Why Did God Give Us Our Most Basic Human Desires?

By Brian Lowther

If you’ve been tracking with the RWI for any length of time, I imagine you are the type of person whose deepest hope is to live a fruitful, meaningful life in view of the kingdom of God. But, do you ever struggle with the fact that you have other, more surface-level desires that often stand at odds with that deep hope? As an example, I have always wanted to own a jet pack. Just think of the traffic I could avoid! I also have a deep and abiding love of naps, palindromes, listening to my dad recount the events of a baseball game, and a very quiet part of me would love to spend a few leisurely years sailing around the Caribbean. These trifles make me feel quite happy. But what good is happiness if the real goal is God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, which is essentially a battle against darkness and evil? [1] Are all of these surface-level desires engineered in me by God’s enemy to divert me off course? Or has God instilled them in me for some good reason?

To answer, it goes without saying that Satan can corrupt our desires causing us to pursue them too far. The word for that is sin. But in this five-part series, I’ll assume that these desires at their root are good and programmed into us by God for a good reason. Specifically, I think his reason is to help us participate with him in bringing his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven, which involves destroying the works of the devil. What follows are six of the most common human desires and how they help us participate in this task.

Why Did God Give Us a Desire for Survival?

My most basic desire—in agreement with popular psychological theories like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs—is survival. I desire food, water, rest, sanitation, hygiene, security, and safety.

It seems obvious how this desire would help me in the battle against evil. Without it, I would give up and end my life when I encountered hardships.

The will to live is remarkably strong. I witnessed my wife battle through a terrible case of morning sickness. For five months extreme nausea was her all-day companion, vomiting was the norm and eating was unthinkable. I was terrified that she would starve to death. We went to urgent care countless times for intravenous fluids. But somehow, she never gave up hope. And one day, she started to get better. Now we have two children, meaning she went through this ordeal twice. How do people survive such things? Or worse things, like concentration camps or human trafficking? Why is this desire to live so strong?

I think it is because God knew that at times, the enemy’s attacks could be grisly, heinous, and appalling. Our desire to survive must be proportionally tenacious.

Why Did God Give Us a Desire for Pleasure?

If my ability to survive is not threatened, my next immediate desire is pleasure. I desire solitude, amusement, thin-crust pizza, frequent trips to the beach, maybe a jet pack—and any number of other physical or aesthetic comforts.

I think pleasure has a two-fold purpose in the battle against evil. First it acts as our “leave” from active duty. It recharges us so we can rejoin the battle. Even in wartime, soldiers don’t fight a battle indefinitely. They must take leave on a regular basis, or risk losing their minds.

Second, pleasure acts as aspirin or morphine when we experience the pain and suffering of battle. Such as: 1) The physical pain of existence, e.g., injury, handicaps, disease; 2) The mental anguish from failures, burnout, rejection, conflicts, or loss; and 3) The emotional turmoil from doubts and fears which I believe are whispered into our psyches by the enemy as a form of psychological warfare (see here for more on this). I think of pleasure as a momentary escape from these forms of existential suffering.

In the next installment, I’ll tackle the question, why did God instill in many of us a desire for power?

Endnote

[1] I realize that the battle against evil is a main theme among other main themes in scripture. I fully embrace the idea that God’s original and ultimate plan was and is for us to dwell with him and his holy angels in harmony for an eternal future. However, in the mean time, the RWI seeks to explore and advocate a “warfare worldview,” partly because we feel it is underemphasized in the body of Christ today and partly because we think it will inspire new action. If you’re new to the RWI, see the following brief essays for an introduction to the warfare worldview:

1. The Warfare Worldview           
2. The Story of the Cosmic Conflict    
3. Kingdom Mission So Far, in 500 Words
4. Three Views to the Problem of Evil: View #3

Photo Credits: 
1.  Jetman: Ars Electronica/Flickr
2. Bindweed plant breaking through asphalt: Mark Dixon/Flickr
3. Strawberry Shortcake: Sonny Abesamis/Flickr

Brian Lowther is the director of the Roberta Winter Institute.

