A Look at Suffering - Part Seven - Is God to Blame?

Putting together everything we've discussed in the previous posts we should be able to answer: no.

But, even still for me, it's hard to accept that God would allow evils to exist, let alone happen.  The murder of thousands, the murder of one child, the earthquake in Haiti...and the list goes on.  We all have our lists, personal and public of tragedies that have happened and we look to God and ask: why?!

So let's make it clear: God DOES NOT WILL any of these tragedies to occur.

This is clear from the beginning of the Bible and quite a main point in Jesus' ministry.

The question we are still left with is "why?"

Boyd reminds us that, "Knowing...that freedom must be irrevocable and that a vast, unknowable complexity engulfs every event in history helps us understand in principal why God cannot do more in general.  But precisely because every event is engulfed in an unknowable complexity, we can never understand why God didn't do more in any particular circumstance."

So in short: the "why" may never be fully answered.  Even if it could be, it no doubt wouldn't be to our satisfaction.

Boyd continues, "Given our myopic vision we can only fix our eyes on Jesus and trust that God looks like Him...And when [evil] isn't prevented, we trust Him to bring good out of it."

This isn't to say it's easy.  At times, especially at times of tragedy, faith is difficult.

It's hard to believe that God CAN'T do something.  That God CAN'T prevent something, especially evil, from happening.  In that sense, isn't God to blame?

Again, the issue isn't truly about his power.  To say it bluntly: there ISN'T anything God CAN'T do, as it pertains to power, brute force, ability.

But there are things God can't do as it pertains to character.

The issue becomes, then, do we agree with God's plan of risk or not?  Do we agree with God that love, to be real and honest, must be a choice and not coerced?

We do.

Parents do it everyday...allowing their children a life of LOVE and RISK.  And as time goes on, more and more risk.

Do we hold parents culpable for everything their child does?  Especially the adult "children?"

Do YOU want to control every aspect of your child's life?  Most likely, because you want to keep them safe...yet, a life YOU control is no life FOR them - and we know this.  Moreover, we much prefer that our children have a life of their own...which means: risk.

Yet it is, perhaps, the most perfect example of LOVE.

How much MORE perfect, then, is God's love?

But how does this reflect his character?

We have faith that God will do everything he can, within the conditions he has created, to keep evil from happening...yet, knowing that God holds himself to these constraints means that we can trust him completely, because he DOES NOT act arbitrarily.

Would you trust a person that acted any way they wanted, at any time, just because they felt like it?  No, of course not.  We trust certain people because we have seen how they act in certain situations.  In other words, because we know that person has put restraints upon themselves on how they act.  We then can TRUST how that person will act in certain situations.

Is that not how we would like our relationship with God to be?  To know that we can count on God to act in accordance with His character as revealed to us through Jesus?

Unfortunately, given the complexity of the world, how God is "able" to operate is not so cut and dry.  But we can know, and have faith and trust, that God did not act arbitrarily but with perfect clarity and perfect character.

I don't like that, but I do accept it.  I don't like not KNOWING why...but I trust in God that He did everything He could to prevent it, and in no way did He WILL it.

And when there is significant doubt, and there will be, THAT is when we fix our eyes on Jesus and remember, that when we see Jesus we see God.