A few weeks ago, I shared the beginning story of my journey with Faith. Having grown up Catholic, later to grow deeply passionate about my Faith in God in high school, I hit a wall a few years ago that I am currently struggling to surmount. As I left things in the last post, I was "firing more questions and frustrations than my Faith seemed to be able to answer."
Part of growing in one's Christian faith involves reading the bible, learning, studying and putting into practice all that you take in. So as a staff person for a well-known ministry, I was immersed in learning. I wanted to grow, as I was also teaching others about my Faith.
The Bible is a very complicated text. Perhaps not to technically read, but to process. There are things that contradict, things that don't make sense, things that are difficult to swallow. When faced with these things, I have found there two roads you can travel down:
Continue to plug through to find answers. Study. Read. Ask. Pray. Meditate. Grapple with the difficult text until you come up with a suitable explanation.
Accept that there are "mysteries of Faith." Accept that part of having Faith is to be "certain of that which we cannot see."
I get that. I get that there could be things in this life that are more complex than I can understand. I get that we are limited beings, and that if there was God, who is unlimited, omniscient, and perfect, there are things that He could grasp and do that I could not.
But the more I read, the more the "inexplicables" started piling up. And soon "having Faith" wasn't able to contain the mountain of questions that were punching holes through the very Faith that was supposed to be holding my life together. It felt like the foundation I had been living my life upon started to feel wobbly. I felt the bricks falling out here and there. And the feeling is unsettling.
I so wanted to believe everything I had always believed: the very Christianity that had given me life, grace and forgiveness. The Faith that had put purpose and meaning in my life. The beliefs that gave me hope, even in death. The God that made the World make sense.
But the holes punched in my Faith became windows to more questions. And soon, there were things that I could no longer feel good about blindly accepting: the "Why's?" of this strange life:
- Why a beautful, innocent little girl could be ravaged by a disgusting ugly disease that would take her life in just months? Why ANY child should have to suffer or be taken from this life before getting to actually live it?
- Why humans are capable of doing awful, evil things? Worldwide? In our own neighborhoods?
- Why there is such a gross discrepancy between rich and poor? Why are we so greedy and willing to turn a blind eye to the living conditions of those who live in other parts of the world?
- Why good people are punished by a God for living with a "sin" that He himself "inflicted" them with?
I know I am over-simplifying these complex issues, and it deserves a longer, more involved conversation. And I haven't taken these issues lightly. Believe me, it is really hard to face these questions when I was once the one answering these questions. I am at a stale-mate: unable to find answers, comfort or relief in the Bible where I once would. Unable to find peace by chalking up these issues to "God is bigger, God is in control, God has a plan." If anything, it is those sentiments that are now the root of my struggles.
I don't know which is harder for me to accept:
A God who is UNABLE to change or fix the ugly, evil and disgusting things of this World. This would make God impotent, weak and small. What good would it be to have Faith in a God like this? And how would a God like this have been able to create this world and everything in it, but then not be strong enough to be in control of it? In this case, God would most certainly not be "bigger, in control, with a plan."
-or-
A God who is completely ABLE to change or fix the ugly evil and disgusting things of this World, but chooses not to. A sovereign God who allows. A powerful God who gives beautiful, innocent kids cancer and takes their lives away. A powerful God who does not stop the destructive wars, murders, and genocides that kill His people. A powerful God who blesses some with money while making others suffer in poverty. In this case, God would be unloving and cruel.
Neither seem like the God I thought I knew. Neither one of these Gods scream sovereignty, love, forgiveness, grace, redemption.
"Having Faith" does not cover this.
But it does not end here, either.
Hey, Steph, I just thought I'd let you know that you are not alone! I'm in the same boat. But I just had to share: "The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair" -Relient K.
ReplyDeleteGod gave us free will. Jesus died for us, to give us free will. So although it's not fair that children die of disease everyday, that people are starving, murdered, etc...He has to let it be that way. It's a gift He gave to us, but unfortunately, it's a curse as well.
My youth pastor explained it much better, haha, and I've never really needed another explanation since...I hope this gives you a little more peace!
