Self-Made Saints
Every society believes in the existence of evil. Every society has a code of right and wrong, good and evil--however different the codes and lists may be. Where, then, does evil come from? What are its origins and causes?
There are only two basic positions given in answer to this question: the first argues that evil is resident in every human being and that unless it is restrained or checked, it will break forth in word, thought, and action. The second world-view is that every human being is born morally good and pure: corruption comes from the "outside"--society, others, socio-economic conditions. We well recall serving on a jury in which a child had given evidence. Some members of the jury argued vehemently that of course the child told the pure, unvarnished truth because children are pure and uncorrupted and without sin.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was of this persuasion. He was very sure that, at least as far as he was concerned, his heart was free from any and all evil. He said he felt that man is naturally good. But, whatever others may thing or do, he was certain that he was morally and ethically pure. He felt it was accurate to claim of himself that he was "on the whole the best of men".
Where, then, does evil come from? It is at this juncture that Rousseau becomes a most notorious false prophet: evil, he insists, has come into his life from the outside. It comes from other men.
Showing posts with label Problem of Evil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Problem of Evil. Show all posts
Friday, 18 August 2017
Friday, 11 March 2016
Bang, Bang. You're Dead.
False Allegiances and Irrelevance
We have often observed that the materialistic atheists amongst us are often the most strident moralisers in the market place. They are always telling us what they deem to be right and wrong, moral and immoral, evil and good. Islam, insists Richard Dawkins, is a perverse, wicked thing. Christianity is so morally bankrupt that any parent who attempts to teach its basic doctrines to her or her child, should suffer their children to be removed from their care. Morally bankrupt?
Christopher Hitchens, whilst alive, thundered like a Titan against totalitarianism, communism, and any authoritarian standard within his line of sight. He thought abortion was OK, but grabbing someone off the street and torturing them was very bad form. All of which was and is entertaining but hardly relevant to materialism or atheism, let alone their conjoint.
There is an instructive video entitled Collision in which Christopher Hitchens debates Douglas Wilson.
We have often observed that the materialistic atheists amongst us are often the most strident moralisers in the market place. They are always telling us what they deem to be right and wrong, moral and immoral, evil and good. Islam, insists Richard Dawkins, is a perverse, wicked thing. Christianity is so morally bankrupt that any parent who attempts to teach its basic doctrines to her or her child, should suffer their children to be removed from their care. Morally bankrupt?
Christopher Hitchens, whilst alive, thundered like a Titan against totalitarianism, communism, and any authoritarian standard within his line of sight. He thought abortion was OK, but grabbing someone off the street and torturing them was very bad form. All of which was and is entertaining but hardly relevant to materialism or atheism, let alone their conjoint.
There is an instructive video entitled Collision in which Christopher Hitchens debates Douglas Wilson.
Monday, 30 November 2015
It's Personal, Always
. . . And In the Darkness Bind Them
We have recently been reading through Matthew Dickerson's A Hobbit Journey: Discovering the Enchantment of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2012). Dickerson is an example of the growing coterie of Tolkien scholars whose work is making the Tolkien corpus more and more accessible to modern readers.
There are many biblical and theological themes woven into Tolkien's work. One of them is the nature of evil itself. Tolkien rightly sees that evil is personal, a will of malice and hatred towards others. Evil is not a mere impersonal misfortune that might occur from time to time. It is a living will which desires the enslavement of all others. Behind all evil acts, deeds, and schemes stands a living person of immense malice: subtle and cruel beyond our reckoning. The very subtlety of its exercise makes the malice more evil and more cruel.
Tolkien's representation of evil is consistent with Scriptural teaching, where Satan's malice is revealed in such a way that--were it not for our Saviour delivering us from his realm--we would all be subject to an eternal bitterness and a bondage to an immensely evil creature who hates us utterly.
We have recently been reading through Matthew Dickerson's A Hobbit Journey: Discovering the Enchantment of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2012). Dickerson is an example of the growing coterie of Tolkien scholars whose work is making the Tolkien corpus more and more accessible to modern readers.
There are many biblical and theological themes woven into Tolkien's work. One of them is the nature of evil itself. Tolkien rightly sees that evil is personal, a will of malice and hatred towards others. Evil is not a mere impersonal misfortune that might occur from time to time. It is a living will which desires the enslavement of all others. Behind all evil acts, deeds, and schemes stands a living person of immense malice: subtle and cruel beyond our reckoning. The very subtlety of its exercise makes the malice more evil and more cruel.
Tolkien's representation of evil is consistent with Scriptural teaching, where Satan's malice is revealed in such a way that--were it not for our Saviour delivering us from his realm--we would all be subject to an eternal bitterness and a bondage to an immensely evil creature who hates us utterly.
Wednesday, 7 January 2015
Evil is Not My Fault
Two Views of Evil
If you are impertinent enough to ask whence evil originates, the first hurdle to be leaped will be the general discomfort over the topic. Assuming the initial squeamishness can be overcome, we hazard a guess that within five seconds all options will likely point to some environmental factor or another. Vile people come from vile environments.
The sub-texts are: firstly, people are not responsible for evil acts any more than one is responsible for the weather; and, secondly, evil can be overcome or at least attenuated by changing the external living conditions and life circumstances of people. The discussion will likely progress upon the pathways of some additional assumptions as well. It will be assumed, though rarely asserted, that morality and ethics are a matter of class, socio-economic class. Decent people are, well, like us. We don't rape, murder, or steal because we are fortunate enough to live in decent environments--which in our materialist world refers inevitably to one's lifestyle, wealth, and income. As G. K. Chesterton put it, there is an "old contemptible impertinence which represents virtue to be something upper-class, like a visiting card, or a silk hat."
A further unspoken assumption is determinism--by which we mean that whilst most of us like to tell ourselves we are free men, when it comes to evil we suddenly become iron-clad determinists. People are evil because life circumstances determine them, or condition them, to be so. Evil is environmental; it's nobody's fault. You catch it like the common cold.
Well, not so fast.
If you are impertinent enough to ask whence evil originates, the first hurdle to be leaped will be the general discomfort over the topic. Assuming the initial squeamishness can be overcome, we hazard a guess that within five seconds all options will likely point to some environmental factor or another. Vile people come from vile environments.
The sub-texts are: firstly, people are not responsible for evil acts any more than one is responsible for the weather; and, secondly, evil can be overcome or at least attenuated by changing the external living conditions and life circumstances of people. The discussion will likely progress upon the pathways of some additional assumptions as well. It will be assumed, though rarely asserted, that morality and ethics are a matter of class, socio-economic class. Decent people are, well, like us. We don't rape, murder, or steal because we are fortunate enough to live in decent environments--which in our materialist world refers inevitably to one's lifestyle, wealth, and income. As G. K. Chesterton put it, there is an "old contemptible impertinence which represents virtue to be something upper-class, like a visiting card, or a silk hat."
