own context.  I know that the prayers of family and friends are what God used to expedite my care this past hospital stay.  I thank all of you so much for it.  I love you all.  Please continue to pray for me as I deal with the questions and that I will be sensitive to God’s work in me, that I may have His perspective on things and that I not get too entangled in my own sight and contexts.  I said earlier that the hardest thing to do is in the midst of pain, look at yourself, keep a straight face and tell yourself that you honestly believe that there is good in this.  I’ve come to learn that in the midst of pain, it’s easier to not look at myself, but to look to my heavenly Father and tell him that I honestly believe that there is good in this… even if I can’t see it right now…

The American Dream and The Kingdom Dream

Preface:  I consider this post as a rant on how God has blessed me.

I woke up today next to my wife at 6 AM to prepare for the day.  I have a full-time job but I work an irregular schedule, which includes some weekends.  I happened to have today off.  My wife started her second job today, which happens to be in the same office I work in (her other job is in retail).  We did our morning routine but I was lagging behind enjoying the slow morning.  I helped her with breakfast and saw her out to the car as she drove to work.  I remained home and had a rather large breakfast, which is unusual since I’m not normally hungry in the mornings.  I had two eggs, two pieces of toast with jelly, a blueberry bagel, and a Carnation Instant Breakfast chocolate milk (it’s good!). I read through some of my philosophy notes and read my Bible during breakfast while the cat kept trying to jump on the counter and bring sticks from the outside in the house (I kept the door to the kitchen open since it was a cool 74 degree morning).  I had my multivitamins, some I hate taking because they either smell or they’re large horse pills, and my medicine I need to take for Crohn’s.

After eating and reading I did a blog post on my devotions (not a typical devotion really, the imprecatory psalms?).  I enjoyed a nice long shower as I listened to some science podcasts and then cleaned up around the house (dishes, vacuum, sanitize, sweep the patio, water the plant that doesn’t want to live, etc.).  I then decided to go to the local library which is only a two-minute drive down the road.  I figured it was the American thing to do, if anything it’s the responsible thing to do.  I have free access to information, why not use it?  I get in the car and the “check engine” light comes on. No problem. The engine sounded a little funny anyways. I park the car and check my fluids.  Oil and coolant were low. I go to my shed (which is really an outdoor closet sticking out of the side of my house) and I happen to have oil and coolant.  I fill them up and I’m good to go.  (There may have been other reasons why the light was on but I’m not skilled enough to pin point, I have a good friend who is a mechanic who blesses us with his skills in that area, thanks Josh).

Anyways, I go in smiling, probably like an idiot, and ask to register for a library card, which I was given.  I have to learn German, quickly, so I looked up a few German books but I either couldn’t find the book or it really wasn’t in the catalog when I looked it up.  I strolled down the shelves and found the math and science section.  I decided to check out The Facts on File Dictionary of Mathematics.  I’ve been reading through Lawrence Sklar’s Space, Time, and Spacetime as background information for my research in the fine-tuning argument for the existence of God from cosmology, particularly as it relates to the multiverse.  I was researching the cosmological constant and the spatial curvature of the universe (this is an aspect of inflationary cosmology).  I wanted to understand inflationary cosmology more fundamentally so I decided to get my hands dirty and I need to learn more about Euclidean geometry and what it means for the universe to be flat, spherical, or hyperbolic in its spatial geometry and what that means for a negative, 1, or positive [1+] curvature.  I drove back home and here I sit…

Throughout my day, as short as it has been thus far, I couldn’t help but think about two sermons I’ve heard recently on the Kingdom of God.  One of them included the “American Dream” and how it is so contrary to the Kingdom of God.  I thought to myself, “I’m already living the American Dream.”  The American Dream today has been polluted by greed, covetousness, and this world’s lusts.  The American Dream is simply the freedom and opportunity to do and to act in a manner in which I see appropriate (this isn’t a political rant so mind your politics for now as far as how free we really are).  I’m also striving to live after the “Kingdom Dream” (I couldn’t think of a better phrase so let’s run with it).  The Kingdom Dream is a life pursuit of obedience and contentment in God’s providence no matter how he takes you to where you are going and wanting and being satisfied in the manner in which he brings you there.  Here’s the real rant…

I have a loving, beautiful wife.  We both have excellent health. We rent a small duplex home and have two cars.  We have a loving family that supports us and raised us well.  My parents taught me discipline and work.  The gift of work has been one of the greatest things they have ever given me.  I have had a job since I was 15 years old.  I am currently employed and I live paycheck to paycheck, no shame in that, I’m saving and trying to earn what I have.  We have a fully furnished home thanks to thrift stores and friends.  We both own our cars and we’re generally pretty good about keeping the maintenance needed on them (take care of your vehicle and it takes care of you).  My first car was a pink 1993 Geo Storm I found in someone’s yard my Junior year of high school.  A good friend loaned me $1,500 to buy it and I paid back my friend in a couple of months.  That car treated me well but has since passed to cubism last November (moment of silence please). I have an undergraduate degree in Religion and I’m less than a year away from a Master’s degree in Philosophy (all of which I had the ability to take a loan out for and the ability to payback my debt to those who helped me).  I have food, I have health, I have family, I have shelter, I have a computer, I have internet, I have [many] books, and I have all that I really need.  The question is will I be satisfied if I had more? The question is will I be satisfied if I didn’t have this?

