Unloading the Question
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Introduction
Introduction
Series Summary
Theodicy is the art of putting assumptions back together again.
“Why does God allow suffering?”
This is a loaded question. Like, “Have you stopped cheating on your spouse?”
It makes all kinds of assumptions that the Bible doesn’t share.
That suffering is something God “allows”
That there is nothing worse than suffering
Suffering has no purpose
The proof is in the book of Job. Here we have the definitive Biblical book on suffering, and if you use Job’s story as an example, the answer is TERRIBLE.
God let Satan into Heaven, bragged about Job, got goaded into a bet.
Some scholars argue that the reason God doesn’t tell Job what happened is because he’s embarrassed.
Maybe we’re bringing the wrong assumptions to the story. When someone asks a loaded question, you can’t give a short answer. You have to retell the story.
READ JOB 1:6-12, 2:1-7
READ JOB 1:6-12, 2:1-7
God does not CONTROL the universe—he RULES OVER it.
God does not CONTROL the universe—he RULES OVER it.
The first sign that this story is different is in the setting:
One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them.
Why does God have a council of angels? Why does he have angels at all?
The theodicy question implies that he should need them.
God is the unmoved mover, controlling everything.
When a bad thing happens, either he did it or he allowed it to happen.
Why does he “allow” bad things to happen?
That’s not God’s relationship with creation.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Three stages of creation:
1—God made the heavens and earth.
2—God made the heavens and earth habitable (Day 1—3) by RESTRAINING darkness and ocean.
3—God made inhabitants (Day 4-6)
God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.
God made a world that is other—and he interacts with it.
God does not CONTROL the universe—he RULES OVER his creatures. (Job 1:6; Genesis 1)
God CARES FOR his creatures—the humans, the LIONS, and the SEA MONSTERS.
God CARES FOR his creatures—the humans, the LIONS, and the SEA MONSTERS.
God is not distant, though. He didn’t abandon us to a world of chaos.
Rather, he is constantly involved. And we see it every day.
He makes springs pour water into the ravines;
it flows between the mountains.
They give water to all the beasts of the field;
the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
The birds of the sky nest by the waters;
they sing among the branches.
He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
the land is satisfied by the fruit of his work.
He makes grass grow for the cattle,
and plants for people to cultivate—
bringing forth food from the earth:
wine that gladdens human hearts,
oil to make their faces shine,
and bread that sustains their hearts.
We see the world as an automatic machine, just because it keeps doing the same thing, over and over. But that’s not necessarily a sign of automation.
The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.
It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun, and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
The question of theodicy makes us focus on what goes wrong, and we don’t give God credit for what goes right.
Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
This happened to Job.
Why is life given to a man
whose way is hidden,
whom God has hedged in?
“Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.
God was protecting Job from chaos. Every good thing that happened to Job was a gift.
But if God gives good gifts to us, then why do we ever suffer? Why didn’t he get rid of the darkness and the ocean?
On the basic level, we suffer he doesn’t only give good gifts to me.
You bring darkness, it becomes night,
and all the beasts of the forest prowl.
The lions roar for their prey
and seek their food from God.
The sun rises, and they steal away;
they return and lie down in their dens.
Then people go out to their work,
to their labor until evening.
Darkness is for the lions.
There is the sea, vast and spacious,
teeming with creatures beyond number—
living things both large and small.
There the ships go to and fro,
and Leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.
The sea is for the sea creatures.
When you hide your face,
they are terrified;
when you take away their breath,
they die and return to the dust.
When you send your Spirit,
they are created,
and you renew the face of the ground.
God CARES FOR his creatures—the humans, the LIONS, and the SEA MONSTERS. (Job 1:10, Psalm 104)
BIRTHDAY ANALOGY
Okay, but why does God allow the kind of suffering Job experienced?
The greatest good for a creature is a BOND OF TRUST with their CREATOR.
The greatest good for a creature is a BOND OF TRUST with their CREATOR.
Theodicy assumes that there is nothing worse than suffering. It makes no distinction between suffering and evil.
This is based on a Greek, unmoved-mover kind of world.
Evil is the opposite of good—it undermines the good of the world.
In a world where God cares for me, the lions, and the dragons, what is my constant “good?”
In the Biblical world, some level of suffering is inevitable.
God is good to us but he’s also good to the lions and the dragons.