Hi Steph,
ReplyDeleteI wholly agree with Megan above, but let me build on her response regarding Free Will…
Theologians have struggled for centuries with explaining how we can logically believe in a God who is omniscient (all knowing), omnipotent (all powerful), omnipresent (always ‘there’) and benevolent and at the same time believe in human free will. Ancient religions often just chalked up the bad things in life to their God either being absent from (no omnipresence) or ignorant to (no omniscience) their plights; or to their God having a vengeful streak (no benevolence). In some polytheistic cases, ancients understood their God to be weaker than the Gods of neighboring societies or losing a cosmic battle between Good and evil Gods (in both cases, no omnipotence). But if we, as Christians believe in a monotheistic God who loves us unconditionally, knows about our suffering, and is capable of relieving our suffering, then we naturally want to know why this God doesn’t act against our suffering.
The wrench in the whole plan of the universe is human free will. In order for free will to exist, God either cannot be omnipresent, omniscient, or omnipotent. Or at least, God, in God’s Divine wisdom, must self-limit one of those three aspects of God-self, to allow humans to make their own choices. Now, any one of those three can be missing and the whole design can work, but the Christian formulation specifically limits God’s power. Christians, on the whole, want to believe that God knows of their suffering and is present with them through their suffering. Thus, the only option left is to limit God’s ability to act in the face of suffering. Of course, this answer is only a sliver more appealing that the other two. Why would we want to believe in a God who would choose not to act in the face of our suffering?
Of course, the “choice” to believe in a God is a thoroughly modern concept. Ancient and medieval cultures could not have conceived of a world in which religion and faith were a matter of choice. In these societies, religion was an engrained part of the cultural norms. It would be like living in America without money and shopping – can we conceive of a society that does not exchange goods according to a monetary system? Sure, but is that concept so foreign to us that it seems nearly impossible to construct? Religion once occupied such a place in our minds.
Still, today we have a culture in which faith itself is even subject to free will. In many ways, I believe that this is exactly why God gave us free will in the first place. I believe that God gives free will in order to be in a relationship of love. Think about it: if God made our choices for us, would we be free to love one another and to love God? Therefore, God must self limit God’s own divine power to intercede in human choice in order that humans would choose to love God and to love one another. Here I draw from scripture an image that is apropos to your blog: God as a loving parent. God, in God’s loving wisdom, allows us to suffer sometimes because God knows that freedom is more important for our development in the grand scheme of things. You and I and all of your parental readers can understand this from first hand experience. Sure we want to hold our children close and never let them come to harm, but at some point we need to let them fall a few times so they learn how to walk, and run, and climb, and ride a bike, and drive, and so on. The same is true for teaching them to make decisions for themselves, the most important of which is the choice to love.
ng.
Hi Steph,
ReplyDeleteI wholly agree with Megan above, but let me build on her response regarding Free Will…
Theologians have struggled for centuries with explaining how we can logically believe in a God who is omniscient (all knowing), omnipotent (all powerful), omnipresent (always ‘there’) and benevolent and at the same time believe in human free will. Ancient religions often just chalked up the bad things in life to their God either being absent from (no omnipresence) or ignorant to (no omniscience) their plights; or to their God having a vengeful streak (no benevolence). In some polytheistic cases, ancients understood their God to be weaker than the Gods of neighboring societies or losing a cosmic battle between Good and evil Gods (in both cases, no omnipotence). But if we, as Christians believe in a monotheistic God who loves us unconditionally, knows about our suffering, and is capable of relieving our suffering, then we naturally want to know why this God doesn’t act against our suffering.
The wrench in the whole plan of the universe is human free will. In order for free will to exist, God either cannot be omnipresent, omniscient, or omnipotent. Or at least, God, in God’s Divine wisdom, must self-limit one of those three aspects of God-self, to allow humans to make their own choices. Now, any one of those three can be missing and the whole design can work, but the Christian formulation specifically limits God’s power. Christians, on the whole, want to believe that God knows of their suffering and is present with them through their suffering. Thus, the only option left is to limit God’s ability to act in the face of suffering. Of course, this answer is only a sliver more appealing that the other two. Why would we want to believe in a God who would choose not to act in the face of our suffering?
