Tag Archives: Evil

Commentary

Why does God allow Christians to suffer?

11 Comments

From Stan at Birds of the Air blog.

Excerpt:

The oh-so-common question hangs out there all the time: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” My canned answer is, I believe, true — “They don’t. There are no good people.” — but I have to admit that it’s unsatisfying. I mean, aren’t Christians “justified” — declared righteous? Sure, Jesus said, “No one is good except God alone” but it’s also true that “For our sake He made Him to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). “Okay … sure … we are not good, but we are declared good, so, Stan, how about a genuine answer?” Can we actually provide an answer to the question? I think so.

First, I need to be careful here. God has specific reasons for specific things and I would not want to try to delve into His specific ideas because, well, He hasn’t seen fit to share them with me. So I won’t be doing specifics. On the other hand, the Bible is not mute on the subject. So let’s go with what we can know. We know, for instance, that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him. It naturally follows, then, that “bad things” are not, in the final analysis, bad. So remember that what we’re talking about is the unpleasant, the uncomfortable, the painful — suffering — but not bad. Still, what’s good about suffering? Well, here’s a list of things I found in my Bible. You check yours and see if you have any of these, too.

He has a list of six possible reasons, and here is my favorite:

3. Your individual troubles provide a platform from which you can comfort others. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, Who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort, too” (2 Cor 1:3-5).

This is a big one for me, because I am such a good risk calculator and non-conformist that I avoid a lot of suffering simply by not doing anything dumb just because other people are doing stupid things. But once in a while, the opportunity comes along to suffer for righteousness sake. Then you have to take that opportunity to serve and the benefit you get is that your heart softens to others who are hurting, but who are accountable and repentant. What good is it to make good decisions if you don’t then turn to others who want to follow Jesus and help them?

The best reason why God allows suffering, I think, is so that we can follow Christ by imitating him in self-sacrificial love. It is hard to love someone self-sacrificially, especially when they neither recognize nor approve of the sacrifice that is being made to love them, but they just treat it as an entitlement, or worse – as a unnecessary brake on their selfish pursuit of pleasure.

I was once chatting with the brilliant and complicated ECM about whether I would allow myself to be eaten by ferocious lions for my faith, and I told him that although I would hope to be faithful, that physical courage was not one of my strengths, and I would probably cave. I just don’t like violence or the sight of blood. I didn’t grow up that way. But I did say this. I don’t get the opportunity to die for my faith every day. But every day I have the opportunity to die a little to myself by saying no to the temptation to just dump my faith and do whatever I want to be happy.

There is no shortage of time and money for me to pursue pleasure. And sometimes, I look around at what has happened to me (chastity, loneliness), and I wonder where God is. Doesn’t he know that I want to be husband and father? Why did he create me in this miserable time of feminism, socialism, and statism? There is a temptation to want to forget the obligations of that vertical relationship and just make myself happy here and now. But I think that part of the Christian life is being the friend of Jesus even when things look bleak.

And things will never be perfect. There is no way to go back in time and fix the troubles that I have had struggling to be faithful in a world that doesn’t want authentic Christianity. There were no Christians to comfort me and encourage me when I was younger, and there still aren’t many who help now. Those days are gone forever. And the only thing left for me now is to stand up again, spit out blood and teeth, pick up my sword and shield, and get back on my horse. And that is going to happen every day until I die.

That is what it means to be a Christian. You won’t get your way. You wont’ be happy. You won’t be like everyone else. You are always going to be different. Life is not going to be perfect. People are not going to like you for being a Christian. Especially not in the church! But when you suffer all of this, you will know what it feels like to follow and imitate Jesus, and that makes the friendship closer.

I think it’s important to be smart about faith. When I entered my relationship with Jesus, I knew that there would be challenges. I resolved to avoid sin as much as I could, to avoid peer pressure, to work hard, to save money, and to study apologetics. Obviously, no one is perfect. But I wanted to be ready for everything that life might throw at me. I expect to be challenged. I expected to suffer. I have prepared by becoming stronger and stronger. There will be no retreat. No surrender. I will go down with this ship. Faith is a very meticulous thing. You plan it out, and you plan on what you need to do to keep the faith. You don’t wait for the last minute and then hope to succeed by magic. Dig your trenches. Erect your fortifications. Protect your supply lines. Prepare your reserves for a counter-attack.

1 Peter 3:14-17:

14But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear what they fear; do not be frightened.”

15But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,

16keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander.

17It is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.

Here’s my best post on the problem of evil, if you want more.

And my best post on why self-denial as part of a friendship with Jesus is the condition for going to Heaven.

Commentary

Can a person who opposes religion still be moral?

7 Comments

Here’s Casey Luskin’s analysis of Harvard evolutionary psychologist Marc D. Hauser, from Evolution News.

Here’s something Marc wrote:

What is dangerous is not the idea that we are endowed with a moral instinct–a biologically evolved faculty for delivering universal verdicts of right and wrong that is immune to religion and other cultural phenomena. What is dangerous is holding to an irrational position that starts by equating morality with religion and then moves to an inference that a divine power fuels religious doctrine.

Marc conceives of “morality” as mere descriptions of behavior that people feel compelled to comply with because of biological instincts. If one member of a troop of baboons doesn’t follow the evolved instincts and social conventions of his tribe, and he is discovered, then he is shunned. That is morality on atheism. It’s mere descriptions of behavior that varies by time and place. No individual has a duty to anything objective – it’s arbitrary, because evolution and tribal customs are arbitrary.

