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. 

Is God Capricious, Mean-minded, and Stupid?

Flickr/Christian Payne

Editorial Note: Famed English comedian, actor, and writer Stephen Fry made recent headlines with his opinions about God. You may remember Fry as Sherlock Holmes’ brother, Mycroft, in the second of the two Robert Downey Jr. films, or perhaps you’ll remember him as half of the comic duo Fry and Laurie. Prince Charles even referred to him as a national treasure. Recently Fry was asked in an interview what he would say if he encountered God at the gates of heaven.

Fry responded, "I'll say, 'Bone cancer in children?  What's that about? How dare you? How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that's not our fault. It's not right. It's utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?’" The video of this segment of his interview has now garnered almost six million views in just a few week’s time.

As a team, here at the RWI, we discussed how we might respond to Mr. Fry and those who share his perspective. Since Fry’s video went viral, scores of Christians have published responses. We’ve read a number of these responses, and many were disappointing to us, mostly boiling down to "Well, I don't believe in that God either," or "It will all come to light in the end." Frankly, we were dissatisfied by how unconvincing Christians can appear in the media when it comes to the problem of evil. We as a group share a certain perspective about the problem of evil (though with plenty of individual variation and nuance) and felt that perspective was under-represented. Below you can read our director’s personal view, framed as his response to Stephen Fry. 

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A Response to Stephen Fry

By Brian Lowther

If I found myself in a conversation with Mr. Fry, and if he asked me how I could believe in a “capricious, mean-spirited, stupid God,” I would simply say, “I think your opinions are perfectly logical. Actually, essentially, I agree with you. I believe that what you’re describing is ‘utterly, utterly evil.’"

“Then, why do you believe there is a God?” Fry would undoubtedly ask.

“Well Stephen, (I assume we’d be on a first name basis) we can agree, if God does exist, he is a highly skilled artist because the universe is quite glorious. But, as you say, if that God exists he must also be a ‘capricious and mean-spirited’ artist and thus unworthy of our devotion because his creation is also very dangerous and terrifying.” C.S. Lewis fans will recognize this line of thinking. [1]

“Then we agree?” Fry might say.

“Not completely.” I would respond. “For me, everything is easier to understand in this world, when I think of it as a world at war, a war between God and Satan.” While you might assume that Fry would laugh at this suggestion or at least point out its absurdity, I think he might sincerely consider it. In the interview, he explains his inclination toward Greek Pantheism of all things.

I’d continue, “Just for fun, let’s assume that Satan does exist and that he and other fallen angels are at war with God and behind much of the evil and suffering in our world. If this were true, then we could expect bone cancer, misery, injustice and pain. We wouldn’t question why bad things would happen to good people. To paraphrase my mentor, Ralph Winter, when we reinstate Satan’s existence as an evil intelligence loose in God’s creation, only then do a lot of things become clear and reasonable. Suffering, in a perverse way, starts to make sense.”

“Ah, you’re describing Dualism,” he might say. “Next to Greek Pantheism, I think that Dualism is the manliest and most sensible creed on the market.” (Fry would surely be able to paraphrase C.S. Lewis as well as I could.) [2]

“Yes, but Dualism has a catch,” I would add. “The essence of Dualism is a war between two equal powers—a good god and a bad god—and thus a never-ending war. It would be easy to trust in the goodness of the good god, but not his power, for he is incapable of defeating the bad god. Christianity, on the other hand is built on two promises, that God is all-good and all-powerful, and that one day the war will end. The ‘bad god,’ Satan, will be conquered.”

If Fry took these ideas seriously, as he might, I would imagine his next question would be, “But Brian (again, first name basis), why would God create Satan in the first place? God may be good, he may be powerful, but surely he isn’t very bright.”

I would respond, “Why did God create you in the first place?” I picture Fry glancing at me slyly as he pondered the inherent humor of God creating him, Stephen Fry, solely to point out God’s lack of intelligence.

“To do evil?” I would ask.

“Of course not,” he would certainly reply.

“Can you do evil?”

“Yes,” would have to be his answer.

“God didn’t create Satan to do evil either.” I would offer. “Satan was good when he was created, and went wrong.”

