Why Does God Have to Do It This Way? (2)
I want to take the thoughts I shared in my previous article further. In the last article, I limited the attempt to answer the question of “why does God have to do it this way?” to the necessity of tribulations for the spiritual and character formation of the believer. In the broader context, some have asked: if God is loving and all-powerful, why should there be any evil in the world? Why does he sit back and watch people suffer, doing nothing about it? Why didn’t he make everything perfect from the beginning and prevent man from falling into sin?
These are not questions that only an atheist or agnostic may ask. A believer could legitimately ask the same in prayerful reflection or with the desire to be a more effective witness. Although Scripture teaches that “secret things belong to the LORD our God,” it adds, “but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever” (Deuteronomy 29:29). While we must admit that we cannot fully understand God in our present state, he has revealed enough for our immediate needs. We should invest ourselves in learning what he has made known.
First, we must understand that God is God, and we are human. Though we share some of God’s attributes, our versions are inferior. We are a much lower class of beings and operate differently. God says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways… For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9). God does not think the way we do, and his emotions work differently.
Have you thought about how you might feel anguish seeing a child subjected to violence, yet you would crush a cockroach underfoot, smash it with a wand, or douse it with insecticide, barely giving your action a thought? This is despite the fact that the cockroach also feels pain and desires to survive. You may even think you need to exterminate the cockroach, even when you are the cause of its encroachment on your space.
This seeming lack of compassion for the cockroach is because of the life-form gap between you and an insect and your substantially more expansive sphere of engagement. Even though you are a vile monster in the cockroach’s undiscerning worldview, it does not make you an evil person in your sphere of existence. This should give a basic insight into how attempting to judge God by our thoughts and feelings is futile.
Second, we must recognize that our ideas about God have been largely molded by religious tradition and what theologians call systematic theology. Despite their usefulness, these things are still human innovations and should not be mistaken for Scripture.
Put simply, systematic theology is the development of summary statements and ideas about specific topics based on the many things that the Bible says about those topics. For example, “the omnipotence of God” does not occur in the Bible but is a theological concept used to capture what the Bible says about the power of God. (I know what I said there. This particular topic is central to our immediate interest, and we will get back to it. And, yes, God is “omnipotent”.)
Presently, It is not difficult to see how our systematic theology is only as good as the quality of our biblical understanding. Things become trickier when we consider that our theological formulations are sometimes only convenient ways of dealing with things we still do not fully understand.
All this is not a problem. The trend is similar in practically every field of human knowledge. But there is the need for us to know exactly what we are dealing with and not take it beyond what it really is. Our spiritual formation and maturation and the earthly advancement of the kingdom of God depend on our readiness to critically reassess things we have always believed in the light of progressive and reliable learning and understanding (Proverbs 4:18; 1 Corinthians 13:12).
You might understand my thoughts better by considering the advancement of human knowledge in the physical sciences. For example, think of the progress that has been made from Philo Farnsworth’s invention of his electronic television in 1927 to current quantum smart TVs and holographic teleporting technology. It all started with the original insight and inspiration of Farnsworth and his contemporaries (see Job 32:8), which may be compared to the original inspired biblical texts (2 Timothy 3:16–17).
The world was obviously not ready nor able to support the best of television back in the 1920s. The technology was necessarily introduced in a basic and relatable form, and then progressively developed by those who came later. In a similar way, the spiritual gifts of wisdom and revelation in the church (1 Corinthians 12:8; Ephesians 1:17–18) progressively help us to discover and unearth treasures of knowledge buried in the raw biblical texts (Matthew 13:52; see also Proverbs 2:1–5). However, those who claim such insight must be carefully examined and judged (1 Corinthians 14:29; 1 Thessalonians 5:21).
Christ was aware and alerted us of this dynamic of progressive spiritual knowledge when he said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come” (John 16:12–3).
(To be continued.)
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