Honestly, my worldly self would probably not be satisfied.  I’d like to say that I’d be satisfied selling all my possessions but I probably won’t.  I don’t believe in the prosperity gospel or the poverty gospel.  When Jesus spoke of selling your belongings and giving it was finding the idols in our lives.  Are we willing to give up our idols for the Kingdom’s sake?  God isn’t anti-wealth or anti-materials, God is against idolatry, that’s the real issue.  The American Dream is really living in a privileged land at a privileged time that permits us to do what we want to do and the opportunity to do it.  What is more important is the Kingdom Dream.  It is what we do and where place our hearts and desires.  I think of Matthew 6.  God will provide for us, all he wants is our obedience.  It’s not so much of taking from God and giving back to God, God doesn’t need anything.  What he wants is our obedience.  Now here’s the hard part.  Sometimes God’s providential care isn’t the American Dream.  I have it so much better than others.

I’ve been on missions to Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico, the poorest state, twice and I’ve seen the poorest of the poor.  I know the blessings of living where I do and when I do. Sometimes God’s care comes in different forms.  These forms may include living in poverty, pain, suffering, and barely getting by.  We so often get so upset with God when we feel like we aren’t being provided for.  What if the best teacher or means of provision is that God takes us through pain and suffering?  Will you accuse God of breaking his promise?  God’s love and care may be that you have a disease or have cancer.  That pain is so momentary!  As physically and spiritually painful as it is to endure any suffering, perhaps that’s the best, or only, way for you to appreciate the gift of life, friends, family, or whatever.  We know the end purpose of life and that’s the know God and glorify him.  How that comes to be and the means in which it comes about is unknown to us at many times.  We do not live in a spatiotemporally privileged position to see it the way God does.  We don’t have all the facts and contingencies so why charge God with doing wrong when you don’t have all the evidence and when you aren’t being obedient and trusting him?

It’s hard. I know it’s hard to be obedient and trust God.  As John Piper aptly puts it, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.  I thank God for the overflowing gifts he has given us.  I pray that the Holy Spirit provokes my attention to his hidden graces that I have neglected and not been thankful for.  I pray that God gives me a perspective of pain and suffering, blessings and goodness that he has.  I pray for God to suppress my words, thoughts, and desires to take credit for the things that have come to pass that I consider to be good and that I turn to him prior to anything.  I hope that he continues to give me this perspective and to not retract these words and ideas from my head when things “seem worse.”

The Blessings of Having a Disease

I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease in May 2004 at the end of my Junior year of high school. Crohn’s is an autoimmune disease and mine happens to be in my terminal ileum at the end of my small intestine.  When I first went to the emergency room seven years ago I felt like someone had reached into my gut and started twisting my organs around while I was digesting glass.  It was, and is, extremely painful and nauseating.  It was about the sixth day in the hospital when the doctor diagnosed me.  I wept once he left the room because I knew that this had ruined my life dreams of serving in the U.S. Army as an intelligence analyst.  Well, seven years later I can look at this disease and honestly say that it has been one of the greatest gifts God has ever given me.

I’ve had a flare up (reoccurrence) about once a year since I was first diagnosed.  I refused long-term medication for a while since it started out as a mild case and medication wouldn’t allow me to join the Army.  I graduated high school and took a year off before going to college so I could work with the Army and doctors so I could enlist.  My attempts fell short and I could not overturn or appeal my medical disqualification.  It had been my dream since I was a young child.  I have a very patriotic family and both of my grandfathers served.  My mother’s father was an NCO in the U.S. Air Force around the Korean War and worked with nuclear bombs.  My father’s father was an officer in the U.S. Navy and served on the U.S.S. Dauphin. I felt it was my duty to serve my country.  I excelled in J.R.O.T.C. in high school as the Battalion Commander, the leader of over 250 other cadets and I was one of the most decorated (if not the most decorated) cadets in the school’s history.  I studied government until my second semester sophomore year of college.  I knew then that I was called to something greater; I knew that God had a specific purpose for me and his purpose was greater than anything I could have planned for.  I then became an undergraduate biblical studies student and I’m now a philosophy graduate student.  However, these are peripheral details that resulted from my Crohn’s.  The blessing is so much greater than any classes I’ve ever taken.