Of course, the “choice” to believe in a God is a thoroughly modern concept. Ancient and medieval cultures could not have conceived of a world in which religion and faith were a matter of choice. In these societies, religion was an engrained part of the cultural norms. It would be like living in America without money and shopping – can we conceive of a society that does not exchange goods according to a monetary system? Sure, but is that concept so foreign to us that it seems nearly impossible to construct? Religion once occupied such a place in our minds.
Still, today we have a culture in which faith itself is even subject to free will. In many ways, I believe that this is exactly why God gave us free will in the first place. I believe that God gives free will in order to be in a relationship of love. Think about it: if God made our choices for us, would we be free to love one another and to love God? Therefore, God must self limit God’s own divine power to intercede in human choice in order that humans would choose to love God and to love one another. Here I draw from scripture an image that is apropos to your blog: God as a loving parent. God, in God’s loving wisdom, allows us to suffer sometimes because God knows that freedom is more important for our development in the grand scheme of things. You and I and all of your parental readers can understand this from first hand experience. Sure we want to hold our children close and never let them come to harm, but at some point we need to let them fall a few times so they learn how to walk, and run, and climb, and ride a bike, and drive, and so on. The same is true for teaching them to make decisions for themselves, the most important of which is the choice to love.
[...continuing...]
ReplyDeleteYou are correct that we should not oversimplify the situations of human reality. It would be overly simplistic to say that God allows children to have diseases so that families can learn a lesson from it, perhaps to love in new and stronger ways. But if we try to recognize the complete picture (which of course is impossible for us to do completely, but possible for God), we can begin to realize that even when evil seems to be winning in this world, we would not trade the small victories of love to live in a world without such a conflict. We would not give up our free will to live in a world without suffering, for to live in a world without free will would be to live in a world without love, and even the greatest of suffering, and even death is not worth that cost.
Suffering is the unfortunate by-product of allowing humans to make choices for themselves. Sometimes humans make bad choices and because of the realities of being a social animal, we have to live with the consequences of the choices of others, like our children dealing with the choices of playground bully and like all of us dealing with choices like terrorism and genocide. This is what original sin is: once the first choice to “sin” was made, evil had entered the world, and we now must deal with that reality in the form of dealing with the sinful choices of others. However, God gives those who believe in God and Jesus and the Christian faith another choice for how to be. We can cleanse ourselves of being sinful through baptism and choose to live a life of love rather than sin. And through reconciliation, we can keep up our loving relationship even when we fail. Perhaps the better metaphor for this type of love is one of loving spouses, who know the other will make mistakes from time to time, and are willing to forgive and ask for forgiveness out of the love we share for each other.
However, belief in God does not protect us from suffering for two reasons. First, is that there remain those people and those choices in the world that simply don’t follow the same understanding of how the world works. Secondly, even if God is omniscient, we are not. We do not always see the consequences of our actions. Sometimes we should, other times the world is far to complicated to be able to accurately predict how our choices with intersect with the choices of others. And sometimes those choices end up very badly. But if we hold on to the belief that God is omniscient and omnipresent, then we can hold on to the notion of a God who knows our suffering and is present with us through our suffering.
Matt Gaudet
Hi Steph,
ReplyDeleteWouldn’t be me if I did not weigh in, and you are not alone.
Faith is a complicated mechanism of logic just as love, beauty, or happiness. I find the movie Bruce Almighty comical when Jim Carrey organizes all the prayers on a PC and answers all them with “YES”…worlds problems solved, right? No, it amplified problems.