A further unspoken assumption is determinism--by which we mean that whilst most of us like to tell ourselves we are free men, when it comes to evil we suddenly become iron-clad determinists. People are evil because life circumstances determine them, or condition them, to be so. Evil is environmental; it's nobody's fault. You catch it like the common cold.
Well, not so fast.
Monday, 29 December 2014
Nineteenth Century Polemics
A Proposition Which Kills Itself in Three Sentences
G. K. Chesterton once engaged in a series of written debates with Mr Blatchford, a committed rationalist. The exchange was irenic, but pointed. Blatchford had written a book, entitled God and My Neighbour in which he argued that Christianity was guilty of terrible crimes of violence and oppression and bloodshed.
Chesterton's response was to acknowledge that indeed some Christians had indeed done evil things. He wrote:
He goes on to deny that such evil is uniquely or intrinsically Christian in any sense:
G. K. Chesterton once engaged in a series of written debates with Mr Blatchford, a committed rationalist. The exchange was irenic, but pointed. Blatchford had written a book, entitled God and My Neighbour in which he argued that Christianity was guilty of terrible crimes of violence and oppression and bloodshed.
Chesterton's response was to acknowledge that indeed some Christians had indeed done evil things. He wrote:
It is not enough to say "Christians persecuted; down with Christianity," any more that it is enough to say, "A Confucian stole my hair-brush; down with Confucianism." We want to know whether the reason for which the Confucian stole the hair-brush was a reason peculiar to the Confucians, or a reason common to many other men. [G. K. Chesterton, "The Eternal Heroism of the Slums," Collected Works, Volume I (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), p. 390.]
He goes on to deny that such evil is uniquely or intrinsically Christian in any sense:
Monday, 11 June 2012
Unfit for Motherhood
A Woman's Right to Choose
The New Zealand government is considering granting the courts power to sentence a serial recidivist child abuser to permanent childlessness. The proposal is that if such a person were to bear subsequent children they would automatically be removed from the mother at birth.
The Commentariat is affecting outrage over the idea.
Evil and wickedness stalk the heart of every human being. Human hearts are hearts of darkness. So believed Dostoevsky, Conrad, and Faulkner. So declares the Bible itself--the very Word of the Living God. The heart of man, says the Scripture, is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked.
The New Zealand government is considering granting the courts power to sentence a serial recidivist child abuser to permanent childlessness. The proposal is that if such a person were to bear subsequent children they would automatically be removed from the mother at birth.
The Commentariat is affecting outrage over the idea.
Evil and wickedness stalk the heart of every human being. Human hearts are hearts of darkness. So believed Dostoevsky, Conrad, and Faulkner. So declares the Bible itself--the very Word of the Living God. The heart of man, says the Scripture, is deceitful above all else and desperately wicked.
Monday, 2 March 2009
Meditation on the Text of the Week
And Where Were You . . . ?
Job, in our text, had likewise just endured a terrible tragedy which had both taken the lives of all his children and destroyed virtually all he owned. Like the grieving parents at Elim School, his life had changed, radically and drastically. But, as with those parents and that school, Job's reaction was very different from the norm. Why?
In the first place, Job believed that what had happened to him was not due to extreme weather or to marauding bandits—they were merely second causes. The tragedy that had befallen him was due to God.
It was the Lord that had given to him in the first place, and it was the Lord that had taken away. Notice the active verbs. Thus, his affliction was the outcome of personal motives—in the sense that it had come about because of the deliberate plan, will, intent, and work of God Himself towards Job.
Job's understanding of God is not like many in our day. Many now want to blur the distinction between the Creator and the creature by putting human, creaturely limitations upon God. They urge us to believe that things can happen, terrible things, over which God has no control. They mistakenly imagine that by making God more “human” they can help themselves and others draw closer to God. But God is not honoured by the lies and deceits of men.
Job knows and professes the truth: he knows that there is not one hair which could fall from his head apart from the will and command of God. Therefore, when calamity struck, he knew that it was the will and work of God. Since God had given him children in the first place, it was God who had taken them away when they tragically died.
Secondly, Job holds to a “minimalist rights” position before God. Naked he came into the world; naked he shall leave it. He has nothing that he did not receive in the first place. He has no position or rights to argue before God that entitle him to be treated in a certain way or be given certain things. True, God has promised to care for His people, to provide for them. This is something to which He has bound Himself, not something that we could demand.
But, at the same time, for His own purpose and reasons, such promises can be suspended or removed—as Job has just experienced. The noble and faithful response of Job to this is not to stand on rights but to acknowledge that all he had was a gift in the first place, to which he had no intrinsic right or title. Naked he came forth; naked he would leave.
Thirdly, Job worshiped God: he bowed his knee.
That is the spiritual context of Job's sufferings. All else that follows occurs in that context. But what follows in the rest of the book is Job's struggle to come to terms with God. He desperately wants to come before God and argue his case. He wants to argue his case on the basis of God's faithfulness, promises, goodness, and greatness. He wants God to give account to him and explain why this has happened. What is the meaning and place and significance and intent and purpose of his suffering? But God is silent.
We learn from this that the Christian is not like the unfeeling stoic, who steels his heart so as to be removed from hurt. Rather, Job shows that he was deeply hurt and profoundly affected by what had happened to him. But his case was with God, not with man—it was God's face that he sought. In so doing, he showed his love for God and trust in God. “Though He slay me, yet shall I trust Him,” was his cry. His suffering was in the context of a deep faith in God and Who He is.
In the end God came to him (and so to all who believe). God does not answer Job's questions and his interrogatory. He, rather, changes the terms of the exchange. He changes the terms by reinforcing the distinction between the greatness of the Creator, and the consequent insignificance of Job. He simply asks Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” It is a question designed to put the hand on the mouth. It is one of the most humbling questions imaginable. In effect, He takes Job back to his original response in our text, and extends, deepens, and reinforces it.
Job has had his “day in court” as it were. God has spoken to him. And his response: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now my eyes see Thee;
Therefore, I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42: 5—6
This is the point to which God leads all His suffering children. It is the point of a deeper trust in Him, without understanding or knowing all the why's and the wherefore's of what has happened. God's purposes are just too great, and we cannot hope to comprehend them. We, after all, were not there when He laid the foundations of the earth.
This is what was evident, we believe, in those terrible days at Elim Christian School.
Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord.”Last year a number of students and a teacher from Elim Christian School were drowned in a tragedy on the Mangatepopo River. In the aftermath of mourning and burials a number of commentators saw fit to comment on the way the school community and the parents were dealing with the tragedy. It was different from the norm.
Job 1: 20—21
Job, in our text, had likewise just endured a terrible tragedy which had both taken the lives of all his children and destroyed virtually all he owned. Like the grieving parents at Elim School, his life had changed, radically and drastically. But, as with those parents and that school, Job's reaction was very different from the norm. Why?
In the first place, Job believed that what had happened to him was not due to extreme weather or to marauding bandits—they were merely second causes. The tragedy that had befallen him was due to God.
