Human Suffering (1)

Human suffering is very great. Much of it seems senseless. Much of it is so evil that I cannot comprehend it. Vile violence against women and girls, perhaps more than anything else, pierces my heart like a knife.

What anchors my faith in Christ in the face of senseless suffering and brutal inhumanity? In The Beauty of God chapter 8, I have explored some of the reasons for God permitting pain and evil to afflict His good creation. Scattered throughout other chapters I have provided some analysis of various alternatives to the biblical worldview. In this post I want to bring the major alternatives to biblical revelation together. When my heart is burdened by suffering in the world, I run through them in my mind, and I see afresh how impossible they are.

There are really only four major worldviews (aside from Christianity) that are viable candidates for adoption by all people. My purpose is to show that they are all fundamentally flawed in their approach to human suffering. I am well aware that people are often either better or worse than their theoretical convictions. I am not criticizing the adherents of these views. I am critiquing their understanding of the ultimate foundation of life.

In subsequent postings, I hope to give an analysis of the Bible’s teaching on suffering and why it succeeds where the others fail. Whenever I think through the options available, I realize afresh that there really is no other place to turn except the Triune God of the Bible.

There is no hope in Hinduism. The doctrine of Karma insists that your lot in this life is your well-merited fate because of sins committed in a prior existence. Hindus (by the grace of the true God) are often better than their religion. Tens of thousands protested the gang rape of a young woman on a private bus in New Delhi in 2012, but their doctrine should have taught them to say, “No doubt, she deserved it.”

Furthermore, the suffering of the body does not really touch the soul. In the Indian holy book, the Bhagavad-Gita, the god Krishna encourages Arjuna not to feel guilty about killing his wicked cousins in battle because death is only an illusion: “As a person puts on new garments, giving up old ones, similarly the soul accepts new material bodies, giving up the old and useless ones. The soul can never be cut into pieces by any weapon, nor can he be burned by fire, nor moistened by water, nor withered by the wind.... It is said that the soul is invisible, inconceivable, immutable and unchangeable. Knowing this, you should not grieve for the body” (2.22-25). Therefore, logically, the rape of this young woman did her no harm. If we believe Krishna, we should say that we are outraged at her rape because we cannot see past the outer shell of the body.

The more refined forms of philosophical Hinduism may say that the Atman (the self) is Brahman (ultimate reality) “within” and Brahman is the Atman “without.” The individuality of the self is an illusion. The self and Brahman are one. The goal of life is to escape reincarnation by acquiring good Karma. Then the tiny drop of individual consciousness will be dissolved in the great ocean of impersonal, universal Brahman. This sounds very noble until one realizes that pain and pleasure or God and the devil are therefore only names for our misperceptions of the all-encompassing, impersonal Being. The horror of rape and the pleasure of a good dinner with friends are equally illusory.

There is no blessedness in Buddhism. The Buddha traced suffering to desire. If one can quench self-centered desire, he will no longer suffer. This is the enlightenment that Buddha achieved. Setting aside later developments that virtually deified Buddha and other enlightened beings, we are left with a set of psychological techniques for achieving a state in which one is not bothered by the vicissitudes of life. After enlightenment, the flame of an individual life will no longer have to pass through the weary round of suffering, death, rebirth, and suffering. Instead, it will enter Nirvana. Nirvana is not a place. It is the impersonal, ultimate reality. Buddha would not describe Nirvana, except to say that it is bliss. The problem, however, is that bliss is a personal trait which is inconsistent with the impersonality of Nirvana. Bliss and the extinction of desire (the blowing out of the flame of life) are fundamentally incompatible.

Of course, some eastern philosophers claim not to be bothered by logical contradictions. In their view A and Non-A may be equally ultimate, but this is only a mind game. They do not and cannot live as if the real world is ultimately contradictory. No Buddhist or Hindu philosopher will act as if being run over by a car is the same as escaping such a fate.

In the end, Buddhism, which began with Buddha’s distress over suffering, offers only an anesthetic.

