"DEAR GOD, YOU SURE DON'T ACT LIKE YOU'RE ALIVE" - Day 2

Day 2 – God’s existence versus God’s nature (II)

I refuse to believe in a God who lets a child die like that.  –a DOCTOR in Camus’ novel The Plague

Since the Holocaust, it is impossible for a Jew to believe in God.  –a disillusioned JEW

Problems frequently arise when the subjects of God’s existence and nature are enmeshed as one. Approaching the two simultaneously leads to appropriate questions being asked at inappropriate times. Consider, for example, the doctor and the Jew quoted above. Both of them, when confronted with suffering, begin to question the existence of God. The plain truth, however, is that such agony has nothing to do with God’s existence but everything to do with His nature. Unfortunately, neither the doctor nor the Jew is aware of this disconnect, and the result is doubt and despair. If they or others are determined to explore God’s existence and nature concurrently, they must recognize the differences between the two, keep each distinct in their minds, and form an opinion about one independent of the other.

Better still is to treat the two subjects as a decathlete would treat two phases of the competition. The 800-meter run and the pole vault must be dealt with individually and in sequential order. The athlete must focus on the first until completed, then on the other until likewise completed. To dwell for any considerable length of time on the phase ahead (or behind) would be pointless. On the other hand, to forget about the upcoming events altogether would not be advisable either, for the tendency might be to pace oneself poorly for the long haul. The ultimate goal—finishing the decathlon—would then be in jeopardy.

 Again, you see, the secret is to treat the two subjects as separate entities pointing to a common end.

Daily Quotations

Quoted in Steve Kumar, Christianity for Skeptics (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2000), 40.

Quoted by Barry R. Levanthal in Christian Apologetics Journal, Spring 1998, Vol.1, No.1.