“But why did Satan go wrong?” he might ask. Not in a simplistic way, but in a way as to question why God would allow such a thing, given the possible repercussions.

“Well, a simple answer might be, because he could.”

“But why would God allow Satan that freedom?”

“I think God gave Satan that freedom, and gives all of us that freedom because he wants our authentic love, and you can’t have authentic love without freedom. Take the story of a young man who got down on one knee to propose to his girlfriend, but before she could answer he pulled out a pistol and said, ‘You better say yes, or else.’ [3] Now, of course the young woman said yes, but was this authentic love? Or was it simply fear? When you take away freedom it always destroys love.”

“That’s all well and good,” Fry might say,  “but that doesn’t exactly answer why God allows Satan so much freedom. God could have set parameters around him, which would prohibit his most dastardly deeds. Maybe not chicken-pox, but certainly bone cancer.”

“Let’s put it this way,” I’d say. “Imagine that you are God.”

“Oh, I like where this is headed.” He’d respond.

“And imagine that you are trying to decide the kind of world you’d like to create. You could create a world entirely populated by dogs. And each of those dogs would love you, like all dogs love their owners. They would fetch sticks for you. They would provide companionship. They would bark at your mailman. But would that be enough? A dog world might be nice, but not compared to a planet full of humans who would love you. Humans—at their best—can love in a much deeper, more intimate, more profound way than any dog. Plus, dogs…”

“Actually I prefer cats,” Fry might interject.

“Okay, cats. Cats are not generally capable of nuclear fission, or Shakespearian poetry or even making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But humans are. Humans are capable of enormous good. Now imagine that kind of love and goodness multiplied by a hundred, or a thousand, or a million. Maybe that approaches the angelic capacity for love and goodness.

However, there is a proportional flipside to all this love and goodness. Dogs—or cats in your case—are marvelous companions, but they can bite and scratch and require constant cleanup. Similar issues apply with humans. As much as another human being can love you, and enhance your happiness and make life seem complete, they can also make your life a living hell. Now multiply that by a hundred, or a thousand, or a million and maybe that approaches the angelic capacity for harm and evil. 

If you don’t like that analogy, how about transportation? A skateboard is a good mode of transportation, but a bike is, in many ways, better, safer, faster, etc. A car is better still and a train is better than that. But perhaps the best form of transportation is a plane, for its speed, safety, cost per mile, etc. But the flip side is the proportional amount of injury, destruction and death that can result if something goes wrong.

The point is, if you put parameters around a person or an angel’s capacity for evil, you would consequently put parameters around that person or that angel’s capacity for love and goodness. Who in their right mind would limit how much love they could receive from their parent, or their child or their spouse?”

“But if this is all true, why doesn’t God save us from all this misery and simply wipe Satan out of existence?” Fry might ask.

“Every Christian I know believes that one day, he will,” I’d answer.

“Then what on earth is he waiting for?” Fry would ask. “And before you answer, please, please don’t explain that God is waiting, not because he is slow to act, but because he is patient. I don’t want to hear that God is waiting because he doesn’t want anyone to perish but to come to repentance and faith. And the reason I won’t allow this explanation is because every day 350,000 babies are born. That’s 350,000 new human lifetimes added every day that God has to wait out to see if they’ll come to repentance and faith. As long as humans continue to procreate, it will never end.”

“Okay, that’s fair,” I’d admit. “I like to think of the earth as a stage and the entire universe is intently watching the drama unfold. Satan is causing all kinds of havoc and destruction just waiting to see if God will strike him down. Because if God strikes him down, Satan wins. If God strikes him down, the whole universe will see that he isn’t a god of love and freedom; he’s a god of coercion and force.”

“But God will strike him down,” Fry would respond. “You said that yourself, ‘one day the war will end. Satan will be conquered.’”

“Right, but, I wonder if he will be conquered in a way we’ve never imagined,” I’d reply. “Jesus never did things quite the way the people of his day expected, especially his disciples. In fact, you could argue that Jesus ‘conquered’ his enemies in a completely counter-intuitive manner – by dying for them. Perhaps God is waiting for the moment in history when he doesn’t have to use his power and force to conquer Satan. Perhaps the war will end, when Satan is fully and finally exposed as a fraud.” [4]

“But hasn’t he already been exposed?” Fry might ask.