There will be times when I suffer because God is doing good somewhere else.
What do I need to get through that?
In the birthday analogy, I need to trust that my parents still love me, that they give me my day too, that a family is better off when we give each person their day.
The greatest good for a creature is a BOND OF TRUST with their CREATOR. (Job 1:8)
This is what psychology tells us:
To flourish in the world, we need some sense of belonging, that the world is benevolent. (God is benevolent)
We learn that first from our parents.
This is what God ia talking about when he points out Job:
Then the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”
So if a bond of trust with God is good, then what is evil?
Evil is whatever threatens that BOND OF TRUST—whether SUFFERING or SECURITY.
Evil is whatever threatens that BOND OF TRUST—whether SUFFERING or SECURITY.
Evil is whatever threatens that BOND OF TRUST.
There is run-of-the-mill suffering, then there is the shattering kind.
This is consistent with psychology too.
Suffering becomes evil when it threatens our bond of trust with God.
Evil is that experience of suffering, misery, and death and the accompanying fear that such suffering undermines any hope that there is meaning and order in the world or a God who exercises providential care. (Susan Nelson, quoted in “Raging with Compassion” by John Swinton)
Job feels this way. So why would God allow him to experience suffering that could be evil?
Because suffering is not the only kind of evil. It’s not even the most dangerous kind of evil.
This is what Satan picks up on.
Satan’s role
Satan’s role
The is not Satan, the rebel who’s trying to overthrow God.
This is the satan, the accuser, a court officer who helps ensure God’s justice.
When God points to Job, he’s not bragging. He’s submitting his work for criticism.
This is not about a rivalry between God and Satan. It’s about what’s best for Job.
Satan points out an important issue:
“Does Job fear God for nothing?” Satan replied. “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face.”
The satan is not just trying to be a cynic. He’s making a meaningful point.
Especially if Job’s trust in God is good for himself.
Prosperity and security are a threat to our trust in God—perhaps the greatest threat.
Jesus said Bless are the poor, but woe to the rich.
It is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
Evil is whatever threatens that BOND OF TRUST—whether SUFFERING or SECURITY. (Job 1:10-11)
If Job thinks he has earned his prosperity and security, then he is in major trouble.
But of course, God knows what’s in Job’s heart, so why should he take the bet?
Trust DELIVERS us from evil—and CHANGES us for the BETTER.
Trust DELIVERS us from evil—and CHANGES us for the BETTER.
This is where God looks really bad.
He knows what’s in Job’s heart, so the only reason to do the test is to prove a point to Satan.
If that’s the point, then why don’t we get the scene where God dunks on Satan?
Trust isn’t something that’s in your heart. Trust is something that comes out in your choices and actions.
You don’t trust planes unless you actually get on them once in a while.
Job doesn’t trust God yet, because he hasn’t needed to.
That’s why he’s still making those sacrifices for his children.
He doesn’t realize that God has been protecting them out of love for Job.
Job doesn’t trust God until he has to make a choice.
His choice determines whether his suffering (and prosperity) results in evil.
My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I retract my accusations,
And I am comforted about being a creature.”
If evil is being separated from hope in God, then trust delivers us from evil.
Trust DELIVERS us from evil.
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
In October, 2002, Robert Stewart Flores Jr., a nursing student at the University of Arizona, entered the nursing school and shot three of his nursing professors. His reasons? He had received failing examination marks, which raised the possibility of him failing to make the grade as a nurse. The story is, to say the least, sobering. Flores entered the classrooms of the professors and shot them in cold blood in front of their students and his classmates. He approached his task coldly and calmly, executing each professor with clinical efficiency. Before killing one of the women, Barbara S. Monroe, Flores asked, “Are you ready to meet your maker?” According to witnesses, “She choked out a ‘yes,’ and then he shot her.”
But what about the suffering that doesn’t kill us?
The experience of trust changes us for the better.
Trust in God replaces our assumptions, and gives us a firmer foundation.
Trust DELIVERS us from evil and DESPAIR. (Job 42:5-6; John 16:33)
With trust we can recover, rejoin the world.
God CHEATS on every TEST—he gives us the ANSWER.
God CHEATS on every TEST—he gives us the ANSWER.
God CHEATS on every TEST—he always gives us the ANSWER. (Job 38-41; John 3:16)
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
