Joy and grief on Christmas
There are no easy philosophic or theological explanations for unnatural death — no greater, cosmic good that neatly justifies unfair suffering. And those who try to find God’s will in an earthquake, a cancer ward or a mass killing are engaged in a particularly cruel and arrogant exercise. Coffin would have none of it: “Nothing so infuriates me as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get it through their heads that God doesn’t go around this world with his fingers on triggers, his fists around knives, his hands on steering wheels. . . . The one thing that should never be said when someone dies is, ‘It is the will of God.’ Never do we know enough to say that. My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die; that when the waves closed over the sinking car, God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.”
Death is not the expression of a just moral order but its violation. And the proper response is not explanation but friendship. “Immediately after such tragedy,” said Coffin, “people must come to your rescue, people who only want to hold your hand, not to quote anybody or even say anything, people who simply bring food and flowers — the basics of beauty and life — people who sign letters simply, ‘Your brokenhearted sister.’ ”
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I took some comments I made previously at another headlines link and cobbled them together for a post this past Friday on suffering: Christmas Tears.
INC on December 25, 2012 at 11:45 PM
It depends on the situation and the people who remain when someone passes. For my family, it is extremely comforting to remember that God is indeed sovereign, and nothing happens apart from his plan. I would much rather have a God who has planned out the exact number of days I have on this earth, than one who is only doing what He can to make the best of a bad situation. This, I believe, is the God of the Bible.
Othniel on December 26, 2012 at 12:13 AM
I agree.
INC on December 26, 2012 at 12:15 AM
Alternatively, the God of the Bible can be viewed as far bigger than that. Consider a God not bound by our limited conception of His sovereignty, a necessarily narrow, invariably fatalistic view that inevitably dictates to God what He must do to be God (for instance, that He must direct the path of every stray molecule drifting in deep space else He is not absolutely sovereign, thus not really God, as some “deep thinkers” have bafflingly pronounced).
Rather, consider a God who is so incomprehensibly wise and powerful that He really could give each and every individual absolute freedom of choice within his or her own sphere and span of life without concern for His sovereign rule over all. Thus, literally anything can and does happen without God’s hand necessarily “being on the wheel”…and yet, nevertheless, above and beyond it all, beyond all we can conceive, God still reigns sovereign.
Despite all man may choose to do without God’s micromanaging dictates of every single human thought, choice and action throughout history. Imagine this: a drunk’s car goes airborne over the median and lands on another car, killing all five inside the second car. It happened just yesterday in Kentucky. Would telling the victims’ families “it’s God’s will” comfort them? Maybe. Would it bring glory to God? I say no. Did God declare this to happen “for His purposes”? To say the holy, just God of the Bible somehow NEEDS to do this and a million other evil or banal acts to further His plans is not merely an insultingly small view of His sovereignty but is borderline blasphemy. It also negates and reduces to farce the justice of His sworn ultimate judgment of all evil, if in fact He was secretly behind all of it “for His purposes.”
The true God of the Bible is not a puppetmaster; as much as many people want Him to be exactly that for their own childish comfort, He isn’t because He doesn’t need to be. He can and will bring to pass all that He has declared, and will do so in righteous justice and holiness. NOTHING man chooses to do or not do will thwart one atom of it.
THAT is my concept of the God of the Bible.
S.P. Link on December 26, 2012 at 7:58 AM
Repost: hit Return in a spot I shouldn’t have.
Alternatively, the God of the Bible can be viewed as far bigger than that. Consider a God not bound by our limited conception of His sovereignty, a necessarily narrow, invariably fatalistic view that inevitably dictates to God what He must do to be God (for instance, that He must direct the path of every stray molecule drifting in deep space else He is not absolutely sovereign, thus not really God, as some “deep thinkers” have bafflingly pronounced).
Rather, consider a God who is so incomprehensibly wise and powerful that He really could give each and every individual absolute freedom of choice within his or her own sphere and span of life without concern for His sovereign rule over all. Thus, literally anything can and does happen without God’s hand necessarily “being on the wheel”…and yet, nevertheless, above and beyond it all, beyond all we can conceive, God still reigns sovereign despite all man may choose to do without God’s micromanaging dictates of every single human thought, choice and action throughout history.
Imagine this: a drunk’s car goes airborne over the median and lands on another car, killing all five inside the second car. It happened just yesterday in Kentucky. Would telling the victims’ families “it’s God’s will” comfort them? Maybe. Would it bring glory to God? I say no. Did God declare this to happen “for His purposes”? To say the holy, just God of the Bible somehow NEEDS to do this and a million other evil or banal acts to further His plans is not merely an insultingly small view of His sovereignty but is borderline blasphemy. It also negates and reduces to farce the justice of His sworn ultimate judgment of all evil, if in fact He was secretly behind all of it “for His purposes.”
The true God of the Bible is not a puppetmaster; as much as many people want Him to be exactly that for their own childish comfort, He isn’t because He doesn’t need to be. He can and will bring to pass all that He has declared, and will do so in righteous justice and holiness. NOTHING man chooses to do or not do will thwart one atom of it.
THAT is my concept of the God of the Bible.
S.P. Link on December 26, 2012 at 7:58 AM
S.P. Link on December 26, 2012 at 8:01 AM
This is always confusing to me. I have some very liberal and very religious relatives. It was “God’s will” *Praise him and all of that* that they kept their job but guns should be banned.
Do they really believe that God would choose helping them stay employed over protecting small children from a mad man? This truly boggles my mind. He is an active participant in their lives but a futile observer in the lives of others? I guess they just believe more…
Fallon on December 26, 2012 at 8:42 AM
Inconsistent, isn’t it.
I often wonder why people who really believe everything that happens is ultimately of God’s predestination (or whatever one wants to call it) even bother to vote.
S.P. Link on December 26, 2012 at 11:14 AM