Day 32 – indiscriminate suffering
T hus far, we have attributed to God the following titles:
• From the Argument from Design: The Active, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Volitional, Sovereign Creator of the Universe around Us
• From the Argument from Fairness: The Moral, Righteous, Holy Author of the Moral Law within Us
• From the Argument from Supernatural Belief: The Transcendent, Gracious Initiator of a Relationship with Us
Daily Quotation
Leslie D. Weatherhead, Why Do Men Suffer?, 89.
The typhoon, the cyclone, the whirlwind, the earthquake, the volcanic eruption, the storm...makes even serious thinkers wonder whether...a callous Fiend is on the throne of the universe, whether Anybody is on the throne of the universe at all, whether the universe has got out of hand, or whether it is badly made. --LESLIE WEATHERHEAD
I told you at the start of this leg of our religious journey that we would look at the universe around us and discover what it tells us about God. In other words, what about God’s nature can we deduce from nature itself?
• From the Argument from Design: The Active, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Volitional, Sovereign Creator of the Universe around Us
• From the Argument from Fairness: The Moral, Righteous, Holy Author of the Moral Law within Us
• From the Argument from Supernatural Belief: The Transcendent, Gracious Initiator of a Relationship with Us
Probing a bit further into that relationship, we have looked at pain and suffering in the world and have tried to understand why God would allow it. The answer we have gleaned thus far is this:
• God gave us the Moral Law.
• God gave us the freedom to choose whether or not to obey the Moral Law.
• We often make bad choices that result in pain and suffering (retributive suffering).
• We often make good choices that result in pain and suffering (sacrificial suffering)
But there is a subset of suffering that seems unrelated to our choices, good or bad. Consider, for example, the misery that comes from natural calamity. There does not appear to be any connection to human choice here. The tornado rotates, the earthquake rumbles, and the flood rages independent of our actions. The sudden Indonesian Tsunami of 2004 and the flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 are two such recent natural events, and they cannot be attributed to man's volition. Nor can they too flippantly be ascribed to God’s discipline. They seem to come for no reason and claim as their victims young and old, rich and poor, good and bad.
Many physical illnesses present to us the same problem. An eight-year-old boy dies from lymphoma, a young father succumbs to an aggressive bacterial illness, a college volleyball player collapses on the court from a fatal intracranial hemorrhage, and a middle-aged man becomes the victim of progressive senile dementia. And there seems to be no rhyme or reason for it. No bad choice to blame, no good choice to claim—only suffering, inexorable and inexplicable
Many physical illnesses present to us the same problem. An eight-year-old boy dies from lymphoma, a young father succumbs to an aggressive bacterial illness, a college volleyball player collapses on the court from a fatal intracranial hemorrhage, and a middle-aged man becomes the victim of progressive senile dementia. And there seems to be no rhyme or reason for it. No bad choice to blame, no good choice to claim—only suffering, inexorable and inexplicable
We must now turn our attention to this aspect of suffering. We will try to determine what these natural calamities tell us about the nature of God. Once again, we will do so as honestly and simply as we can. No attempt will be made to deceive or confound. And no promise will be made of absolute answers. The problem here is too real to so glibly boast. In the next few pages we will truly come into the presence of a mystery as old and deep as humanity. As we do, humility rather than pride should be our companion.
Daily Quotation
Leslie D. Weatherhead, Why Do Men Suffer?, 89.
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