“If he were already exposed,” I would answer, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You wouldn’t be blaming God for bone cancer, misery, injustice and pain. No one would raise their fist to the sky and ask, ‘Why God, why?’”

“And what changes when we stop asking those questions?” Fry might ask.

I’d respond, “When enough people acknowledge that Satan is the source of evil, not God, and stand up to fight every evil with everything in our command, I think a tipping point will occur. Perhaps that’s when Christ will return to this war-torn world and Satan and all his minions will realize that the tide has turned, their war will soon be lost, and they will be crushed under the weight of their own hopelessness, consumed by a ‘lake of burning fire’ from within.” [5]

“So,” Fry might ask, “God is just sitting up there in heaven, passively waiting for all this to play out?”

“No,” I’d respond. “I don’t think God is passive. I think he is constantly at work generating life, beauty, perfection, order and all other things that demonstrate his character of love and goodness, or as the Bible puts it, bringing his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. And I think he’s influencing every free will in the universe to participate in that process.”

“Until Satan is fully exposed?” Fry might clarify. “That’s the end of the story?”

“Oh, no. That’s just the beginning,” I’d respond. “Once it becomes clear that Satan’s kingdom is unsustainable and self-destructive, no person or angel will ever follow Satan’s path again, not because of fear that God will punish them if they do, but because Satan’s road is exposed as a dead end. [6] Then the story can really begin, and heaven can be a place of never-ending peace.”

“I sense that we are now taking great liberties with traditional Christian theology,” Fry may respond.

“To a degree we are,” I’d answer. “But I think it’s worth pondering more deeply. Don't you?”

“Oh, this is all just too much,” Fry might say, as we walked off into the sunset discussing the unfathomable complexity of life.

Brian Lowther is the director
of the Roberta Winter Institute. 

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Endnotes

     [1] Adapted from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
     [2] Ibid
     [3] Adapted from: http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/prayerandcounseling/Jennings_Inner_Healling08.aspx
     [4] Adapted from: http://www.godscharacter.com/index.php/revelation/revelation-6/revelation-6-the-5th-seal-theodicy-101
     [5] For more on this, visit: http://www.godscharacter.com/index.php/articles/god-blog/225-our-god-is-a-consuming-fire
     [6] Paraphrased from: http://godscharacter.com/index.php/revelation/revelation-6/revelation-6-don-t-trust-every-rider-on-a-white-horse

From a World-Renowned Mission Strategist to a Disease-Eradication Activist

Ralph D. Winter speaking at the dedication of the Ralph D. Winter Library at Olivet University in July, 2007

As we continue on our website tour, this week we're highlighting The "Why" of the RWI, which recounts the fascinating story of how a world-renowned mission strategist became a disease-eradication activist.

Around the late 1990s, Ralph Winter began to realize that the Good News being shared around the world was being followed up with some very bad news. God loves you, we preached, and Jesus died to save you, but He also gave your child brain cancer and may inflict pain on you to deepen your spiritual life.

Winter was deeply concerned by this distorted witness, distorted theology, and distorted view of God in the church. "If we continued to explain that a mysterious good hides behind all suffering, if we continued to take the Biblical phrase 'all things work together for good' to mean that God . . . is somehow the author of the evil itself, we would continue to see the Christian faith blossom around the world today only to watch it fade tomorrow."

Find out how he decided to pull back the curtain on the puppet show and reveal suffering and disease for what they really were—tools of a jealous and vicious opponent to God.

Book Review: Christ and Human Suffering by E. Stanley Jones

Flickr/Zuhair A. Al-Traifi

Reviewed by Rebecca Lewis

Is God the author of human suffering? Why should we do anything about it? These are timeless questions asked the world over that E. Stanley Jones eloquently addresses in his book, Christ and Human Suffering, (published 1933). No one is better able to address this than Jones, who spent much of his adult life living in China and India, where suffering of the masses, and of the individuals trying to help them, was extreme.