Five (obvious) Questions about Malaria Eradication

By Brian Lowther

There is absolutely no evidence I know of in all the world of any theologically driven interest in combating disease at its origins. I have not found any work of theology, any chapter, any paragraph, nor to my knowledge any sermon urging us—whether in the pew or in professional missions—to go to battle against the many disease pathogens we now know to be eradicable.
~ Ralph D. Winter, December 2001

This quote has inspired much of our effort here in the Roberta Winter Institute. It has also compelled us to search high and low to prove this notion wrong. In recent years a few initiatives addressing malaria have cropped up; some led by Christian groups. Off the top of my head, here are two:

• The United Methodist Church’s participation in the “Nothing But Nets” campaign.
• Compassion International’s Malaria Bite Back Program

The key to both of these initiatives—as with most malaria projects—is bed nets. These two endeavors and their secular counterparts (such as the Roll Back Malaria campaign) should be supported and celebrated. But I can’t get a few rather obvious questions out of my mind.

Malaria patient Yim Pros, 12 from Orumchek village in Western Cambodia, came to Ta Sanh Health Center complaining of high fever, chills, and nauseau. He was diagnosed with a severe case of malaria. Yim's mother laid a damp towel over her son to help bring down his fever while he waited for treatment. Gates Foundation/Flickr

Question 1

Will passing out bed nets—crucial as that activity is—eradicate malaria? Even if every person in the world slept under a bed net, mosquitoes would still thrive, because they feed off of animals, not just human beings, right?

Answer

Well, apparently with the exception of one species of mosquito that causes malaria in Macaques monkeys, the mosquitoes that feed off of animals are of limited public health importance.

Question 2

Okay, but even then, what about when people aren’t sleeping? People aren’t going to wear nets 24-hours a day, are they?

Answer

The Anopheles mosquitoes, the most dangerous ones, prefer to feed at night. So wearing bed nets during the day is not necessary.

Question 3

But, bed nets prevent mosquitoes from biting; they don’t kill the mosquitoes, right? I’m reminded of a story in Dan Fountain’s book, Health, the Bible and the Church, in which he describes a village in Africa that was tormented by lions. To prevent the lion attacks, the villagers erected a fence around the entire village. This was effective, but had they really solved the lion problem? A few days later a woman and two children went outside of the fence. Suddenly a lion attacked and carried off one of her children. The woman ran screaming back to the village, “Why can’t you get rid of the lions?”

Answer

Apparently the nets are treated with insecticide, so they do kill at least some of the mosquitoes that land on them, as long as those mosquitos haven’t developed a resistance to the insecticide.

Question 4

The most simplistic solution to malaria—one that my seven-year-old could have thought up— is to wipe out all the mosquitoes. Mankind has shown a remarkable albeit unfortunate effectiveness in driving other species into extinction. Why can’t we apply that same hunter’s ingenuity to mosquitoes? In the 19th Century, hunters nearly wiped out all of the bison in North America because their hides were so lucrative. Why don’t we make mosquito carcasses lucrative?

While this solution is simplistic, I’m not the first one to think of it. In 1996, Manila had a cholera outbreak that killed seven people and sickened 310 others. Health officials determined that flies and roaches were the culprits. So the city government decided to pay 4¢ for every ten dead flies and 6¢ for every ten dead roaches. Eliminating the insects before they infected people helped to end the epidemic. Could this be done with mosquitoes? A $100,000 grant from Bill Gates would buy a lot of dead mosquitoes.

Answer

Well, apparently this solution isn’t the panacea. When the British invaded India, they tried this same method with cobras. Unfortunately people started to breed cobras and once the British Colonists found out, they nixed the reward. Subsequently, the people released their cobras and they ended up with a bigger cobra problem than when they started.

Also killing off all the mosquitoes on earth is tricky. Many of the most successful efforts at eliminating them have involved the use of toxic chemicals like DDT, which has since been banned in many places because of its side effects.