There is no inspiration in Islam. Islam claims to be based on revelations given to Muhammad (d. AD 632) by the archangel Jibril. Its references to biblical characters and events are clearly only a mishmash of stories picked up by Muhammad from contact with Jews and Christians and various cults in his travels as a trader. The Qur’an says that Muhammad never read or wrote a book. His followers wrote down his sayings on any material that was handy. After his death, his sayings were collected to form the Quran. The Qur’an encourages Christians to read the Injil (the gospel) because then they will see that Muhammad is a true prophet. However, the Injil, as it exists in manuscripts from the second century onward, clearly contradicts the fundamental teachings of Islam. For example, the Qur’an specifically denies that Jesus is the Son of God and that He was crucified on the cross. Islam is simply the most successful Christian cult, and like all the major cults, it denies the deity of Christ.

The doctrines of Islam offer no comfort for those who suffer. Everything that happens is according to the will of Allah, and submission to His inscrutable will is the essence of Islam. Allah is utterly transcendent. He has never revealed himself. All we can know is his will. We cannot know him or have a personal and intimate relationship with him (though some later developments may have softened this conception). The Muslim answer to suffering is simply, “Allah has willed it.” We can neither question his decree, nor understand its purpose. Has a woman been gang raped? We must punish the evil-doers, of course, but she must submit to the inscrutable will of God without any comfort from the presence of God.

There is no meaning in materialism. As Friedrich Nietzsche clearly realized, the death of God entails the death of ultimate meaning and morality. Man without God must move on beyond good and evil. For the consistent materialist, suffering is simply a fact, a meaningless datum. Of course, materialists (by the grace of the God they deny) do become outraged at injustice. In their hearts, they know that the gang rape of a woman is different from a pack of dogs climbing one after the other on top of a bitch in heat. In their proper moral outrage, materialists improperly rage against God, who alone can give meaning to their sense of morality.

 Summary.

Ø      Hinduism. Learn to regard suffering as an illusion.

Ø      Buddhism. Train yourself to ignore your suffering. Extinguish your individual, self-centered desire.

Ø     Islam. Submit to suffering. It is the inscrutable will of a remote Allah.

Ø    Materialism. Suffering is a fact of evolution. No suffering is truly evil because good and evil are value judgments made by individuals or by their particular communities.

These are all of the viable alternatives to Christianity that there are in the world. My heart can rest in none of them because I know that good and evil are neither illusions of the mortal mind nor inventions of self-replicating mud. I know that generosity and kindness reflect ultimate Goodness and that cruelty is an aberration. I know that a rose is more beautiful than a pile of horse manure. I know that we were designed for love and for beauty and for the fulfillment of every holy desire. The extinction of desire (Buddhism), the dissolution of individuality in the great ocean of being (Hinduism), and the unreachable transcendence of Allah—all of these deny the fundamental fact of our humanity: we were made for relationship.

Hand in Glove

Did you ever stop to think what made it possible for the Son of God to become a human baby? He is infinite and almighty. We are frail and finite. He is larger than the universe; we are very much smaller than the planet on which we live. His ways are higher than our ways—so far higher as to be virtually incomprehensible to us much of the time. How could it be suitable for God to become a man?

Let’s take an easier question. Most of us in the northern states are wearing gloves at this season of the year. What part of your body are your gloves designed to fit?—your elbow? your ear? your foot? Gloves are made to fit hands and nothing else.

The Son of God is the image of the invisible God (Colossians 1:13-15). He is the “exact representation” of God’s nature (Hebrews 1:1-3). He did not become God’s image. The Son has always been the exact image of the Father. This is an eternal relationship.

Adam and Eve (and the rest of us) were made in God’s image, according to God’s likeness (Genesis 1:26). Notice the prepositions, in and according to. We are not little images of God. Rather, we are shaped to be like the Image of God, who is Christ. We are images of the Image.

As the glove is the right shape for the hand, so human nature was created to be the right shape for the Son of God to enter. He fit perfectly into the human body and soul growing in Mary’s womb. The shape was just right, and because the Son of God is eternal spirit, He was able to compress Himself into that tiny body without diminishing His presence throughout the vast regions of space.