Jones begins by honestly addressing the fact that God does not deliver the righteous from all suffering as we often expect or hope. He concludes, " something better than deliverance [is what] we must search for" if we are to understand Jesus' solution to the problem of suffering. He then proceeds to distinguish between "evils from within," due to choices of our own wills in self-injurious defiance of the moral laws of the universe, which we call sin, and "evil that comes from without," which we call suffering.

In order to address the full spectrum of suffering, Jones identifies nine different types of suffering based on Jesus' warnings about the end times in Luke 21:8-19. He faces these with humility and compassion, fully empathizing with the disillusionment of those who, doing their best to serve the Lord, find themselves bereaved of children or spouses, homes, or health, or those subjected to violence from man or nature, persecution, or, the most intimate of suffering, unhappy families.

All of humanity recoils from the injustice of suffering, so any discussion of the topic is inadequate without delving into the various ways that humans have decided to explain and to face suffering. Here Jones' global experience is invaluable, as he again shows humility and understanding of the answers societies have found.

 In brief, he explores the following:  Stoicism of the West — suffering is inevitable and impartial, courage equals "unyielding despair" (B. Russell); Buddhism — suffering comes from desire, cease suffering by ceasing desire/being; Hinduism — suffering is just, Karma, accept suffering as your due for deeds done in previous lives; Vedanta Hinduism — suffering is illusion, Maya, withdraw into Atma/the unconscious mind of the universe; Islam — suffering is God's will, the godly submit to it and accept suffering as God's plan; Judaism — suffering will be made right, ultimately God will bless the righteous and punish the wicked; un-biblical Christianity — suffering is God's way of developing our character.

While all of these viewpoints nobly try to make sense of the problem of suffering, they all produce inaction in the face of both individual and corporate suffering.

Jones dedicates the rest of his book to going step by step through the ways that Jesus spoke about and addressed suffering. He shows that Jesus teaches that, while people do reap the consequences of "internal evil," their own sins and the sins of those around them ("the fact is we do not break this [moral] law, we break ourselves upon it"), that the suffering of "external evil," is neither inherited nor authored by God, nor is lack of suffering a sign of God's special favor.

While all of these viewpoints nobly try to make sense of the problem of suffering, they all produce inaction in the face of both individual and corporate suffering.

Jones argues that Christ, far from withdrawing from or submitting to suffering, "represents the most amazingly active method of dealing with life," not merely teaching but showing us how to overcome evil with good. "With little explaining and no explaining away," Jesus shows us how to take hold of life at its direst points, and proactively turn what Satan intended for evil into victory. He came to give life and life more abundant, not primarily through the miracles of healing and deliverance from suffering, which he does do on occasion;  but, as he works out in his own life, by a "victorious vitality" that brings a greater life from the ashes.

 "The religion of Jesus does mean these three things: victory over sin, victory over self, victory over suffering."

Through the giving of many examples from the life of Jesus and those who know him, both in history and in his current experience, Jones shows that "the will of God was to be done, not by acquiescence but by activity — it was to be done by taking hold of the whole miserable business and turning it into a triumph of the love of God." Far from nursing our own hurts through self-pity, self-protection, apathy, anger, or noble despair, "Jesus would call us to sound the depths of life and to live dangerously there, to grapple with the great issues of life and show Life through them," what Jones calls "the highest expression of the will to live."

With depth and perception, Jones spends six chapters working out the objections to, difficulties, and results of the peaceful but purposeful activity that comes from this faith. Before his crucifixion Jesus said, "You will leave me all alone. But I am not alone, the Father is with me. I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:32b-33).

Indeed, the victorious Christ is also with us always, and just as "God was in him reconciling the world to himself," so also God's Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, is in us. As his disciple, John affirmed from his own experience, "You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world" (I John 4:4).

I highly recommend this book to anyone struggling with the problem of suffering and seeking to understand and, most importantly, to live God's way, overcoming evil with good, the way of Christ.

Rebecca Lewis studied history at both the BA and MA level, and holds an MA in International Development from WCIU. She taught at the university level for over ten years and has worked on curriculum development for 30 years. She has lived on five continents, most lately in India with her children and grandchildren, where she consulted on curriculum development for Indian government school teachers.