The real question, however, is not can mosquitoes be eradicated, but should mosquitoes be eradicated? The downside to a world without mosquitoes is that other parts of the ecosystem will suffer. There are plants that rely on mosquitoes for pollination, fish that count them as their sole food source and even caribou depend on being bothered by swarms of mosquitoes in order to prompt their migratory patterns. It's unclear whether the plants and animals that depend on these pests would adapt and survive without them. Ridding the world of mosquitoes might save millions of human lives, but the environment would pay the price in more ways than one.

Question 5

So, what’s the solution?

Answer

The current strategy involves insecticide treated bed nets, draining standing water and spraying insecticides. This lowers the mosquito population enough so that sooner or later the malaria infected mosquitoes disappear from a given area, as happened in North America, Europe and much of the Middle East (though each of these regions had the advantage of DDT).

But unless mosquitoes (or more specifically the P. falciparum Plasmodium) are eradicated from the entire world, malaria could become re-established. As long as we have airplanes, a few cases each year will pop up even where malaria has been eliminated. In the U.S. alone there were almost 1,700 cases in 2010, and 2,000 in 2011, a 40-year high.

Thus we turn to vaccines. Perhaps the only real solution is to make all human beings immune to the disease through vaccinations, as happened with smallpox. Vaccines may be especially important in the face of mosquitoes that are becoming increasingly insecticide-resistant. As of this moment, a completely effective vaccine is not yet available for malaria, although several vaccines are under development. Bill Gates—who funds much of this research—recently said, "I'd be disappointed if within 20 years we're not very close to eradicating this globally."

In the end, it may require a completely new solution that we haven’t even considered. But I’ll leave that one to my seven-year-old.

Brian Lowther is the director of the Roberta Winter Institute. 

Why Eradication?

Flickr/UNICEF Ethiopia

The eradication of smallpox has been called “one of the greatest accomplishments undertaken and performed for the benefit of mankind anywhere or at any time.” And though it's the only human disease in history that has been eradicated, we are on the verge of seeing both Polio and Guinea Worm wiped from the face of the planet.

The goods news is that with every disease we eradicate we get better at it. With every disease we eradicate more resources and funds are freed up for investment in the eradication of others. Every 26 days the United States saves the total amount it contributed to smallpox eradication because it does not have to vaccinate or treat the disease. The value of eradication is exponential.

This article enumerates the immeasurable benefits of disease eradication, and the reasons the Body of Christ should take up the cause with the zeal of the missionaries and abolitionists of old. Christians have always been at the forefront of furthering the mission of Christ in the world, to destroy the works of the devil. We are entering a new era. Read all about it...

Three Views to the Problem of Evil: View #3

Nick Kenrick/Flickr

By Brian Lowther

Ralph Winter once said, “There are very many people, even Bible-believing Christians not just non-Christians, who are profoundly puzzled, perplexed, and certainly confused by the extensive presence of outrageous evil in the created world of an all-powerful, benevolent God.” In other words, if God is all-powerful and all loving, then why is there so much evil, disease, and suffering in the world?

In this third and final post, I will explore one last Biblical view addressing this question. [Click here for Part 1, and here for Part 2.] As before, I won’t venture to interpret any scripture passages. I’ll simply list the passages that at a surface level, seem to support the view I’m exploring.

View #3: Suffering and Evil are a result of a Cosmic War between God and Satan.

This conviction shows up any time someone encounters evil such as disease, demonization, or natural disasters and understands them through the lens of the warfare worldview. For example:

• “Life is war and the world is a battlefield, ravaged by eons of conflict among powerful invisible forces.”
• “Evil originates in the wills of Satan, fallen angels, and sinful people, rather than of God.”
• “The mystery of suffering resides not in God’s providence or because of an arbitrary streak in his character, but in the warfare that engulfs creation.”
• “Evil happens because in a war, casualties and accidents are expected and very likely. ‘Bullets fly, bombs explode, mines are stepped on, and children are maimed.’ [1] In a war, suffering is not an intellectual puzzle to solve. In a war, suffering is a given.”

Scriptural Support

This understanding is taken from the Bible, where you can read of numerous indications of a cosmic war between God and Satan.

