Robert
Lyon is a retired clergyman who divides his time between
Guelph, Ontario and Melaque, Mexico. He taught high
school English, Latin, Greek and science, and served
as an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve,
retiring in the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. His latest
book, Don't Throw Out Your Bible, is now
in print.
My
friend and your editor, Robert Lewis, sent me two challenging
faith questions. They’re excellent questions precisely
because they demand answers to issues that a lot of us are
struggling with in these difficult days. What these, and
all questions like them, really want to know is how any
reasonable and decent person today can maintain a traditional
belief in God.
Rob’s first question asks: What do you say to a man
who, struggling with faith, wonders whether the world might
be better off without religion? . . . who thinks that, without
religion, the astonishing 200 million who died in the Inquisition,
the Crusades, various Islamic conquests, the Thirty Years
War, the Holocaust, of the Twin Towers, and all of history’s
other religion-based acts of terrorism, might have remained
alive in their time and place.
His second question asks: What do you say to the cynic who
complains: I sleep in on Sundays and don’t go to Church,
because God slept through the Crusades, the Inquisition,
the Holocaust, etc. To which Rob adds: The pat theological
response is that God gave us freedom to choose, and he hasn't
interfered in human events since the Resurrection.
An Answer:
Note that what I offer here is “An” Answer,
not “The” Answer. These questions have been
asked, in some form or other, seemingly forever, and they’re
sufficiently complex that I don’t want to give the
impression that I think I have the last word on the topic.
I also hope that no responsible pastor or academic would
propose what Rob calls “the pat theological response”.
It
seems to me that the man struggling with faith in Question
1, and the cynic in Question 2, are actually asking two
parts of the same age-old question: Why do bad things happen
to good people? The faith-challenged man in Question 1 is
distressed that religious people can be mean, nasty, and
hateful, while the cynic in Question 2 is annoyed that God
doesn’t do something about it.
For
some serious thinkers, those two aspects of what we call
“the problem of evil” are sufficient grounds
for doubting the existence of a good, loving and omnipotent
God. In 1981 Rabbi Harold Kushner addressed that question
in his book titled When Bad Things Happen to Good People.
For the Rabbi, whose child had died of progeria, a premature
aging disease, this was no mere academic question but a
pastoral challenge that had come home to his own family.
As we see from his book, Rabbi Kushner continued to believe
in God’s love and goodness, but he came to think of
God’s power to intervene as limited. While I think
his view falls short, I admire the fact that his title begins
with “When” rather than “Why”. You
see in that the humility of a man who was committed to pastoring
his flock in love even when their questions seemed unanswerable.
But our man in the first question might see this unanswerability
as just another reason why the world would be better off
without religion.
At first glance, the idea that the world would be better
off without religion does indeed appear to have merit. Certainly,
a lot of nasty stuff has been done in the name of religion
–- not just in the name of Christianity but in the
name of all religions. As for that other sort of nasty stuff
– natural events like earthquakes and droughts –
various religions pose explanations for it that, to some
modern minds, don’t seem convincing. But before we
proceed, we must recognize that there is a semantic elephant
in the room: Specifically, what exactly do we mean by “religion”?
For
example, each Sunday morning a group of us meet on my patio
to pray, to discuss the day’s Bible readings, and
to observe the Lord’s Supper. We have good discussions,
often sparked by different theological points of view. Our
neighbours are grateful that we don’t attempt to sing!
After the meeting, we go back to our weekly routines, try
to live our lives the way Jesus taught, and do whatever
good we can for others. If that’s what you mean by
religion, I don’t see how the world would be any better
off without it.
But “religion” can also mean other things, like
imposing a set of arbitrary, culturally conditioned, often
irrational obligations, some of whichcan have serious social
consequences. Jesus reminded the religious leaders of his
day that they “bind heavy burdens, hard to bear”
and make their people even more miserable but no closer
to salvation. We all know people whose lives have been damaged
by that sort of legalistic “orthodoxy”.
But there’s yet another manifestation of religion:
birds of a feather flock together. In itself that’s
a perfectly reasonable thing, but then those birds develop
a pecking order, which sometimes becomes a source of contention.