Casey notes that Marc’s view of morality was written up favorably in the New York Times – that’s their view of morality, too!

So what does a person like Marc who believes this view do?

And here’s an article from USA Today explaining Marc’s latest doings:

In a letter sent to Harvard faculty today, dean Michael Smith confirms a university investigation found “eight instances of scientific misconduct” by Hauser. A research paper has been retracted as a result of the finding, another corrected, and a Science paper has a correction under discussion; “five other cases” were also investigated, according to the letter.

If there is no God, then morality is an illusion. I understand that some atheists aren’t theists because of intellectual concerns, but for the vast majority, it really comes down to the desire to pursue pleasure without any moral restraints. And they get really mad when you make them feel bad about their selfishness, too.

You’re not going to be able to ground self-sacrificial moral actions rationally on atheism. The only reason to do anything on atheism is because of the pleasure that it gives you. Either direct pleasure, or the pleasure of being approved of by others, or the pleasure of avoiding punishments. There is no right and wrong in an accidental universe – just people doing what feels good to them. Atheists may act better than Stalin, but they have no reason to.

Commentary

Mary explains how sinful humans can be rightly related to a holy God

12 Comments

I recently wrote a post about the Bible’s teaching on why having correct beliefs about who Jesus was and what he did in history is necessary in order to be considered righteous by the God of the universe.

Mary wrote a comment in response that I am reproducing below.

Take it away, Mary.

 

 

Really good post, WK! This is an important question. And to be a good friend you need to answer it for your friend – gently, but clearly and honestly – because truth is more important to your friend’s wellbeing than their comfort. You’ve done this very ably here.

A few things I’d like to add:

Firstly, the questioner is coming with the assumption that there actually are such things as truly good people. This is a common assumption. The problem with it is that it makes light of the depravity of man and undervalues the holiness of God. We need to understand how perfect and pure God is. We need to understand how sinful and impure we are. The Bible tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. This is confirmed for each of us by experience. Not only that, but our good works are as filthy rags to God. That sounds harsh, but we need to understand to what extent even our best actions are marred by depravity, by selfish motives. We have fallen not just a little bit short of God’s standard, but a lot. There is a vast chasm between us and God. The only thing we are deserving of is God’s judgment, God’s wrath. This is true of EVERYONE.

So the real question is really this: why does God let ANYONE into Heaven at all, rather than sending all of us to Hell? If it’s not because of our good works, then what is it?

The answer is that we go to Heaven because of Jesus’ good works. He is the only Person throughout the whole of history to live perfectly, to meet God’s standard. Because God loves these depraved, rebellious creatures that we are, Jesus comes to Earth, lives the perfect life which we don’t and then (astoundingly!) He takes the punishment which we deserve and gives us His righteousness. This is a magnificent gift with no equal. The Bible tells us that the wages of sin is death (so we’re in a bad way because all we’ve earned is death), BUT the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ (so God has offered us something we totally don’t deserve). Like any other gift it is offered but has to be accepted for it to be owned by the recipient. This is what is meant by “believing” – it is taking up that gift and placing one’s trust in Jesus’ work and not in our own work. It’s not about mere intellectual belief (although that is necessary), but about a relational belief. It’s about saying, “Jesus, I reject my own ability to be good enough and instead I accept Your gift of being good enough in my place. I place my trust in You. You have bought me with your own life and I belong to You”.

Does this mean that good works are unimportant? No. Here’s what is possibly one of the most well-known 2 verses in the Bible, Ephesians 2:8-9: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast.” So it’s clear that salvation is by grace (God’s unmerited favour), NOT by works. But here’s the next verse, Ephesians 2:10: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” So our new selves are GOD’S work, not ours, but the purpose for which He has recreated us is to do good works. Good works are not what saves us (only Jesus is truly good), but good works are the purpose for which God saves us. What are those good works? 1) Love God and 2) Love your neighbour. (WK referenced this in his post.) Loving God is something we can only do if we acknowledge God’s existence and once we are redeemed by God (i.e. have accepted the gift) and have His Holy Spirit in us, changing our desires and motivations. Loving our neighbour is also something we can do only to a limited extent before we are redeemed. This is because we need to have Christ-centred motives in our intentions towards that person in order to truly love them as we should. We can only have Christ-centred motives once we have been saved by Christ.

So what does this mean when we hear good, solid advice from respectable, decent non-christians. Firstly, we acknowledge that non-christians can indeed be correct about the right behaviour. What they can’t be correct about are the central correct motivations for that behaviour. They can’t be Christ-centred in their motivations. And there are also necessarily aspects of behaviour which are fundamentally affected by being Christ-centred.

Let’s take the example of marriage, seeing as that was raised. A non-christian can give good advice on marriage and how to build a better marriage. They can teach love, respect, fidelity, unselfishness, responsibility, etc. These are all good things. However, they won’t teach a Christ-centred marriage. They won’t teach that marriage is meant to be a picture of Christ’s relationship with the Church. They won’t teach how the husband is supposed to model Christ in serving his wife as her leader. They won’t teach how the wife is supposed to model the Church as it should be in submitting to her husband’s leadership. The won’t teach how marriage is a picture of the Gospel, of God’s unconditional love for us and our response to Him. This means that even though non-christians may give excellent advice, their advice is inherently lacking because it is not Christ-centred.