God used Crohn’s to alter the course of my life.  This one event was a catalyst for so many changes.  Since getting Crohn’s I have gotten saved.  Since being saved I started asking myself the deeper questions of life and existence, which led me to study philosophy.  My relationship with God continually grows and I think about God throughout the entire day.  There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about God or ask him questions about him and existence.  God has used Crohn’s as a means to demonstrate my purpose in life.  Well, it’s not so much that I know my meta-purpose, so to speak, but it’s a way that God has shown me that I do have purpose and meaning. When I think about the way my life would have been without Crohn’s I don’t believe I would appreciate my existence and God’s work as much as I do now; because of that I have no problem believing Crohn’s is a gift from God.

My Crohn’s has gotten worse in the last six months.  Last December I spent four days in the hospital while visiting family in Pennsylvania.  I had bad Crohn’s pain and vomited nearly two dozen times in just a few hours.  I’ve been in another flare up for the last two weeks and the pain has gotten bad in the last few days.  Yesterday, as I hovered over the sink having just vomited, sweaty and in pain, I thought to myself, “Is this really a blessing, Max? Is this really a gift from God?”  My inner monologue soon responded with and emphatic “absolutely…”  Why do I equate all the [what would usually be called] happy or good things with blessings (i.e. achieving a challenging goal, having a surplus in the family budget, good health, making it into the right school, getting the right job or career, etc.).  Why do we not always consider pain and suffering a blessing?  My pain and suffering have been very minimal, and that too is a blessing (I’m not going to neglect the usual “good” things either), but pain and suffering have allowed me to be spiritually and intellectually honest with myself, others, and God.  So many times we equate “bad” things like disease, cancer, disasters, etc., with pointless suffering or judgment from God.  Why is suffering always unwanted? Perhaps because it is what it is, painful. Not only is the pain physical but mental and spiritual as well. Disease, cancer, and disasters wound and kill.  Why is death feared and always treated like an enemy?  For those who do not have their sins atoned for they are justified in fearing pain and death because this is as good as it gets for them.  I’m not anti-medicine. I believe we should do what we can to stay alive but if we’ve done all we can to alleviate pain and prolong life why make an enemy with what remains?

This isn’t always easy.  Pain and suffering are ideally avoided, but when it happens own it. I believe God controls every tiny detail in life from allowing you to stub your toe in the morning to suffering through painful cancer, there is purpose and meaning in that.  The first chapter in the book of James calls for us to consider trials a joy.  This is a beautiful paradox because our knee-jerk reaction to trials, pain, and suffering are usually turning against God or being angry.  It’s quite the contrary. God uses trials, pain, and suffering as a means of preserving us through his grace and this grace is what enables us to persevere in faith.  Remember, this grace is manifested in the pain and suffering and we need to know that there is purpose and meaning in it.  We don’t have to know what it is but we need to know it’s there.  I’m still going through Crohn’s pains right now and I’m currently being treated with long-term medication.  This disease is incurable and it can only be controlled at best, but I thank God for giving me this disease.

When We Are Most Like God

This past weekend I learned quite a bit about God.  My fiancée and I decided to go to Cracker Barrel for lunch, a favorite of ours.  We sat down and we started talking about family and the issue of pain, suffering, and evil sneaked its way into our discussion.  Evil, pain, and suffering are  very serious issues that I do not take lightly.  I lectured on the problem of evil a couple of weeks ago to one of my philosophy classes I assist/teach.  I have the hardest time talking about pain and suffering and teaching it was difficult for me as well.  I spent the first 40 minutes emphasizing how important the issue is ranging from its permeation into culture such as the movie I Am Legend film (Will Smith’s character denies God’s existence because of the evil), September 11th, and to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.  I thought about our response to pain and suffering and then it dawned on me… a response of compassion, sympathy, and real spiritual anguish over such pain and suffering is when we are most like God.

I’m not going to say that this is the moment when we are closest to God, but for me, it’s when I am closest to him.  We are commanded to do good works and bear spiritual fruit.  I find myself trying so hard to do good things and to bear fruit but it’s often for impure reasons.  Perhaps it may be because I know if I repent from a sin I will feel better, but my repentance isn’t for God, it’s for myself.  It may be the case that I do it for self-exaltation but claim to do it for God’s exaltation.  There will be some selfish reasons that I may want to deny and really say that they are for God, but most likely it’s not.  However, I find that the least unadulterated reflection of God that is present in me is the pain and compassion I feel for others who are in pain and suffering.