Here is another thing. You and I were created in the right shape to be dwellings for the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. His task is to conform us to the image of Christ. We are gloves for the hand of God, but the gloves are misshapen and unclean.

Would you like to put your hand into a glove that had a couple of fingers chewed off by rats and that was occupied by a black widow spider (and the debris of her feastings)? Neither, because of our sin, are we fit for God to enter us. Nevertheless, Jesus died to provide cleansing blood and rose to send His cleansing Spirit into the hearts of His people.

At the present hour the Spirit is renewing God’s elect according to the image of our Maker (Colossians 3:10), but at the last hour “we will be like Him because we will see Him just as He is” (1 John 3:2). Then we will be fit to enter heaven, and the Lord of heaven will fit perfectly into us. We will be fitted for and filled with the Creator in the measure that is proper for us as redeemed creatures.

Perfectionism

The life of a perfectionist is hard. I speak from experience.

The perfectionist is frequently frustrated by other people. He winces when he hears a public school teacher say, “The gift is from Bob and I,” and he wonders why educators are not taught to speak English. If the perfectionist is of the confrontational type, he rapidly alienates the people he is constantly correcting. If he isn’t, he must resign himself to a sour stomach when co-workers do a sloppy job.

The perfectionist is also a nuisance to himself. He spends so long getting tiny details of a project just right that he doesn’t accomplish as much as he should. Granted, there is a place for that kind of attention to detail. As Michelangelo said, “Trifles make perfection, but perfection is no trifle.” However, most perfectionists are not creating masterpieces; they are just fiddling and fussing.

I think I am less neurotic than I used to be. I can be happy with some jobs that are well done, even if they aren’t perfect. I have also become more selective about which things deserve my best effort. Learning these lessons has been a matter of survival because no matter how hard I try, I don’t have time to do everything well, and I can do nothing perfectly. I am an imperfect perfectionist.

The more serious problems with perfectionism are not interpersonal or psychological. They are spiritual, and they come, roughly speaking, in three varieties. The first variety is represented by the Pharisees of Jesus’ day who thought they were so righteous that they needed no repentance. They thought that they kept the law of God perfectly, but they were only deceiving themselves.

The second (and opposite) problem with perfectionism is that it tends to crush the sensitive conscience. Unlike the Pharisee, the sensitive soul believes he must be perfect to earn God’s favor, but he knows that he can never measure up. He sees (correctly) that his best good deeds are tainted by sin, and he concludes (incorrectly) that there is no hope for him.

The third problem related to perfectionism is the placid acceptance of mediocrity: “It’s good enough for God. He should be happy with anything I do for Him. After all, I’m not a bad person.” God’s command, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16), has become “You shall be nice most of the time.”

There isn’t much hope for the Pharisee or for the lover of mediocrity. They are pretty much headed straight for the pit. The gospel of Jesus Christ is specifically designed by God to reach down to those who are crushed by a sense of their sinfulness and unworthiness, as we see in this parable of Jesus.

‘‘Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’ I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:10-14).

Jesus gave His life as a sacrifice for sins; He rose from the grave to grant forgiveness and eternal life to all who repent of their evil deeds and who trust in Him to save them, “for whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:9-10, 13).

(Note: I published this post first in the Allentown Morning Call for Nov. 5, 2013).

The Silence of God

Over thirty years ago, I sat with a woman who had lost her husband and her only daughter. Both of them were hospitalized for about four months before they died. She said, “I can pray for other people, but I can’t pray for myself. My prayers seem to go no higher than the ceiling.”

She felt as if God had deserted her. She could not sense His presence. God did not seem to be listening to her.

I assured her that her feelings were not abnormal. She was not a bad Christian. Some of God’s choicest servants have felt the same way, as we see in the Psalms.

David, a man after God’s own heart, cried out, “To You, O Lord, I call; my rock, do not be deaf to me, for if You are silent to me, I will become like those who go down to the pit” (Psalm 28:1). “I stretch out my hands to You; my soul longs for You, as a parched land. Answer me quickly, O Lord, my spirit fails; do not hide Your face from me, or I will become like those who go down to the pit” (Psalm 143:6-7). Another psalmist complained, “I will say to God my rock, ‘Why have You forgotten me?’” (Psalm 42:9).