It was the Lord that had given to him in the first place, and it was the Lord that had taken away. Notice the active verbs. Thus, his affliction was the outcome of personal motives—in the sense that it had come about because of the deliberate plan, will, intent, and work of God Himself towards Job.
Job's understanding of God is not like many in our day. Many now want to blur the distinction between the Creator and the creature by putting human, creaturely limitations upon God. They urge us to believe that things can happen, terrible things, over which God has no control. They mistakenly imagine that by making God more “human” they can help themselves and others draw closer to God. But God is not honoured by the lies and deceits of men.
Job knows and professes the truth: he knows that there is not one hair which could fall from his head apart from the will and command of God. Therefore, when calamity struck, he knew that it was the will and work of God. Since God had given him children in the first place, it was God who had taken them away when they tragically died.
Secondly, Job holds to a “minimalist rights” position before God. Naked he came into the world; naked he shall leave it. He has nothing that he did not receive in the first place. He has no position or rights to argue before God that entitle him to be treated in a certain way or be given certain things. True, God has promised to care for His people, to provide for them. This is something to which He has bound Himself, not something that we could demand.
But, at the same time, for His own purpose and reasons, such promises can be suspended or removed—as Job has just experienced. The noble and faithful response of Job to this is not to stand on rights but to acknowledge that all he had was a gift in the first place, to which he had no intrinsic right or title. Naked he came forth; naked he would leave.
Thirdly, Job worshiped God: he bowed his knee.
That is the spiritual context of Job's sufferings. All else that follows occurs in that context. But what follows in the rest of the book is Job's struggle to come to terms with God. He desperately wants to come before God and argue his case. He wants to argue his case on the basis of God's faithfulness, promises, goodness, and greatness. He wants God to give account to him and explain why this has happened. What is the meaning and place and significance and intent and purpose of his suffering? But God is silent.
We learn from this that the Christian is not like the unfeeling stoic, who steels his heart so as to be removed from hurt. Rather, Job shows that he was deeply hurt and profoundly affected by what had happened to him. But his case was with God, not with man—it was God's face that he sought. In so doing, he showed his love for God and trust in God. “Though He slay me, yet shall I trust Him,” was his cry. His suffering was in the context of a deep faith in God and Who He is.
In the end God came to him (and so to all who believe). God does not answer Job's questions and his interrogatory. He, rather, changes the terms of the exchange. He changes the terms by reinforcing the distinction between the greatness of the Creator, and the consequent insignificance of Job. He simply asks Job, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” It is a question designed to put the hand on the mouth. It is one of the most humbling questions imaginable. In effect, He takes Job back to his original response in our text, and extends, deepens, and reinforces it.
Job has had his “day in court” as it were. God has spoken to him. And his response: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now my eyes see Thee;
Therefore, I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42: 5—6
This is the point to which God leads all His suffering children. It is the point of a deeper trust in Him, without understanding or knowing all the why's and the wherefore's of what has happened. God's purposes are just too great, and we cannot hope to comprehend them. We, after all, were not there when He laid the foundations of the earth.
This is what was evident, we believe, in those terrible days at Elim Christian School.
Monday, 16 February 2009
Meditation on the Text of the Week
Responding to Calamities
There has always been a strong tendency for the human heart to draw either a definitive or an implicit cause and effect connection between suffering and just desserts. When someone suffers (calamity, accident, sickness and so forth) all cultures with strongly defined codes of right and wrong are likely to reason that calamity implies punishment of some kind.
The book of Job deals substantially with this error. Job suffered terribly—clearly at the hands of focused and deliberate divine intervention. His three friends spent a good deal of time and energy trying to get him to own up to whatever it was that had provoked God to such terrible wrath. They argued from the calamity to an underlying cause of Job's unknown and undefined evil. Job had to have done something terribly wrong, or God would not have dealt with him this way.
One of the crucial points of the book of Job is to demonstrate that one cannot draw such black and white conclusions from the sufferings of people. Things are a whole lot more complex and God's purposes are far too mysterious and multi-dimensional and multi-purposive than to allow such simplistic connections.
In our text, our Lord takes this subject one step further. It turns out, notwithstanding the lessons from the book of Job that there is always one black and white conclusion which we can always draw from human calamity and suffering. He insists upon a deep consciousness of one's own guilt and sinfulness when considering the suffering of others. Some people had come to him reporting that the Romans had slaughtered Jewish worshipers (“Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.”) Jesus asked the rhetorical question: “Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this same fate?”
Well, it would appear so. Probably they were insurrectionists of some sort, maybe zealots or sicarri. At one level it would be perfectly reasonable to reason that this event would serve as a warning (but also a comforting reminder) that if one did not engage in rebellious activity against the Roman overlords, one would not suffer the fate of a criminal. I'm OK—I don't do that kind of stuff.
But our Lord presses the matter far more profoundly than that. He says, “Unless you repent, you will perish along with them.” He draws upon a deeper, more fundamental unspoken premise. Between the Galilean executed and all men there is no difference—all alike are sinners, evil, wicked and immoral. Therefore, don't think that because the sword has not fallen you are better or more ethical or more moral than the hapless Galileans. You will perish along with them if you do not repent of your own sin.
To drive the matter home more forcefully, our Lord repeats Himself:
Thus,the warning and admonition is clear. Whenever we see another person whose life is cut off due to accident or crime or foolishness, they serve as a message from God, a warning. It is a reminder that we, who are in principle no better than they, will perish along with them if we do not turn away from our own sin and evil living and turn to God, seeking His mercy and forgiveness.
One is reminded of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee stood before God and thanked Him that he was not like other men. He was better than they, more scrupulous, more holy, more dedicated. He fasted and tithed and did all that he thought he was supposed to. Meanwhile, the tax collector—a Roman stool pigeon who betrayed and oppressed his own people—beat his breast and cried out, “Lord, be merciful to me—as sinner.” The tax collector, said Jesus, left the Temple justified—declared righteous by God—while the Pharisee remained under the indictment and guilt of his sin.
The ancient Puritan oath, uttered as a notorious sinner passed, “There, but for God's grace, go I” is far nearer the mark. When terrible calamity strikes the first response of the heart should be to remind ourselves that we deserve such a fate, whilst we continue in our own sins and repent not of them.
Then, unlike Job's comforters, we will be able to extend true love and support to those who suffer.
I tell you, no, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.
Luke 13:3
There has always been a strong tendency for the human heart to draw either a definitive or an implicit cause and effect connection between suffering and just desserts. When someone suffers (calamity, accident, sickness and so forth) all cultures with strongly defined codes of right and wrong are likely to reason that calamity implies punishment of some kind.
The book of Job deals substantially with this error. Job suffered terribly—clearly at the hands of focused and deliberate divine intervention. His three friends spent a good deal of time and energy trying to get him to own up to whatever it was that had provoked God to such terrible wrath. They argued from the calamity to an underlying cause of Job's unknown and undefined evil. Job had to have done something terribly wrong, or God would not have dealt with him this way.