I guess I have to go back a little ways to understand… When God created Adam he had one rule and one rule only “Don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” This is the only rule God had. Then God created Eve. Both lived without sin- a sinless world. WOO HOO! Yes, I know Bible 101…but stick with me….Enter the serpent or sin. Instantly, sin influences Adam and Eve because she tells the serpent “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.” Ummm, she added the “touch” part – Chicks!. What happens next, the woman desires the fruit for gaining wisdom. In my best Meat Loaf impression “STOP RIGHT THERE…!” She “desires” …ummm they had everything they needed- why desire? Then the rest of the story is as we know it…Adam eats. They realize they are nekked, Adam throws Eve under the bus, we need to use the land to survive, Weeds/ thistle are now abundant, we are to die and be buried, and the original Sinners –Adam and Eve are our book mark ancestry.
I know I condensed and added humor but the sequence is just that. In the beginning we had no sin, no worry of pain, no worry of disease, where our food is coming from, war, clothing, ect. We fast forward to Moses. Israelites are in slavery, pain, and persecution. Diligent in prayer God send Moses to deliver them from the Egyptians…Moses has 10 Rules/laws delivered from God but the free Israelites have already diss’d God and moved on to a golden statue. Ummm we as humans could not hold 1 law, highly unlikely we could hold 10. Just sayin’
Fast, fast forward…Enter Jesus – performing miracles, walking talking, teaching, preaching. 12 disciples are living along with Jesus hanging out with him watching all these great things he is doing. Jesus tells them He is going to die soon. The disciple get all bowed up! What yer leaving? What will we do? Jesus comforts them and says “Just Follow me.” But the disciples living with Jesus seeing all the miracles say “ just show us the father and we will be satisfied.” Jesus follows up with a “SAY WHAT?” and then drops the Faith bomb on them. Lastly, in this Jesus says “I don’t have much more time to talk to you, because the ruler of this world approaches. He has no power over me, 31 but I will do what the Father requires of me, so that the world will know that I love the Father.” Holy crap this is huge. No way could I give up Caldon to be whipped, tortured, mocked, spit on…you get my point. Not only did Jesus die for our sins..but he squashed ceremonial law and civil laws leaving us with moral laws and to live as Jesus did. (John 14:1-31)
OK, OK…enough Bible stuff. I know you already know this but needed to put it into context.
How does all this apply to today? You and I?
ReplyDeleteAs Christians we live a spiritual roller coaster in our relationship with God and often these cycles are connected to the way we feel—in other words, to our emotions. I mean, good God even the disciples doubted Jesus…they freakin’ lived with him and still questioned.
We live in a world that is filled with evil and violence… Jesus even warned that evil will grow worse before He comes again.
Why, then, is there so much evil in the world? That isn't an easy question to answer; I have wondered it for years, and I still don't know the full answer. But I do know this: God is real—but so is Satan, and the evil we see all around us comes from him, not from God. It also comes from the sin and rebellion of our own hearts or desire (Psst Eve had this, remember?)
In the meantime, God calls us to be faithful to Himself, and never give in to evil or sin.
The real issue, isn't why bad things happen, but how we should react to them. We can see that bad things we spawned went way back to our legacy. Will we react in anger and bitterness or will we respond in faith and trust? Anger is a dead-end road—it only hurts us and those around us, and doesn't solve anything. But faith gives us hope—hope for the present and hope for the future knowing good, though intertwined with evil, will prevail.
I also struggle with the bad life has:
- The troops returning from Iraq or Afghanistan face struggles.
- People in the Midwest and in Texas are suffering from all the tornadoes or wild fires that destroyed their homes and communities.
- My own wife chronic pain each day.
- Children dyeing
-Cancer or disease
But out of all this evil, pain suffering, death, disease, and so on… we have a choice to see evil or to see Gods hand in it. We had a perfect world long ago without cancer or illness but we as humans buggered that up.
Questions:
ReplyDeleteSTEPH’s QI:
A God who is UNABLE to change or fix the ugly, evil and disgusting things of this World. This would make God impotent, weak and small. What good would it be to have Faith in a God like this? Fortunately, he is able to change these things. I see a God who can do all these things but our humanness, free will, desire, selflessness, morals, and so on keep screwing it up.