• Paul describes the necessity of the Armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18) in this war, which is not a war between flesh and blood, but against “the cosmic powers over this present darkness and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12)
• Jesus repeatedly calls Satan "the ruler of this world" (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), Luke suggests that Satan owns all the authority of all the kingdoms of the world (Luke 4:5-7), Paul calls Satan "the god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4) and "the prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2), and John says “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one." (1 John 5:19)
• Luke summarizes Jesus’ ministry as “doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.” (Acts 10:38) Similarly, John explains, “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). And Paul confirms that the death of Christ was meant to “break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).

Key Advantage

One of the great benefits of adopting this view is that it creates a posture of revolt and resistance in the face of evil, rather than a passive resignation that often characterizes the response to the other two views. Evil isn't to be puzzled. Evil is to be confronted and overcome.

Surprisingly this conviction doesn’t come up nearly as often as the previous two views. However, it is older than Christianity itself. In fact, the primary way the early Church Fathers (such as Origen, Athenagorus and Tertullian) explained evil in nature was by blaming Satan and his demons. [2] This view was pre-dominant until St. Augustine in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries. Before he became the most influential Christian thinker of all time, Augustine was part of a religious sect called Manichaeism, which had two equal gods, one good and one bad. As he was inching back toward Orthodox Christianity, he reacted against this dualistic worldview so dramatically that he essentially banished references to an Evil One, taking a view in which there was no intelligent angelic opponent to God at all. Or, if there was, he did very little, all things instead being God’s initiative. 

Questions

But should we take this view to be the universal explanation for all evil? If so, a few questions arise.

• To take this view seriously, we have to take angels and demons seriously. To many people today, especially in the West, the notion of a personal, real, and active Satan who has great power in the world is ludicrous.  
• How does this view make sense of texts like the book of Job? In Job, it’s clear that Satan caused all of Job’s suffering. It can also seem that God controls every move Satan makes.
• Does this view attribute to Satan more power than he has?
• Does this view inevitably lead to Christians who are angrily militant, authoritarian, or even violent? In other words, does this view inevitably lead to tragedies like the ones that occurred in Waco in 1993 or Jonestown in 1978?

Conclusion

I personally feel that the explanation that people suffer because the world is engulfed in a cosmic war offers some important philosophical and explanatory advantages to the two other views I’ve explored. However, this is partly because I grew up with the other two views as the pervading theological assumptions, and frankly I always felt something was missing. Can these three views be synthesized into a more complete answer to the problem of evil? Is it possible to hold all three views in tension? Or does the third view cancel the other two or vice versa? These are questions for another day.

Endnotes

[1] Greg Boyd, God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1997) 58.
[2] See more here: http://gregboyd.blogspot.com/2007/07/argument-from-early-church-fathers.html

Brian Lowther is the director of the Roberta Winter Institute. 

Three Views to the Problem of Evil: View #2

Nick Kenrick/Flickr

By Brian Lowther  

Ralph Winter once said, “There are very many people, even Bible-believing Christians not just non-Christians, who are profoundly puzzled, perplexed, and certainly confused by the extensive presence of outrageous evil in the created world of an all-powerful, benevolent God.” In other words, if God is all-powerful and all loving, then why is there so much evil, disease, and suffering in the world?

In part two of this three-part blog post, I will explore a second Biblical view addressing this question.  [Click here for Part 1] As before, I won’t venture to interpret any scripture passages. I’ll simply list the passages that at a surface level, seem to support the view I’m exploring.

View #2: A mysterious, loving, sovereign, divine plan lies behind all evil, disease, and suffering in our world.

This conviction shows up every time someone suffers a tragedy and interprets it with a version of one of the following statements:

• “Everything happens for a reason.”
• “God’s ways are mysterious.”
• “There are no accidents in God’s providence.”
• “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.”
• “You have to trust that God always does what is best.”
• “It is the will of God...hard to understand…providence writes a long sentence, we have to wait to get to heaven to read the answer.”