Such feelings of abandonment come most often in times of great distress or sorrow. The suffering believer prays, but his circumstances do not change, and the medicine bottle of divine comfort seems empty.

The thing that surprises me about the ancient Hebrew poets is how often their psalms of lament close on a note of confidence, even before their situation improves. For example, “Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God” (Psalm 42:11).

In the apparent silence of God, they discovered that the Lord was speaking more loudly than when life was sweet. He was calling out to them, “Trust Me when you can neither hear nor see Me,” and they answered, “Yes, I will.”

We see this trust pre-eminently in the Lord Jesus Christ. From the cross, He cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” followed a short time later by, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit” (Mark 15:34; Luke 23:46). Jesus was truly forsaken by God for a time as He bore the wrath of God for our sins. As a result, no believer in Jesus will ever be truly forsaken. Jesus took our forsakenness on Himself that we might have the continual presence of God through the Holy Spirit.

The night before His crucifixion, Jesus said, "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17).

One of the ministries of the Spirit is to help us pray when we are so distressed that we cannot pray for ourselves. “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27).

To the dear lady I mentioned earlier I said, “I know you feel deserted, as many of God’s beloved children have felt, but the Holy Spirit is in you, and He is turning your groans into a more beautiful prayer than you have ever uttered with your lips.” And she was comforted.

(This essay first appeared in the Allentown Morning Call on June 22, 2013.)

Jesus' Death Was Not a Defeat

Several years ago, a Muslim man told me that according to his religion, Jesus did not die on the cross. He said that Jesus was a righteous prophet, and that God would never allow such a good man to suffer so horribly.

That is a natural way of looking at the world. We instinctively think that nice things should happen to good people, and unpleasant things should happen to bad people. Of course, this sin-damaged world does not work that way. I deal with the larger problem of evil in my book, The Beauty of God for a Broken World. In this column, I want to address the more limited question implied by the challenge above: Was the death of Jesus compatible with God’s moral government of the world?

1) God didn’t allow Jesus to be captured and killed. God planned it. The apostle Peter said that Jesus, who was “delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death” (Acts 2:23).

2) The greatest suffering of Jesus was not His physical agony, but the wrath of God poured out on Him for our sins. “He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.... The Lord was pleased to crush Him, putting Him to grief” (Isaiah 53:5, 10).

3) Jesus was not captured and killed against His will. He said, “I lay down My life for the sheep.... I lay down my life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again” (John 10:15, 17-18).

4) Jesus was not just a man picked by God for this fate. He was God who took on our human nature in order to save us. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.... And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1, 14).

5) By His death and resurrection, Jesus accomplished two great works: First, He paid the debt of sin for all who trust in Him. Second, He trounced the devil and all his demons. “He cancelled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them” (Colossians 2:14-15). Jesus’ death was not a defeat. It was the first move in a grand victory.

6) Therefore, the crucifixion of Jesus was not an example of God deserting a good man to a horrible fate. It was God’s way of taking on Himself the punishment we deserve so that He was able to uphold His own moral law and yet save those who deserved to die. The cross demonstrated God’s “righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 6:26).

The death of Christ on the cross was not a failure of God’s moral government. Praise God! It was the upholding of that government along with incredible mercy and love. As we approach Good Friday and Easter, I urge you to enter by faith into a saving relationship with the crucified, risen Lord Jesus.

[This post first appeared with one minor difference in the Allentown Morning Call on March 9^th, 2013 In that post I did not identify the religion of the man who objected to the death of Christ.]

Sports for Children

It is a risky thing to criticize another man’s religion, but that is my intent today. Actually, my target is not the religion of one man, but perhaps the closest thing we have to a national religion—SPORTS—and particularly the effect of this religion on children.

