The word “theodicy” is what theologians call an explanation
of why an all-powerful and all-loving God would allow evil and suffering to
exist. A God that isn’t totally loving
or totally powerful would have an excuse for evil and suffering, but an
all-loving and all-powerful God doesn’t have one—at least not one we mortals
can understand. Yet, how we approach the
question of theodicy matters immensely.
In large part, our approach to this seeming paradox matters, because an
approach that is too simplistic or too insensitive can do great harm to those
who suffer or who are the victims of evil.
A well-meaning effort to console with words such as “God doesn’t give us
more than we can handle” or “everything happens for a reason” is naïve at best
and grossly offensive at worst.
The best
book I have ever read on the subject is called A Scandalous Providence: The Jesus Story of the Compassion of God
by E. Frank Tupper. Tupper is a Baptist
theologian now teaching at Wake Forest
Divinity School. The fact that he is Baptist probably explains
why he isn’t more widely read. Tupper is
a first-rate theologian, however, a student of the German theologian Wolfhart Pannenburg and most important of all he is nothing if not painfully honest. A
Scandalous Providence is painfully honest, because while it is a work of
deep theology it is also in large part autobiographical.
Tupper’s
wife died of cancer and he grieved her death as a loving husband and as a
father to his children who were school-age at the time. He tells in his book about trying to make
sense of why a loving God who could have saved the life of his wife and the
mother of his children did not in fact do so.
Furthermore, as a person of faith—a faith that included a belief in
God’s activity in the world, activity that sometimes included healing—Tupper
had to reconcile the troubling issue of why it seemed God would help some
people but not others.
At the
heart of A Scandalous Providence is a
discussion of Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus. He notes that the birth of the Christ child
is depicted as a glorious event, an intervention of God in the affairs of
humanity and a light to all nations, yet in Matthew’s story immediately after
Jesus is born the insecure King Herod slaughters all the children two years and
younger living in Bethlehem in a failed attempt to kill the newborn king. Taking Matthew’s story at face value means
accepting that one result of Jesus’ birth was the killing of innocent children. What are we to do with such a story?
Although
Tupper does examine questions of historicity surrounding Matthew’s story, he is
more interested in using it as a means of approaching the larger question of
why some suffer and others are spared.
His examination of the problem is honest but also complex. My oversimplified summary of it would come
down to a belief in an all-powerful God who is also all-loving choosing to
place limitations upon how and when God will act in the world. When God “can” act depends upon a complex
number of variables that include things like human free will, the laws of
nature and the most good that can be done without a corresponding harm in any
given situation. The seemingly infinite
variety of combinations of such circumstances may defy our human limitations
but apparently such is not the case for God.
Tupper
tells the story of driving home from church with his daughter one Sunday after
his wife’s death. A woman in their
church had recovered from a terrible illness and the church thanked God for her
recovery. His young daughter asked why
God had saved the other woman but not her mother. Tupper sighed and replied, “Honey, God would
have if God could have.” When Tupper
came to lecture at my seminary, I asked him if such a view did not leave us
with a weak and maybe even inadequate God.
He looked me dead in the eye and replied, “I’m much less concerned about
God’s power or lack thereof than I am about God’s morality.” I will always remember that moment, and when
presented with the choice of erring when I preach or teach about God, I always
choose to err on the side of God being moral.
A God that could save a child from dying and all things being equal
chooses not to do so is not a God worth believing in as far as I’m concerned.
Such
labored explanations for God’s scandalous activity in the world are the stuff
of the Epiphany season. The season of
Epiphany begins this coming Sunday with the arrival of the Magi or Wise Men to
present gifts to the Christ child. Yet,
hidden in the shadows of this story lies a violent and murderous king who is
willing to slaughter children in order to hold on to power. Epiphany is the season in the church year
when we celebrate the image of light as a metaphor for God’s work in the world,
yet in our world the shadows still exist alongside the light. Whether you buy or not the thoughts I’ve
presented in this column or what I will offer this Sunday regarding the light
of God in the midst of this world’s shadows, you are nonetheless invited on
this Epiphany journey. We will wrestle together
with these questions as a community of faith.
During the
season of Epiphany, I will be preaching about different ways of discerning the
light of God in the midst of a world often filled with suffering and evil.
January 6—“Searching for God’s Light in the Midst of
Darkness”
January 13—“The Light of God Revealed by Your Baptism”
January 20—“The Light that Drives Out Darkness According to MLK,
Jr.”
January 27—“Allowing God’s Light to Shine in Our Church”
February 4—“Allowing God’s Light to Shine in Our Community”
February 11—“Allowing God’s Light to Change You”
Come, let us look together for God’s light as we travel in
the midst of darkness!
Grace and Peace,
Chase
No comments:
Post a Comment