Scriptural Support

This understanding is taken from the Bible, where you can read of numerous examples of God saying or doing very mysterious things, such as:

• “The Lord kills and makes alive; He brings down to Sheol and raises up. The Lord makes poor and rich; He brings low, He also exalts.” (Samuel 2:6-7)
• “It is I who puts to death and gives life. I have wounded, and it is I who heals.” (Deuteronomy 32:39)
• “The Lord has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil.” (Proverbs 16:4)
• “I am the Lord, and there is no other, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well being and creating calamity [Lit.,"ra", evil]. I am the Lord who does all these.” (Isaiah 45:6,7)
• “Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both good and evil go forth?” (Lamentations 3:38)
• “Not one bird falls to the ground apart from the will of your Father.” (Matthew 10:29)
• “For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it in hope...” (Romans 8:20)

Key Advantage

The explanation that a divine reason lies behind every occurrence in history—including evil—has brought comfort to countless people down through the ages.

Questions

But, should we take this view to be the universal explanation for all evil and suffering? If so, some very troubling questions arise. Below I’ll illustrate these questions by paraphrasing a story from Greg Boyd’s book, Is God to Blame? [1]

Melanie’s Story 

For as long as she could remember, Melanie had wanted to be a mother. Once she got married, she and her husband began trying for a baby. A few years went by with no success. They found out that a medical condition would prevent her from conceiving a child. Melanie was devastated.

But, her disappointment was short-lived, as unexpectedly she conceived. The pregnancy moved forward without incident. Finally the day came and she and her husband went to the hospital to deliver the baby. However, during the birth the umbilical cord wrapped around the baby’s neck, choking the child to death.

Melanie was understandably inconsolable and in deep despair, tormented by questions like, “Why would God miraculously give us a child, only to take the baby away while coming into the world? Why did this happen to us? And why is God preventing us from conceiving again?”

After years of depression and confusion, Melanie and her husband sought answers from a Bible teacher they respected. The answers they received were consistent with the theology she had been taught all her life: “God is still on his throne. There’s a silver lining in every cloud. All things work together for the good. Maybe God is trying to teach you some kind of lesson. Or maybe it’s just not God’s will for you to have children.”

Melanie accepted this advice, but felt extreme guilt because she was starting to lose her trust in God’s “mysterious” plan, not to mention the fact that her marriage was slowly deteriorating as well.

What was so confusing about the situation was that God had seemingly given Melanie a strong desire to mother a child and then miraculously set her up to believe he was going to fulfill that desire, only to kill the baby just before it was born. One can’t help but ask, does that seem like something a loving God would do? Can you picture Jesus doing that to someone?

In addition to these questions, this belief that a mysterious plan underlies all evil reduces the problem of evil to an intellectual puzzle to solve, needing books and devotionals to parse out its meaning. Also, if all evil is believed to serve a higher divine purpose, what is the point in fighting against it?

Conclusion

If the explanation that people suffer because of a mysterious, loving, sovereign, divine plan was the only Biblical answer to the problem of evil, I think we would all be forever “profoundly puzzled, perplexed, and confused.” Thankfully, there is at least one other predominant answer in scripture. Tomorrow I’ll explore the third view.

Endnote

[1] Greg Boyd, Is God to Blame? Moving Beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Evil, (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2003) 11-13

Brian Lowther is the director of the Roberta Winter Institute. 

Three Views to the Problem of Evil: View #1

Nick Kenrick/Flickr

By Brian Lowther 

Ralph Winter once said, “There are very many people, even Bible-believing Christians not just non-Christians, who are profoundly puzzled, perplexed, and certainly confused by the extensive presence of outrageous evil in the created world of an all-powerful, benevolent God.” In other words, if God is all-powerful and all loving, then why is there so much evil, disease, and suffering in the world?

In this three-part blog post, I will explore three Biblical views addressing this question. Where I list scripture references, I won’t venture an interpretation. I’ll simply list the passages that at a surface level, seem to support the view I’m exploring.

View #1 - People suffer because they deserve it.

This conviction turns up every time a natural disaster strikes. For example:

• The 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands of Japanese citizens was viewed by some as divine retribution.
• Some blamed Haiti’s 2009 earthquake on the Haitians' "pact to the devil."
• Some explained Hurricane Katrina as a direct result of New Orleans’ embracing gay pride events.
• Some blamed the September 11 tragedy on liberal civil liberties groups, feminists, pagans, homosexuals, and abortion rights supporters. 