They may also fear and attack other birds that don’t
chirp the same tune. That describes large parts of Islam,
mediaeval Catholicism and American evangelicalism, and I
expect you can name other groups that also belong on the
list. Such groups may become particularly dangerous when
they gain access to political power.
All three of those manifestations offer their members such
important things as identity, belonging, meaning, values
and purpose. But the latter two manifestations, especially,
are also capable of some really nasty stuff. That nasty
stuff is not properly religion, but an abuse of religion.
That’s the stuff that the world would be better off
without.
So why do so many of us pursue religion in any of its varieties?
Precisely because we need that identity, belonging, meaning,
values and purpose. And those things, put together, make
up our “world-view”, or as the philosophers
call it in German, our Weltanschauung. And if our
world-view includes God, or something akin to God, you’ve
got a religion – or if you prefer, a spirituality.
But you can also have a world-view without God – and
then, guess what? Birds of that feather will also flock
together. They’ll also form pecking orders. And instead
of churches they’ll form political parties, or special-interest
groups or gangs. And they too may “bind heavy burdens,
hard to bear.” And they too may fear and attack other
birds that don’t chirp the same tune.
The
issue in the ensuing conflicts is generally not religious.
Certainly, there is a group within Islam who think that
the Quran mandates the death of the rest of us. But their
motivation, which really is religious, is the exception.
More common by far, I think, is the motivation behind “The
Troubles” that plagued Northern Ireland, and even
today leave their latest Legacy and Reconciliation Act (2023)
somewhat tentative. To be sure, one side happens to be Catholic
and the other Protestant, but that’s more a matter
of colouring than substance; what’s really at issue
is four centuries of grievances over real estate, economics
and a people’s pride. And while Catholicism in the
Irish Republic has experienced some slippage in recent years,
the political issues still simmer. For that’s what
most wars are really about – real estate, economics
and pride. Religion just provides the dignified outer clothing.
So why, our cynic asks, doesn’t God do something about
it?
The
first part of the “pat response” that Rob cites
is correct: God did give us freedom to choose. Indeed, that
freedom is a significant part of what the writer of Genesis
(chapter 1) means when he says that God created us “in
his image”. Not only have we been given a derivative
version of God’s own freedom, but the Genesis writer
also notes that we have been authorized to exercise that
freedom in dominion over everything on earth. That’s
heady stuff – and if you believe it, it ought to govern
how that freedom is used. But instead, we commit ungodly
acts like the Crusades, the Inquisition, the Holocaust,
various genocides, and all the etceteras that fill history
books, police blotters, and all the dark places in Everyman’s
conscience. That isn’t just an abuse of God’s
creation; it’s an affront to the very image of God
in which he created us.
But
I must take issue with the second assumption: that God ”hasn’t
interfered in human events since the Resurrection.”
That moves us out of Christian theism and into deism –
a view that’s often characterized as God winding up
the universe like a clock and then leaving it to tick away
on its own. (Rabbi Kushner seems to have held such a view.)
On the contrary, the writer of the New Testament letter
“To the Hebrews” says (in chapter 1) that God
– in the person of Jesus, no less! – maintains
the universe by the power of his “logos” –
where that Greek word “logos” embraces both
God’s “word”, whereby Genesis portrays
God speaking creation into existence, and the principle
of rationality that’s at the heart of the Greek philosopher’s
understanding of everything. The business of maintaining
that universe looks to me like a full-time job, so it should
come as no surprise that the Psalm writer says, “He
that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep”
(Psalm 121). So our cynic may be sleeping in on Sunday mornings,
but whatever the Genesis writer imagines God doing when
he “rested on the Sabbath day”, you can be sure
he wasn’t dozing!
But
there’s more that needs to be said against the view
that God hasn’t “interfered” in human
events since the Resurrection. St Paul, who was well aware
of the successive rise and fall of empires (Assyrian, Babylonian,
Persian, Greek, Roman), and was intimately familiar with
the stories of Jewish persecution in Egypt and Babylon,
and who had his own share of persecution as well, never
complained that God was dozing off when life became difficult.
Instead, Paul explained to some leading Athenians (Acts
17) that God actually manages the ups and downs of nations
to prod people to seek him. That’s because God, as
a wise Psychologist, knows that we typically don’t
get motivated to do something unless we actually feel a
need for it. If life were “just a bowl of cherries”,
we’d just sit there and munch at them all day until
they were gone, then get grumpy until someone brought us
more. We don’t go looking for either God or groceries
when our hearts or our tummies are full.