One of the crucial points of the book of Job is to demonstrate that one cannot draw such black and white conclusions from the sufferings of people. Things are a whole lot more complex and God's purposes are far too mysterious and multi-dimensional and multi-purposive than to allow such simplistic connections.
In our text, our Lord takes this subject one step further. It turns out, notwithstanding the lessons from the book of Job that there is always one black and white conclusion which we can always draw from human calamity and suffering. He insists upon a deep consciousness of one's own guilt and sinfulness when considering the suffering of others. Some people had come to him reporting that the Romans had slaughtered Jewish worshipers (“Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.”) Jesus asked the rhetorical question: “Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered this same fate?”
Well, it would appear so. Probably they were insurrectionists of some sort, maybe zealots or sicarri. At one level it would be perfectly reasonable to reason that this event would serve as a warning (but also a comforting reminder) that if one did not engage in rebellious activity against the Roman overlords, one would not suffer the fate of a criminal. I'm OK—I don't do that kind of stuff.
But our Lord presses the matter far more profoundly than that. He says, “Unless you repent, you will perish along with them.” He draws upon a deeper, more fundamental unspoken premise. Between the Galilean executed and all men there is no difference—all alike are sinners, evil, wicked and immoral. Therefore, don't think that because the sword has not fallen you are better or more ethical or more moral than the hapless Galileans. You will perish along with them if you do not repent of your own sin.
To drive the matter home more forcefully, our Lord repeats Himself:
Or do you suppose that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? I tell you, no, but, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.
Luke 13: 4—5
Thus,the warning and admonition is clear. Whenever we see another person whose life is cut off due to accident or crime or foolishness, they serve as a message from God, a warning. It is a reminder that we, who are in principle no better than they, will perish along with them if we do not turn away from our own sin and evil living and turn to God, seeking His mercy and forgiveness.
One is reminded of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee stood before God and thanked Him that he was not like other men. He was better than they, more scrupulous, more holy, more dedicated. He fasted and tithed and did all that he thought he was supposed to. Meanwhile, the tax collector—a Roman stool pigeon who betrayed and oppressed his own people—beat his breast and cried out, “Lord, be merciful to me—as sinner.” The tax collector, said Jesus, left the Temple justified—declared righteous by God—while the Pharisee remained under the indictment and guilt of his sin.
The ancient Puritan oath, uttered as a notorious sinner passed, “There, but for God's grace, go I” is far nearer the mark. When terrible calamity strikes the first response of the heart should be to remind ourselves that we deserve such a fate, whilst we continue in our own sins and repent not of them.
Then, unlike Job's comforters, we will be able to extend true love and support to those who suffer.
Monday, 20 October 2008
Meditation on the Text of the Week
Cries of Dereliction
It was also the bloodiest century for Christian martyrdom. In all of these dictatorships and totalitarian terror states Christians were singled out for persecution and extermination. But while we have seen in recent history the passing of these hideously malformed and tyrannical governments, the persecution and martyrdom of Christians has not ceased. It is estimated that from the early 1990's, approximately 150,000 Christians per year have been killed for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a rising trend.
Our text is deeply relevant, therefore, for our age. Around the world, Christians are regarded as sheep in the holding paddocks awaiting the slaughterhouse.
The psalmist is speaking of a time when the faithful were being overwhelmed by lawlessness and being killed almost at will. Psalm 44 is a psalm of anguish—believing, faithful anguish. God's people are regarded as fair game, yet not for one moment did the psalmist doubt that behind all this were the prerogatives and plans of the Almighty. None of these terrible things had occurred by accident, but by God's express will and plan. See how he confesses the hand of God bringing the suffering about:
He confesses the unwavering loyalty to the Lord amongst His people. “All this has come upon us, but we have not forgotten Thee, and we have not dealt falsely with Thy covenant.” (Psalm 44: 17) Despite their suffering, the people had not turned to a strange god in search of better things.
This cry of anguish—of the innocent people of God suffering at the hands of God without cause—was uttered most loudly and trenchantly by our Lord upon the Cross. It was the greatest cry of dereliction ever heard upon the earth or in heaven. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Our psalmist, however, shows us that the cry of dereliction is not unknown amongst the saints. The experience of being forsaken by God, and left to face the marauding cruelty and spiteful hatred of the wicked had been known by God's people before the Cross. It is known by the Lord's people today, as thousands across the world are killed annually, mercilessly without cause.
But their cry of anguish and dereliction—while being of the same kind as the cry of the Lord Jesus—is nothing more than a faint echo of His. For He uttered His cry out of the depths of Hell itself as He bore the full brunt of God's vengeance and wrath for the sins of His people. And like the psalmist, our Lord—even while in Hell—did not apostasize. He did not turn away. He did not stop believing or clinging to His heavenly Father. He still called Him, My God.
Because of our Lord, continuing to believe in God and cling to Him amidst His apparent desertion of us, is not only made possible, but more compelling. For in His dying and rising, Christ established a bond of eternal, impregnable, unbreakable love between God and us. Nothing in heaven or upon earth can ever, now, separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
So, the Apostle Paul, acknowledging the suffering of God's people upon the earth which still remains while enemies are being put under our Lord's feet, acknowledging that we will still utter from time to time the cries of anguish and dereliction as God allows us to be overrun for His greater purposes, quotes our text: “Just as it is written, 'For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.'” (Romans 8: 36)
If the psalmist had cause to trust and cling, to believe and to keep faith with the Lord, while God afflicted them without cause, how much more we. For God has now given the most extreme and unshakable testimony that despite our anguish we are not cut off from God's love, but that it is ever extended to us, and will never be withdrawn. He has given unbreakable proof that our suffering is not due to God despising and rejecting us. He gave us His Son. Everything else is mere echo. Nothing, now, can ever separate us from the love of God.
The blood of the martyrs continues to flow. The cries of the faithful remonstrating with our Lord continue to be uttered today. And they are heard! For Jesus sake, they are heard louder than ever before. “Rise up, be our help, and redeem us for the sake of Thy lovingkindness,” cries the psalmist. (Psalm 44: 26)
In the light of our Lord Jesus, we can gloss this cry, so that it is now even more powerful and irresistible in the ears of our God: “Rise up, be our help, and redeem us for the sake of Thy lovingkindness in Christ Jesus, your Son, Who loved us and gave Himself for us.” This is a cry the Father cannot deny, for He cannot deny Himself.
But for Thy sake we are killed all day long;It has been truthfully said that the twentieth century was the most bloody in all human history. This was not due just to a higher global population, reflecting the same proportion of violent malevolent deaths. It was due to a greater outbreak of man's inhumanity to man. Two world wars and three large malevolent totalitarian societies (the USSR and its “Eastern Bloc”, Nazi Germany, and Maoist China) along with many small tinpot dictatorships led to millions upon millions of people being exterminated. If the blood of Abel cried to God from the ground, how much more the blood of the millions killed unjustly in our days.
