Theological Ramblings

I found this “Motivational Poster” today:

Of course, as a believer in God who also places a high emphasis on rationality, I see this as somewhat of a challenge. There are many out there on both sides, who would have us believe that thinking and believing don’t go together. The underlying assumption is that Christians are blithering idiots who refuse to see truths or facts right in front of their faces. Unfortunately there are far too many Christians about whom that accusation is true. We have dropped the ball in many ways when it comes to dealing with rational arguments against our cause. We don’t do a good job of giving the reason for the hope that we have, and this causes us to lose credibility.

Now I don’t think that it’s necessarily possible to convince someone to turn to Christ by engaging them in logical arguments, because I fully believe that conversion is the work of Christ, but I do believe it’s important to show ourselves to be logical, rational and intelligent. Why? Because as Christians our primary responsibility is to image Christ - to image God - to be his representatives on this earth. And God isn’t stupid! God is the pinnacle of Truth, knowledge and wisdom, and when we act in such a way that portrays us as misguided, willfully ignorant, backwards and stupid, we do God a disservice by showing an image that is false.

This does not mean that our position is wrong. I take much heart in the testimonies of C.S. Lewis and Lee Strobel - guys who considered themselves to be rational and scientific and logical and set out to try to prove Christianity false, only to end up as two of it’s greatest defenders in the 20th Century (and beyond for Strobel). They came to Christ not by having some ooshy gooshy emotional experience in which they felt convicted of their sins and had some weepy sobbing walk up an aisle to the alter at a church. They came to Christ because they were convinced using their rational minds that his claims were right.

One of my favorite apologetical arguments is one C.S. Lewis made. You’ve probably heard of it. Many people claim that Jesus Christ was a great teacher - a prophet from God - but nothing more. The problem is that they forget the things that Jesus said. The prophets before him shared many characteristics with him - yes, but they all prophecied of the One to come. Jesus claimed to be that One. He stood in the midsts of the Jewish community and read aloud from Isaiah a prophecy about the Messiah and then said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” That’s powerful stuff. Jesus claimed to be God. He claimed to be the savior. He claimed perfection.

I love John Piper as a teacher. But he’s human. Piper makes mistakes, and if you ask him I’m confident he’d admit it. Piper’s not God. He’s not infallable. Same goes for John MacArthur. Same goes for Rob Bell. Same goes for R.C. Sproul, Rick Wilson, Bill Brown, C.S. Lewis and every other teacher in the world - Christian or atheist. Every good teacher acknowledges his own weaknesses and humanity. Jesus didn’t acknowledge any. He claimed deity.

So because of that, Lewis argued, we cannot claim that he was a good teacher. We must place him in a different category then. He was either incorrect and didn’t know it - which would make him essentially a lunatic. Or he was incorrect and did know it - which would make him the worst possible liar. Or he was exaxctly what he claimed to be: Lord. Jesus was either a Liar, a Lunatic or He was Lord. He could not have been just a mere teacher or prophet that people blew out of proportion.

I like this argument because, while it doesn’t prove anything about who Jesus was positively, it attacks the middle no man’s land that everyone likes to feel safe in. “Deniers” (for lack of a much better term), like to take that middle ground so as not to be offensive, but still not accept the full ramifications of accepting Christ. Those who push tolerance love this ground. Lewis says it hasn’t a leg to stand on. If you acknowledge the logical validity of this argument, then you must either embrace Christ fully or reject him uterlly. You cannot keep holding him at arms length and saying, “Yeah I like you over there, but don’t come any closer.”

I like this, because I think it was the argument that was the strongest in favor of Lewis turning to Christ. I feel compelled to issue some caveats here. I can feel the conservatives I know chomping at the bit of this one, so let me just get something out in the open: Yes Lewis was an Anglican. So what? There I said it.

Anyway, back to the point. I’m tying this together, I promise. As you can tell I’m rather fascinated by CS Lewis, and not just because his world of Narnia captivated me, but because he’s great at the apologetics. Two of the books I’ve wanted to read by him are The Problem of Pain (1940) and A Grief Observed (1961), particularly the latter, because it was written following the death of his wife Joy Gresham. They deal specifically with the issue Epicurus dealt with above. Pain. Evil. Suffering. Why?