But
there’s still more to be said about God’s alleged
non-interference in human affairs. I once asked the Reverend
Dr A. W. Tozer about his idea of Providence. “Providence,”
Dr Tozer said, “is God playing his checkers.”
By which he meant that, while we can all play our pieces
in the checker game of life according to our own liking,
God also – without affecting the freedom of our choices
– may elect to play a piece here or there to achieve
his own higher ends. Sometimes a human request may even
initiate such providences; as Archbishop William Temple
famously said: ”When I pray, coincidences happen;
when I don’t, they don’t.” To believers,
it often seems that God is at work “behind the scenes”,
so that a coincidence may look like a serendipitous event
within the divine strategy, while to the cynic that same
coincidence looks like mere chance.
Some
years ago I was visiting a sick friend (another Robert)
who needed an expensive medical assessment that neither
of us could afford. When I arrived home from that visit,
I found in my mailbox a refund cheque for nearly twice the
amount he needed. Needless to say, that got him the assessment.
The results, regrettably, weren’t what we’d
hoped for, and he died several months later. But he died
in faith, and the coincidence of the cheque no doubt strengthened
his belief that God’s everlasting purposes would turn
out for his good.
So
was the arrival of that cheque really “just”
a coincidence, or was God purposefully manipulating checkers
that were already in play on the board? It was the same
event whichever way you see it. But which way you see
it may actually matter more than the event itself, for
how you see it reveals whether you think the universe,
which some scholars consider anthropocentric (i.e., as
if it were designed for us), is ultimately purposeful,
or whether it is a pointless accident. Your answer will
determine not only how you live in this universe but also
how you die in it.
But,
our cynic may object, that other Robert died anyway –
as do all Roberts, and the rest of us. So he shrugs and
says: So much for God’s Providence! But not so fast.
Our dying, in whatever nasty or peaceful way it happens,
doesn’t mean that God doesn’t care. Jesus says
(Matthew 10) that God sees the smallest sparrow fall, and
assures us that we are worth more than all those sparrows.
Which takes us back to whether you think the universe is
ultimately purposeful or pointless. And whether you think
this world is all there is, or the harbinger of a better
world to come.
As
mentioned above, we live in an anthropocentric universe
– a world that seems to have been specifically designed
to meet our needs. And yet that same universe survives by
consuming itself: the sun that gives life will one day burn
itself out in the course of giving that life. The weather
patterns that make things grow can rain on your parade,
flood your basement, and worse. A seed, St Paul argues metaphorically,
has to “die” in the ground before it can spring
up with the new body of a plant (1 Corinthians 15). The
writer of Genesis has God declare that his creation is “very
good”. But God doesn’t say that it’s everlasting.
This combination of “very good” and self-consuming
help me to believe that this present world is not the final
state of things -- that a caring God has a better world
in store for us.
As
I sit here writing this piece on my laptop, I see hanging
on the wall opposite me a crucifix. It belonged to a friend
with whom I had the privilege of saying last rites when
he chose MAID over unbearable terminal pain. That crucifix
looks back at me whenever I start thinking like the cynic
in today’s question, complaining that God allows things
like the Holocaust, genocides, my friend’s cancer,
and all the things big and small that irk me. Why God allows
such things is a mystery – we need to learn to live
with the reality of mystery – and then I remember
that it’s the Figure on that crucifix who maintains
the universe by the power of his “logos”, whom
the writer of “To the Hebrews” (chapter 1) describes
as “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact
representation of his being”. And I marvel that, even
for such a cause as “making purification for sins”,
God allowed us to use our freedom to do That to Him. Rabbi
Manis Friedman (find him on YouTube) describes God as making
himself “infinitely vulnerable”. So when I’m
entertaining my cynical complaints, I see that infinitely
vulnerable Figure looking back at me, lovingly, and I can
imagine him saying, “Been there, done that.”
.
Which is why, on a Sunday morning – or whenever –
I need to acknowledge my failings before God, to offer him
my inadequate thanks for undeserved blessings, and then
to spend the rest of the week doing whatever I can to show
kindness to others as we await that better world to come.
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