We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
Psalm 44:22
It was also the bloodiest century for Christian martyrdom. In all of these dictatorships and totalitarian terror states Christians were singled out for persecution and extermination. But while we have seen in recent history the passing of these hideously malformed and tyrannical governments, the persecution and martyrdom of Christians has not ceased. It is estimated that from the early 1990's, approximately 150,000 Christians per year have been killed for their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a rising trend.
Our text is deeply relevant, therefore, for our age. Around the world, Christians are regarded as sheep in the holding paddocks awaiting the slaughterhouse.
The psalmist is speaking of a time when the faithful were being overwhelmed by lawlessness and being killed almost at will. Psalm 44 is a psalm of anguish—believing, faithful anguish. God's people are regarded as fair game, yet not for one moment did the psalmist doubt that behind all this were the prerogatives and plans of the Almighty. None of these terrible things had occurred by accident, but by God's express will and plan. See how he confesses the hand of God bringing the suffering about:
Thou hast given us as sheep to be eatenMark well the active verbs. The Lord has given His people over, scattered them, sold them, made them a reproach, a laughing stock and a derision. But not for an instant does the psalmist wonder whether the Lord does not exist. Not for an instant does he think of turning aside to “more powerful” gods. He is unwavering in his belief that the Lord alone is God, and beside Him there is no other. In obedience to the first commandment, he will not give credence to, nor acknowledgement of, any other god. Rather, behind all of the calamity falling upon him and his fellow believers, he sees the hand of God Himself. Hence the anguish.
And hast scattered us among the nations.
Thou dost sell Thy people cheaply,
And hast not profited by their sale.
Thou dost make us a reproach to our neighbours,
A scoffing and derision to those around us.
Thou dost make us a byword among the nations,
A laughing stock among the peoples.
Psalm 44: 11—14
He confesses the unwavering loyalty to the Lord amongst His people. “All this has come upon us, but we have not forgotten Thee, and we have not dealt falsely with Thy covenant.” (Psalm 44: 17) Despite their suffering, the people had not turned to a strange god in search of better things.
This cry of anguish—of the innocent people of God suffering at the hands of God without cause—was uttered most loudly and trenchantly by our Lord upon the Cross. It was the greatest cry of dereliction ever heard upon the earth or in heaven. “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Our psalmist, however, shows us that the cry of dereliction is not unknown amongst the saints. The experience of being forsaken by God, and left to face the marauding cruelty and spiteful hatred of the wicked had been known by God's people before the Cross. It is known by the Lord's people today, as thousands across the world are killed annually, mercilessly without cause.
But their cry of anguish and dereliction—while being of the same kind as the cry of the Lord Jesus—is nothing more than a faint echo of His. For He uttered His cry out of the depths of Hell itself as He bore the full brunt of God's vengeance and wrath for the sins of His people. And like the psalmist, our Lord—even while in Hell—did not apostasize. He did not turn away. He did not stop believing or clinging to His heavenly Father. He still called Him, My God.
Because of our Lord, continuing to believe in God and cling to Him amidst His apparent desertion of us, is not only made possible, but more compelling. For in His dying and rising, Christ established a bond of eternal, impregnable, unbreakable love between God and us. Nothing in heaven or upon earth can ever, now, separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.
So, the Apostle Paul, acknowledging the suffering of God's people upon the earth which still remains while enemies are being put under our Lord's feet, acknowledging that we will still utter from time to time the cries of anguish and dereliction as God allows us to be overrun for His greater purposes, quotes our text: “Just as it is written, 'For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.'” (Romans 8: 36)
If the psalmist had cause to trust and cling, to believe and to keep faith with the Lord, while God afflicted them without cause, how much more we. For God has now given the most extreme and unshakable testimony that despite our anguish we are not cut off from God's love, but that it is ever extended to us, and will never be withdrawn. He has given unbreakable proof that our suffering is not due to God despising and rejecting us. He gave us His Son. Everything else is mere echo. Nothing, now, can ever separate us from the love of God.
The blood of the martyrs continues to flow. The cries of the faithful remonstrating with our Lord continue to be uttered today. And they are heard! For Jesus sake, they are heard louder than ever before. “Rise up, be our help, and redeem us for the sake of Thy lovingkindness,” cries the psalmist. (Psalm 44: 26)
In the light of our Lord Jesus, we can gloss this cry, so that it is now even more powerful and irresistible in the ears of our God: “Rise up, be our help, and redeem us for the sake of Thy lovingkindness in Christ Jesus, your Son, Who loved us and gave Himself for us.” This is a cry the Father cannot deny, for He cannot deny Himself.
Monday, 4 August 2008
Meditation on the Text of the Week
It's Always Personal
With respect to the Living God, Christians believe that God is always personal with every human being. He is always “getting personal” with each individual. Our text tells us that for those who have come to love God, having been called by Him, all that is, all that comes to pass in their lives, is a personal message and ministry from God to them as individual souls. It is universally intended by the Lord, planned by Him, executed by Him, caused by Him for their individual good and well-being.
Three comments need to be made, lest we misunderstand this glorious truth. Firstly, we are called and challenged to receive this truth by faith, not by sight. For many of our circumstances are hard and difficult. The Scriptures also are clear that through many trials and sufferings we enter the Kingdom of God. Oftentimes circumstances don't seem good to us: nevertheless, we are called in faith to believe that no matter how desperate or painful the circumstances or events of our lives, even in all of it, God has ordained every part, all of it, for our good, and therefore as an outworking of His beneficent mercy and goodness toward us. Of course, receiving this by faith helps us to be reconciled and thankful for even the most difficult valleys.
The second comment is that we must beware of frantically searching for the good in every circumstance. Sometimes the good that God intends will be immediately obvious to us. Other times, much less so. We have known immature souls work themselves up into a frenzy trying to discern the good in a difficult circumstance, struggling to see and understand, ending up very dispirited. This is not the walk of faith, but of sight. And sight is often inimical to faith.
Finally, we must not fall into the trap of looking for personal messages from God in our circumstances. That is not the kind of cosmic personalism intrinsic to the Christian faith. That kind of immaturity is a hangover from the superstitions of Unbelief, from pagan days and ways. “What is God trying to tell me?” is a question often found on the lips of young Christians, or of Christians weak in faith, when a difficult circumstance arises. But God has already declared to every Believer His personal messages to each and every one: they are found in the promises and declaration of the Scriptures—which are full, final, and complete.
Therefore, as “all things” in our existences unfold—each a unique cluster of circumstances combining with our unique combination of “nature and nurture”, we are to look not into the secret counsels of God, but to His Holy Scriptures. All of nature and circumstances draws us back to His revealed counsels that we might see the already declares things there more clearly, more perceptively, and more meaningfully.
But the universe is personal for the Unbeliever as well. The circumstances—all of the them—experienced by an Unbeliever represent a personal message from God to each individual. Does an Unbeliever experience the blessings of life—children, health, vitality, success? God is speaking personally to them of His mercy, His patience, His goodness. He is calling them to be thankful for His good gifts. Each Unbeliever has his own personally constructed message, calling him to depart from the life of sin and rebellion, and come to the Lord.