And how would a God like this have been able to create this world and everything in it, but then not be strong enough to be in control of it? He did have control with only one stinken’ rule and we as humans fail to uphold that rule. We to date are still paying for this. Remember God on many occasions purged the bad things i.e. Noah, Moses, Sodom and Gomorrah, Jericho. Thankfully, God sent his son to the cross so we now have faith vs. Gods purging wrath.
In this case, God would most certainly not be "bigger, in control, with a plan."
-or-
STEPH’s QII:
A God who is completely ABLE to change or fix the ugly evil and disgusting things of this World, but chooses not to.
A sovereign God who allows. A powerful God who gives beautiful, innocent kids cancer and takes their lives away.
A powerful God who does not stop the destructive wars, murders, and genocides that kill His people.
A powerful God who blesses some with money while making others suffer in poverty.
In this case, God would be unloving and cruel.
We as humans refused God, turned our back on him, mocked him, sinned against him, rejected him, patronize him mean while he continues to love us and he sends his son to teach us about him, to die on the cross, and to leave an example yet we still ask for him to shows us or fix us.
Just as in Bruce Almighty, He can answer all of this and say yes… But we will still screw it up. So what can God do? Maybe we need to change our heart to keep us from screwing it up. DING! Jesus helps us change our heart through scripture.
Your questions are encouraging. God wants us to question and dig deeper so what you are thinking is natural. Gods vagueness can sometimes be taught through life lessons. Bernadette and I know whole heartedly about sudden death of young people but will save this for another time.
Please read this blog and FB from a friend of mine…he sums things up much better than I. A little background on him, Phil, lived local and played in the worship team at Dilworthtown Church. I also worked with him here at Agilent in Delaware. His wife is from South Africa and they had the opportunity to move there closer to her family. Phil, wife, and two kids packed up and moved to South Africa. His blog and Facebook can finish from here:
FB : https://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=10150291145580739
and
blog : http://durbansingleparentmale.com/?page_id=37
Peace my friend,
Cal
I read this post this morning before heading off to my women's bible study. I thought about it during my whole drive, prayed about it, even jotted down notes in the parking lot! But I really can't do justice to the eloquent words of the posters before me.
ReplyDeleteI too would speak of free choice, of God wanting us to choose a relationship with him and therefore giving us that freedom in every area of our lives. I would remind you of all the ways humans messed it up even to the point of God wiping them out with a flood. That in his attempt to get our attention and to make his point of love clear he sent Jesus. That even though it is all laid out for us we continue to turn our backs on him, choose our own path, do what feels good to us. And because of all of that we live surrounded by evil and ugliness and things we can't wrap our minds around. Because the choices of others continue to spill all over our lives. Think of the example of oil and water. I read somewhere that it only takes 1 gallon of oil to contaminate 1,000,000 gallons of water. I think that unfortunately the same is true when it comes to evil polluting good.
Anyway, all that to say that I appreciate your honesty. I think we all have our moments of doubt. For me I know that the more I separate myself from time with God in prayer, time in His word, and time with His people the more doubt creeps in. When we aren't arming ourselves Satan seems to take every chance to weasel his way in. I pray that you find peace in all of this. I pray that your courage to share your truth touches others and continues to spark honest friendly discussions.
Hi Steph,
ReplyDeleteI came across your blog last week when I was looking for different perspectives from stay-at-home moms. This post struck a chord with me. In fact, I had a similar conversation with a devout Christian this week. I am not well- versed in the Bible, and I would not call myself a Christian; but I continuously think of God and meaning, and try to do it without anger or cynicism. I heard this interview with Rabbi Kushner on NPR over a year ago (when I was still commuting to work), and while it didn't offer me solace, it at least gave me some hope for peace:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124582959
Your post reminded me that I still need to check out this book, so thank you.
This is such a great post, Steph, and certainly something that every single one of us toils over. Funny enough, Greg's message today was all about Hebrew 11:1 and the simple act of having faith. So often much easier said than done! The only thing that I can tell myself is that we just don't see God's plan and are in no way capable of comprehending it. We don't know the reasons behind things, but there is a reason and we have to have faith that these things happen for something wonderful that we just can't understand.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing.
xox
Kat