When I was young (shortly after the dinosaurs died off), league games for children were not held on Sunday. In our town, many churches had Wednesday evening classes for the whole family, so schools and sports leagues avoided games and practice sessions on that day as well. I know it is not realistic for me to hope that I can roll back the clock, but the professionalization of children’s sports is screaming out for a return to sanity.

 By the professionalization of children’s sports, I mean an attitude that places the success of the team above the welfare of the child. Every child must be at every practice session, or that child will not be allowed to play. The schedule of practice and games is intense because the level of competition requires total dedication.

The resulting pressure on family life can be severe, especially when two or three children are involved. Sally is dropped off at a practice field on one side of town by her mother who is planning to attend Willie’s game on the other side of town. Dad can hardly ever watch either Willie or Sally because he is busy coaching Jimmy’s team. And this goes on night after night, Saturday after Saturday, and Sunday after Sunday. If the children are involved in more than one sport, it goes on month after month.

Another problem with the professionalization of sports for children is the damage it does to their religious education. If children are required to be at all games and practices, and if these are held on Sundays or at other times of religious instruction, parents must choose between teaching faithfulness to God and faithfulness to the team.

The issue is not that children may miss twelve out of fifty-two weeks of lessons. My concern is the implicit message we are giving: “What’s the problem? You can worship God whenever you want, but you can only play baseball a few weeks a year. Don’t be such a legalist!” In other words, “The true God won’t mind if you split your worship between Him and the religion of sports.”

The Bible, however, says we should teach our children to put God first. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:5-7).

I encourage parents to share this article with other parents. Go as a group to organizational meetings with this message: I believe the physical activity and the team spirit of this sport are good for my child. Therefore, I will do my part to help the team. I will help with fundraisers or coaching or transportation. I will not allow my child to quit in the middle of the season. I will bring my child to games and practices that do not compete with needed family time or with the worship of God. But you may not take control of the life of my family, and I will not give the soul of my child to the team.

If enough parents band together, you can make a difference, at least on the local level. Oh, and by the way, you need to protect children of different faiths. The leeway you want for your child must be granted others also.

(I wrote this for the December 1, 2012 Allentown Morning Call.)

The Sea

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea (Revelation 21:1).

John! How can you write it so calmly! And there is no longer any sea. With one line, that fabled arena of adventure, love, and lore is wiped away. It is consigned to oblivion.

John! Did you resent the sea, even though it fed you in your youthful days as a fisherman? Were you often seasick, or did you fear the sea? How can you give up the sea in a single sentence?

I love the sea. I miss it. It tugs at me, and my heart aches with the elves in the ancient stories who felt it calling them away from field and forest to sail toward the western lands. One of the happiest times of days gone by was the two years I spent at the San Diego campus of the University of California where I was within easy walk of a long and lonely stretch of sea and sand.

An unknown poet wrote some twelve hundred years ago,§

Liveth no man so large in his soul,

So gracious in giving, so gay in his youth,

In deeds so daring, so dear to his lord,

But frets his soul for his sea adventure,

Fain to try what fortune shall send.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This life on land is a lingering death to me,

Give me the gladness of God’s great sea.

No longer any sea. That seems like a great loss to me. But will there truly be no sea in the new heavens and new earth? Earlier John saw a vision of God’s throne room in heaven, “and before the throne there was something like a sea of glass, like crystal” (Revelation 4:6). A little later he saw “something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God.”

These passages seem to combine the bronze sea that stood in front of Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 7:23-25) with the crystalline platform that supported the throne of God in Ezekiel 1:22-28.

What does it all mean? I think it means this. The sea that calls out to me on earth is a dim shadow of the true sea before the throne of God. There will be no longer any earthly sea, but its heavenly counterpart will call out even more strongly to my soul and in its call will be the answer that my soul seeks. The sea on earth is good and beautiful, wild and powerful and dangerous—just like God. I shall not miss the sea. I shall instead find it.

That, I believe, is what all of us shall find. The things that we fear to lose will be more grandly, gloriously, and satisfyingly present there than we can now imagine.

---

§ From “The Seafarer” in Old English Poetry, translated by J. Duncan Spaeth.