Does an Unbeliever experience great pain and suffering? It is the Lord's personal message to them, warning them that what they are experiencing is a mere foretaste, the barest taste, of the wrath that awaits, if they stubbornly refuse to repent. Or does an Unbeliever experience enslavement to alcohol or drugs? It is a warning, a mere foretaste, of an eternity to come without Christ.
The earth is not a machine, wound up, and left to run on its own. The earth, all of creation, is the outworking of the infinite Personal God. There is nothing absolutely or finally impersonal. Even what appear to us to be the most impersonal or random events, such as the lot, cast in the lap, represents the personal will of God. Every hair on the head is numbered. No sparrow can fall without it being the express and directive command of the Father.
For the Believer, it is all a hymn of love, manifesting the goodness of God for our good. For the Unbeliever, it is all a siren of warning and a hymn of invitation to come to God, turning away from sin before it is too late. All of it. Without exception.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.Christians believe in a universal personal world—which is to say that we believe that all of reality, past, present, and future is shaped by and ordained by God Himself. Further, in common language, we speak of “getting personal” by which we mean some actions or deeds come to one by design, person to person—as a deliberate message from one person to another, personally meant, personally focused, personally orientated. It often refers to something pointed or directed.
Romans 8:28
With respect to the Living God, Christians believe that God is always personal with every human being. He is always “getting personal” with each individual. Our text tells us that for those who have come to love God, having been called by Him, all that is, all that comes to pass in their lives, is a personal message and ministry from God to them as individual souls. It is universally intended by the Lord, planned by Him, executed by Him, caused by Him for their individual good and well-being.
Three comments need to be made, lest we misunderstand this glorious truth. Firstly, we are called and challenged to receive this truth by faith, not by sight. For many of our circumstances are hard and difficult. The Scriptures also are clear that through many trials and sufferings we enter the Kingdom of God. Oftentimes circumstances don't seem good to us: nevertheless, we are called in faith to believe that no matter how desperate or painful the circumstances or events of our lives, even in all of it, God has ordained every part, all of it, for our good, and therefore as an outworking of His beneficent mercy and goodness toward us. Of course, receiving this by faith helps us to be reconciled and thankful for even the most difficult valleys.
The second comment is that we must beware of frantically searching for the good in every circumstance. Sometimes the good that God intends will be immediately obvious to us. Other times, much less so. We have known immature souls work themselves up into a frenzy trying to discern the good in a difficult circumstance, struggling to see and understand, ending up very dispirited. This is not the walk of faith, but of sight. And sight is often inimical to faith.
Finally, we must not fall into the trap of looking for personal messages from God in our circumstances. That is not the kind of cosmic personalism intrinsic to the Christian faith. That kind of immaturity is a hangover from the superstitions of Unbelief, from pagan days and ways. “What is God trying to tell me?” is a question often found on the lips of young Christians, or of Christians weak in faith, when a difficult circumstance arises. But God has already declared to every Believer His personal messages to each and every one: they are found in the promises and declaration of the Scriptures—which are full, final, and complete.
Therefore, as “all things” in our existences unfold—each a unique cluster of circumstances combining with our unique combination of “nature and nurture”, we are to look not into the secret counsels of God, but to His Holy Scriptures. All of nature and circumstances draws us back to His revealed counsels that we might see the already declares things there more clearly, more perceptively, and more meaningfully.
But the universe is personal for the Unbeliever as well. The circumstances—all of the them—experienced by an Unbeliever represent a personal message from God to each individual. Does an Unbeliever experience the blessings of life—children, health, vitality, success? God is speaking personally to them of His mercy, His patience, His goodness. He is calling them to be thankful for His good gifts. Each Unbeliever has his own personally constructed message, calling him to depart from the life of sin and rebellion, and come to the Lord.
Does an Unbeliever experience great pain and suffering? It is the Lord's personal message to them, warning them that what they are experiencing is a mere foretaste, the barest taste, of the wrath that awaits, if they stubbornly refuse to repent. Or does an Unbeliever experience enslavement to alcohol or drugs? It is a warning, a mere foretaste, of an eternity to come without Christ.
The earth is not a machine, wound up, and left to run on its own. The earth, all of creation, is the outworking of the infinite Personal God. There is nothing absolutely or finally impersonal. Even what appear to us to be the most impersonal or random events, such as the lot, cast in the lap, represents the personal will of God. Every hair on the head is numbered. No sparrow can fall without it being the express and directive command of the Father.
For the Believer, it is all a hymn of love, manifesting the goodness of God for our good. For the Unbeliever, it is all a siren of warning and a hymn of invitation to come to God, turning away from sin before it is too late. All of it. Without exception.
He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Thursday, 27 March 2008
Impeaching gods
The “Problem” of Evil
There are many in the vortex of unbelief, which Contra Celsum refers to as Athens—the City of Unbelief—who appeal to the existence of evil as a reason why they do not worship and serve a god. There are many variants to the arguments and objections. Some are more philosophical. How could you love a god who has allowed evil to come to pass? If god is both good and omnipotent then god must be morally culpable for the existence of evil. If god were god why does he not get rid of evil? If evil exists then either god must not be omnipotent, although possibly good; or he must be omnipotent but not good. Either way god is not worth our regard or worship.
Other Athenians express the problem on a more personal and visceral level. There are accounts of people who survived the Nazi concentration camps, who, having entered a camp as professing Christians or Jews emerged as bitter atheists, denying that any god could possibly exist in the light of the evil they had witnessed and endured.
Still others are exponents of “armchair affliction” where they profess themselves to be deeply troubled and disturbed by evil in general and cite this as a reason for their unbelief.
Jerusalem, God's city, looks on these arguments with a kind of detached quizzical curiosity. On the one hand they are amusing in the same way that we find a three year old child's protestations against injustice to be amusing. There is something strange and incongruous in the protest. On the other hand, arguments using evil to “prove” the disreputable nature of any god are an Athenian in-house debate—something that “those people over there do” as a result of their spiritual blindness and foolishness.
The Believing Mind knows that arguments within Athens about evil ultimately have no meaning within that city. They end up being nothing more than idle babbling; all too often the occupation of the chattering, chardonnay drinking classes. Of course, the apostasizing survivors of the Nazi Holocaust and others who have been sorely afflicted in this life are not to be included in this group. The heart of Jerusalem goes out to those in Athens who have genuinely suffered evil and are troubled by it. But for the most part, Athens' attitudes to evil are fundamentally self-deceitful and are not to be taken seriously.