In 2005-2006 my brother was in Iraq.  His six-month pregnant wife died while he was in Iraq (for causes that are still unknown to us).  Her funeral was the most painful experience I’ve ever been through.  Yes, I lost a sister-in-law and a niece, but to be honest, the most painful thing was to see my family experience that.  Consider September 11th.  Is your heart too hard to break to watch human beings jump from a height of 80 floors to their death?  Those who jumped really believed that their jumping was the better option between staying where they were in a burning building, condemned to suffer for only a few more minutes before their assured death at collapse, and yet they chose suicide believing that to be the best choice.

Consider Kevin Carter who won the Pulitzer Prize and not long after winning it, committed suicide in April 1994 because of the very thing he won it for while he was in Africa.  He photographed a starving little girl being watched by a looming vulture as she literally starved to death right in front of him.  He left a suicide note which said, “I am depressed… without phone… money for rent… money for child support… money for debts… money! … I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain… of starving wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners… the pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist… I have got to join Ken (a colleague of his) if I am that lucky.”  He then hooked a hose to his car exhaust and fed it into his car where he sat, the act which took his life away from him.  Is your heart not broken and shattered by the weight of compassion and pain for both Kevin and the children and carnage he witnessed?

Kevin Carter's "Photo of Sudanese Girl and Vulture"

Compassion and reciprocated spiritual pain for those who are suffering is the least likely aspect of the image of God in us that will be adulterated when it comes to fruition.  Many of Jesus’ miracles were because he felt compassion for those around him.  God’s compassion and spiritual pain pales in comparison to what we experience.  Does God suffer?  Absolutely.  The divine suffering is the manifest effects of our sin, this divine suffering, which I cannot ascribe the most articulate and specific words to express an equivalent apprehension of the meaning, bears witness at the cross of Jesus Christ.  I didn’t expect to find that when I am most Christ-like is when I am in the midst of pain and suffering or when I experience the spiritual pains of others and feel compassion.  I pray that my sin doesn’t adulterate my compassion and pain for those who are in pain any more than it already has.

God Controls Everything–Good and Bad

If everything God does is GOOD, and if God controls EVERYTHING, then it would be BAD had one less child been gassed in Auschwitz. –Greg Boyd’s Twitter Status

I read Dr. Boyd’s status and was very intrigued.  I believe open theists deserve a seat at the table of discussion and despite my view that I think they’re wrong, their arguments are stronger than many give them credit for.  Let’s look at this.

1. If everything God does is Good [and]
2. If God controls everything [by weak and strong actualization]
3. Then, it would be bad had one less child been gassed in Auschwitz.
4. It would have been good had one less child been gassed in Auschwitz.
5. Therefore, either not everything God does is good or God does not control everything.
6. God is good and everything he does is good.
7. Therefore, God does not control everything.

It seems like Boyd has posed an interesting dilemma (at least for the Molinist who affirms that God’s means of providence is not exclusively causal, but that he controls all things).  To avoid a dilemma you must either deny a horn or add another premise.  I would add the premise that God has good reasons for his control (control will encompass permission and causality, or, weak and strong actualization).  Control and goodness aren’t mutually exclusive and the dilemma isn’t as clear-cut as the open theist wants it to be [granted they only have to make one case against it to make their point]). A problem with Boyd’s position is that only immediate consequences seem to have the perspectival role.  The temporally distant consequences seem to be ignored, which are many. (i.e. Permitting that one child to live may cause more children to be gassed).  With such a counterfactual it may be the case that the allowance of such an undesirable event actually bring about a greater event in the course of history.  We are not in a spatiotemporally privileged position to make such an assessment, but if God possesses such knowledge then it may be the case that permitting such an action is the choice which enables the most good to come about.  Had that bad not occurred then the greater good could not have come about any other way given the previous counterfactuals of human freedom.  This isn’t to say that God is dependent on the bad to bring about good; it’s to say that God uses bad to bring about good [and perhaps even a greater good]. Whether or not God has such knowledge is the more fundamental grounds for such a discussion.

Auschwitz Gas Chamber

There’s also a distinction between the suffering aspect [of being gassed] and the death aspect because if God merely permits someone to die either by weak or strong actualization that’s God’s prerogative.  God is not morally obligated to extend anyone’s life, the issue is suffering.  If the bad is death and not suffering then I’d merely need an argument for why God is morally obligated to extend one’s life; thus, I’ll assume we agree the bad is suffering.  In the end, it doesn’t seem to be the case that Boyd’s dilemma is a true dilemma.  As long as God has a morally sufficient reason to allow the bad to occur, then God’s control is still good.  For more information, see Boyd’s contribution to Four Views on Divine Providence.