Scriptural Support

This understanding is taken from the Old Testament, where you can read of countless examples of God punishing the disobedient, such as: 

• When God ordered the Israelites to slaughter countless men, women and children in the conquest of Canaan. (Deuteronomy 20:16-17)
• When God killed every firstborn child in Egypt because Pharaoh was stubborn. (Exodus 12:29) Ironically the Bible tells us it was God who hardened Pharaoh’s heart towards God's people. [1]
• When God ordered King Saul to butcher thousands of children and babies in the genocide of the Amalakites. (1 Samuel 15:1-35)
• When God ordered the Israelites (through Moses) to capture 32,000 young girls of the Midianite tribe “for yourselves” after killing their families. (Numbers 31:7-18)
• When God drowned every man, woman, child, and animal on the face of the earth during the flood of Noah, with the exception of eight in Noah’s family and the animals on the ark. (Genesis 7:17-24)

One could point out that in the passages above, the wickedness of the people more than justified God’s judgment. In many of these situations, the Bible makes it clear that human violence and evil had grown to be so pervasive that it touched everything and everyone that existed at the time. The Canaanites, for example, were apparently an incredibly sinful people who practiced extreme cruelty, incest, bestiality, cultic prostitution, and child sacrifice. [2] If such acts were perpetrated today and broadcast on the news, there would be a universal outcry for retribution. 

One could also point out that, in many of these Biblical contexts, God’s judgment is preceded by warning and/or a long period of time to repent. For example, during the construction of the ark—which took as long as one hundred years—Noah is described as a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5) to the people around him. This means the people had perhaps one hundred years to listen to the message of Noah and to repent of the wickedness that was bringing the floodwaters upon them.

Lastly, many who contend that people suffer because they deserve it, assert that God is required to judge people for sin, simply because he is just. He has to threaten to punish sin and then follow through with those threats or the world would become overrun with crime and evil.

Key Advantage

This understanding of suffering seems to fit with our innate sense of justice, e.g., all parents instinctively seem to know that bad behavior cannot go unpunished.

Questions

But, should we take this view to be the universal explanation for all evil and suffering? If so, some troubling questions arise.

• First is the age-old question, why do the wicked often prosper and the righteous suffer? It seems so arbitrary.
• Second is the question of unwarranted suffering, such as the suffering and death of newborn babies. In other words, why is it that sometimes the punishment doesn’t fit the crime?
• Third is the question of animal suffering. Wild animals surely can’t learn from their suffering, or be improved by it.
• Next would be the question of understanding our own personal tragedies. For example, are we to interpret a terminal cancer diagnosis or a child kidnapping as God’s judgment? Isn’t this one of the main things the book of Job refutes?
• The last question is similar to the first, in terms of the arbitrary nature of suffering. Oftentimes our suffering happens when we least expect it. Many of us know a devout friend or relative who spent their life serving God, only to be knocked down by some ghastly disease. In these cases there is rarely a direct reason from God explaining the “punishment.” This situation is similar to a parent saying to a child, “I’m going to spank you, sometimes when you’re doing right, and I won't generally tell you why.”

Interestingly, Jesus addresses this general idea in Luke 13:1-5 where he responds to two catastrophes: Pilates’ slaughtering of some Galileans and the fall of the tower of Siloam that killed eighteen people. About both events Jesus asks his audience, “Do you think these people were more guilty than anyone else?”

Conclusion

If the explanation that people suffer because they deserve it was the only Biblical answer to the problem of evil, I think we would all be forever “profoundly puzzled, perplexed, and confused.” Thankfully, there are at least two other predominant answers in scripture. Tomorrow I’ll explore the second view.

Endnote

[1] Though, we are also told Pharaoh hardened his own heart many times.
[2] https://www.knowingthebible.net/the-extermination-of-the-canaanites#_ftn6

Brian Lowther is the director of the Roberta Winter Institute.