In the first place, it turns out that Athenian chattering about evil disproving a god or disqualifying a god from holding office in Athens is really a smokescreen. Ever since the Garden of Eden, Athens has had its god—and that god is Man. Arguments using evil to impeach any god from holding office are really a pantomime to underscore that Man is the one really in charge here. Truth and reality is what Man says it is. This spiritual reality—where the heart and mind of man determines the existence, being, character and attributes of god for himself—is the abiding animus of Athens. That is why, when we are analyzing the Unbelieving Mind of Athens, “god” is always to be written in lower case. “Man”, in Athens, is always regarded as being in upper case.
Secondly, arguments about evil within Athens have no meaning. Evil and good are not meaningful constructs. They are, as Shakespeare would say, much ado about nothing. Within Athens there is no standard, there is no canon, no measuring stick to define good and evil. The best that Athens can do is speak of good in terms of preferences, wishes, or longings; evil is merely that which is not liked or preferred. Concepts and standards of good and evil within Athens are no more than self serving prejudices—whether derived from custom, culture, rationalist speculation, or a ballot box.
When Athens argues from within its own world-view about the existence of evil it can only be referring to things which it happens to dislike at the time. But, one man's rubbish is another's treasure. What any current Athenian community may find objectionable, other (equally valid) Athenian communities may lionise as good. While it embarrasses Athens to face up to it, the fact remains that Hitler's Ultimate Solution and Stalin's Pogroms were deemed to be morally right, justifiable, and ethical by their perpetrators—and who are any in Athens to gainsay. The notion that Hitler went around perpetrating genocide while saying to himself, “I am evil,” is a laughable naivety. Yet that is precisely what Hitler, or Pol Pot, or Mao Tse Teng are seen by many as doing. No, these monsters were Athenians through and through. They were their own gods. They had determined that certain classes of people were sub-human. Or, that they represented wickedness that justified their “termination”. Or there was a higher principle that made their continued existence inconvenient at the time.
Athens, to be true to itself, has to defend the right of Hitler and Stalin and other perpetrators of horrendous evil to define good and evil for themselves. It is the essence of Unbelief. It is the fundamental charter of Athens. The best, then, that the chardonnay drinkers can do to criticise such horrors is to demur—“Well, that's not what I would do” or, “That's not my preference.” Big bickies. Give that man a DB.
Because good and evil to the Unbelieving Mind has no reference point outside the mind of Man, anything that Man does is possible and defensible—every kind of evil has been and will be seen in the future. In the end, Athens has to embrace it all. Athens does not have a problem with evil. In Athens, evil is a meaningless construct. Evil does not exist. Evil must always be written in inverted commas. Which is to say that Athens is riddled with evil through and through.
In Jerusalem, citizens have been delivered from the empty vanities of Athenian unbelief. They have come to believe once again in the Living God who, Himself, is the ground of all meaning and existence. Evil is real. Evil has its definition and standard in God. Evil is any thought, word, or deed that does not conform to His laws and commands. Such evil has been, and will be punished. Athens, the City of Unbelief, is intrinsically and totally evil, insofar as its entire existence is predicated upon denying the Living God.
It is God who declares what is good. It is God who defines what is evil. Because He has created all things of nothing the entire universe depends completely upon Him for its being and existence; there is nothing to gainsay or contradict Him. Therefore good and evil are meaningful constructs only in Jerusalem. We are entitled to speak of good and evil having an absolute reference point: we can speak meaningfully of ultimate good and evil. Good and evil actually do exist and they exist absolutely and not merely relatively.
Face to face with the infinite and eternal God, we, His creatures, must bow in humble submission and adoration. Not to do so is the height of stupidity, arrogance and folly. Thus, being creatures, a comprehensive understanding of God's purposes in allowing evil to exist are ultimately beyond us, in the same way an exhaustive understanding of why the creation came into existence in the first place are beyond us. The finite creature cannot judge, understand, or question the infinite God. It is precisely this attitude—the respectful attitude of deep humility before the Living God—that Paul enjoins in Romans 9 as he is discussing God's sovereign purposes in the world.
But we do know some things about why evil is allowed to exist. Scripture does give us one hint, one glorious insight with respect to God's present tolerance of evil in the world. Paul goes on to write immediately following the passage cited above:
The “problem” of the patience of God towards evil evaporates. It is subsumed in a higher purpose and glory. Evil will be dealt with fully, finally, and completely in time. But meanwhile the day of reckoning is put off and delayed so that mercy might indeed triumph over judgment.
Finally, we must make an appeal to those in Athens who indeed have suffered and witnessed great evils and whose spirits are broken. They are bitter towards the Living God and towards His people. Their bitterness has become an expression of pride that erects a barrier against their leaving the City of Death. To go over to Jerusalem will somehow trivialise their suffering and betray the monument they wish to erect to it.
But, listen, in your City of Unbelief your fellow citizens believe in their heart of hearts that your suffering was not really suffering. It was not evil. Athens may pity you because you got caught, but in the end Athens cannot agree or confirm that what has happened to you was evil. “Bad luck” is the sum and substance of Athens' comfort—and even then, the “bad” is questionable.
It is only in Jerusalem that evil is regarded as truly evil and monstrous. Only in Jerusalem is there an ineradicable conviction that Hitler and Stalin and their ilk were, and are, demonic. Only in Jerusalem is there a certain belief that eternal justice will be administered and evil will be punished forever. Only in Jerusalem is your suffering taken seriously. Within the walls of this City you will find much comfort and consolation. But to come over you must trust God, that He will make all things right, that He who created all things will punish evil and will wipe away every tear in His own time and in His own way.
There are many in the vortex of unbelief, which Contra Celsum refers to as Athens—the City of Unbelief—who appeal to the existence of evil as a reason why they do not worship and serve a god. There are many variants to the arguments and objections. Some are more philosophical. How could you love a god who has allowed evil to come to pass? If god is both good and omnipotent then god must be morally culpable for the existence of evil. If god were god why does he not get rid of evil? If evil exists then either god must not be omnipotent, although possibly good; or he must be omnipotent but not good. Either way god is not worth our regard or worship.
Other Athenians express the problem on a more personal and visceral level. There are accounts of people who survived the Nazi concentration camps, who, having entered a camp as professing Christians or Jews emerged as bitter atheists, denying that any god could possibly exist in the light of the evil they had witnessed and endured.
Still others are exponents of “armchair affliction” where they profess themselves to be deeply troubled and disturbed by evil in general and cite this as a reason for their unbelief.
Jerusalem, God's city, looks on these arguments with a kind of detached quizzical curiosity. On the one hand they are amusing in the same way that we find a three year old child's protestations against injustice to be amusing. There is something strange and incongruous in the protest. On the other hand, arguments using evil to “prove” the disreputable nature of any god are an Athenian in-house debate—something that “those people over there do” as a result of their spiritual blindness and foolishness.
The Believing Mind knows that arguments within Athens about evil ultimately have no meaning within that city. They end up being nothing more than idle babbling; all too often the occupation of the chattering, chardonnay drinking classes. Of course, the apostasizing survivors of the Nazi Holocaust and others who have been sorely afflicted in this life are not to be included in this group. The heart of Jerusalem goes out to those in Athens who have genuinely suffered evil and are troubled by it. But for the most part, Athens' attitudes to evil are fundamentally self-deceitful and are not to be taken seriously.