This is a dilemma for us Christians, especially those of us in the reformed tradition, who hold so highly the doctrine of God’s sovereignty. It’s a problem because when stated in the way Epicurus stated it, it looks to logically prove God to be either evil or non existent. And when we don’t engage in the argument, we look either like idiots or uncaring. So here’s the argument again. It deals with the coexistence of God and evil and the fact that God hasn’t eradicated evil yet. To Epicurus God is either

1. Willing to stop evil, but unable
2. Able to stop evil, but unwilling
3. Able to stop evil and willing
4. Unable and unwilling to stop evil

If the first, then he is powerless. If the second, then he is evil. If the third, then he is not sovereign. And if the fourth he is not God.

Now I’m not going to take a two wills approach on this issue. I’ve known too many Thomists (exactly 1) to know that that won’t fly with good philosophers. There are several levels at which this breaks down. First is the assumption that God owes it to us to stop evil. Now this isn’t an altogether illogical assumption because God has proclaimed his love for us. In fact God is love, so it would be impossible for God to be unloving. But God is also just and in many cases treating someone justly is the most loving thing one can do, so allowing evil to occur to someone who justly deserves it is not evil.

Second is the assumption that the evil serves no purpose. Let me state this another way. Suppose my 8 month old son was crawling on the floor one day and finds some piece of garbage that he decides to eat. Fortunately for him I am a good parent and I see him and take it way from him. He screams and fusses at being thwarted in his desire to ingest the trash, but I don’t feel the least bit sorry for him. Now, even if I did not then pick him up and put him in his high chair where I delivered to him a plate full of good nutritius freshly prepared food for him to eat, I would not be considered evil for having allowed such a calamity to occur to him. It was for his good. Allowing the evil was a means to an end.

According to a Reformed Christian Worldview, nothing in this world occurs without God’s direct cause or intentional allowance. He is not aloof. He is not unaware. He knows. He cares. He does and he allows. Does this then make him evil for allowing bad things to happen?

First no. Because nobody is good. We often look at things like 9/11 and thing that evil is this big unfair force out there that punishes the innocent. But we are not so innocent. We are not as bad as the terrorists, or as they supposed we are, but let’s not kid ourselves, we murder infants by the thousands every day. We allow the poor to whither and die (I’m not attacking economics or politics, I’m talking about the heart of every person.) Seriously. When was the last time you went to a ball game and didn’t even notice the poor people begging on the street? And I’m no better than you. We’re not such a glistening gem of innocence are we. I don’t even have to talk about original sin here. The fact of the matter is, all you have to do is watch a fat, ugly guy think he has a chance with a pretty girl. We all think we’re better than we really are. We all think we deserve more than we really do. Why do you think our country is so obsessed with law frivolous law suits? But I digress. I think you’ve gotten my point.

Second. The evil allowed does have a purpose. God’s glory. This happens in several ways. 1) He uses it as a tool to call someone to himself 2) He will one day in the end show himself glorious by defeating evil once and for all. It’s like every hero in every book or movie. You know that moment right before the climax, when it looks like Blofeld is going to get away with his dastardly plan and Bond is going to be smashed to bits, or blown apart, or whatever. And then Bond gets out of whatever trap he’s in and gloriously thwarts the bad guys, and it’s more glorious because of it. Imagine if the movie consisted of Spectre hatching their plan, only to find Bond standing in the room. He shoots them all and walks out. Movie over. Crisis averted. It would last ten minutes. It would be boring, predictable and pointless. But when it’s done like it’s done, you’re left with that warm fuzzy when Max Zorin falls to his death, and you know Bond is the greatest hero ever.

Yeah, it’s seriously like that. In the end, when evil seems to be at it’s all time worst and Satan looks like he’s going to win, that’s when God’s going to step in and finish it all off, and the rest will just be a great denoument - for eternity. And God will be shown as the greatest hero ever.

Finally, of course, there’s Romans 8:28. Don’t scoff at it. I know it’s cliche, but it’s true. No matter what happens, it works out for good. What is good: to be conformed to the image of his son as we’ve been predestined to be. So, God gets glory in this life time by using good and bad events to shape Christians into a less distorted image of him, to reclaim their created purpose.

So, it’s obvious I think the second is true. God is able to stop evil, but he’s unwilling to stop it. By that I mean he’s unwilling to stop it now. He will stop it one day, and it will be a great event. Does this mean God is machiavellian? You decide that. I admit that it kind of does, but that doesn’t necessarily make it false. I’d like to hear your thoughts.

I’m very curious to read C.S. Lewis’s books because I want his thoughts on the issue.