In the first place, it turns out that Athenian chattering about evil disproving a god or disqualifying a god from holding office in Athens is really a smokescreen. Ever since the Garden of Eden, Athens has had its god—and that god is Man. Arguments using evil to impeach any god from holding office are really a pantomime to underscore that Man is the one really in charge here. Truth and reality is what Man says it is. This spiritual reality—where the heart and mind of man determines the existence, being, character and attributes of god for himself—is the abiding animus of Athens. That is why, when we are analyzing the Unbelieving Mind of Athens, “god” is always to be written in lower case. “Man”, in Athens, is always regarded as being in upper case.
Secondly, arguments about evil within Athens have no meaning. Evil and good are not meaningful constructs. They are, as Shakespeare would say, much ado about nothing. Within Athens there is no standard, there is no canon, no measuring stick to define good and evil. The best that Athens can do is speak of good in terms of preferences, wishes, or longings; evil is merely that which is not liked or preferred. Concepts and standards of good and evil within Athens are no more than self serving prejudices—whether derived from custom, culture, rationalist speculation, or a ballot box.
When Athens argues from within its own world-view about the existence of evil it can only be referring to things which it happens to dislike at the time. But, one man's rubbish is another's treasure. What any current Athenian community may find objectionable, other (equally valid) Athenian communities may lionise as good. While it embarrasses Athens to face up to it, the fact remains that Hitler's Ultimate Solution and Stalin's Pogroms were deemed to be morally right, justifiable, and ethical by their perpetrators—and who are any in Athens to gainsay. The notion that Hitler went around perpetrating genocide while saying to himself, “I am evil,” is a laughable naivety. Yet that is precisely what Hitler, or Pol Pot, or Mao Tse Teng are seen by many as doing. No, these monsters were Athenians through and through. They were their own gods. They had determined that certain classes of people were sub-human. Or, that they represented wickedness that justified their “termination”. Or there was a higher principle that made their continued existence inconvenient at the time.
Athens, to be true to itself, has to defend the right of Hitler and Stalin and other perpetrators of horrendous evil to define good and evil for themselves. It is the essence of Unbelief. It is the fundamental charter of Athens. The best, then, that the chardonnay drinkers can do to criticise such horrors is to demur—“Well, that's not what I would do” or, “That's not my preference.” Big bickies. Give that man a DB.
Because good and evil to the Unbelieving Mind has no reference point outside the mind of Man, anything that Man does is possible and defensible—every kind of evil has been and will be seen in the future. In the end, Athens has to embrace it all. Athens does not have a problem with evil. In Athens, evil is a meaningless construct. Evil does not exist. Evil must always be written in inverted commas. Which is to say that Athens is riddled with evil through and through.
In Jerusalem, citizens have been delivered from the empty vanities of Athenian unbelief. They have come to believe once again in the Living God who, Himself, is the ground of all meaning and existence. Evil is real. Evil has its definition and standard in God. Evil is any thought, word, or deed that does not conform to His laws and commands. Such evil has been, and will be punished. Athens, the City of Unbelief, is intrinsically and totally evil, insofar as its entire existence is predicated upon denying the Living God.
It is God who declares what is good. It is God who defines what is evil. Because He has created all things of nothing the entire universe depends completely upon Him for its being and existence; there is nothing to gainsay or contradict Him. Therefore good and evil are meaningful constructs only in Jerusalem. We are entitled to speak of good and evil having an absolute reference point: we can speak meaningfully of ultimate good and evil. Good and evil actually do exist and they exist absolutely and not merely relatively.
Face to face with the infinite and eternal God, we, His creatures, must bow in humble submission and adoration. Not to do so is the height of stupidity, arrogance and folly. Thus, being creatures, a comprehensive understanding of God's purposes in allowing evil to exist are ultimately beyond us, in the same way an exhaustive understanding of why the creation came into existence in the first place are beyond us. The finite creature cannot judge, understand, or question the infinite God. It is precisely this attitude—the respectful attitude of deep humility before the Living God—that Paul enjoins in Romans 9 as he is discussing God's sovereign purposes in the world.
“You will say to me, then, 'Why does he still find fault? For who resists His will?' On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, 'Why did you make me like this,' will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use?”Does not the Potter indeed have the right! John Calvin, a great rabbi in Jerusalem, expressed the same principle of humility before God when we are confronted with questions about which God has not spoken nor revealed His mind. When asked once by an Athenian interloper what God was doing before He created the world, Calvin answered: “He was creating Hell for people who ask such foolish questions.” Indeed.
Romans 9:20,21
But we do know some things about why evil is allowed to exist. Scripture does give us one hint, one glorious insight with respect to God's present tolerance of evil in the world. Paul goes on to write immediately following the passage cited above:
“What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He has called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.”God's apparent tolerance of evil is for a time only. It will one day face His full wrath and power when His patience is ended. But the longsuffering of God serves an additional purpose—that He might magnify and glorify His own Name in pouring forth mercy upon those whom He has chosen—when the harvest is fully in, and a great and innumerable multitude from all nations and tribes and tongues and peoples are found before His holy throne in His holy City.
Romans 9: 22,23.
The “problem” of the patience of God towards evil evaporates. It is subsumed in a higher purpose and glory. Evil will be dealt with fully, finally, and completely in time. But meanwhile the day of reckoning is put off and delayed so that mercy might indeed triumph over judgment.
Finally, we must make an appeal to those in Athens who indeed have suffered and witnessed great evils and whose spirits are broken. They are bitter towards the Living God and towards His people. Their bitterness has become an expression of pride that erects a barrier against their leaving the City of Death. To go over to Jerusalem will somehow trivialise their suffering and betray the monument they wish to erect to it.
But, listen, in your City of Unbelief your fellow citizens believe in their heart of hearts that your suffering was not really suffering. It was not evil. Athens may pity you because you got caught, but in the end Athens cannot agree or confirm that what has happened to you was evil. “Bad luck” is the sum and substance of Athens' comfort—and even then, the “bad” is questionable.
It is only in Jerusalem that evil is regarded as truly evil and monstrous. Only in Jerusalem is there an ineradicable conviction that Hitler and Stalin and their ilk were, and are, demonic. Only in Jerusalem is there a certain belief that eternal justice will be administered and evil will be punished forever. Only in Jerusalem is your suffering taken seriously. Within the walls of this City you will find much comfort and consolation. But to come over you must trust God, that He will make all things right, that He who created all things will punish evil and will wipe away every tear in His own time and in His own way.
Wherefore come out from their midst and be separate, says the LordBut if you will not trust Him, despite what He says and promises to you, the only alternative left will be truly demonic and beyond your worst nightmares.
And do not touch what is unclean;
And I will welcome you.
And I will be a Father to you
And you shall be sons and daughters to Me
Says the Lord Almighty.
II Corinthians 6: 17, 18
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