Philippians 1:12-14, 27-30, Isaiah 43:1-3, John 15:2, Hebrews 12:10, James1:3
Theodicy is not cool. Theodicy is the question of why bad things happen to good people. Does God not really care about us? Is God unable to help? No one has a sufficient answer to assuage every concerned feeling, every grief, every fear, every anger, every doubt. Its hard to explain any answer to someone who is hurting or passionate. Answering logic to emotion often ends in further pain. That's not cool either. On one hand, we have the assurance that God is always with us and even FOR us. On the other, crap happens.
As for me, I believe things happen for reasons and there are no coincidences. I also believe that sorrows are sad, unfortunate, and often empty of meaning (that we can see). There is a strange balance in things like death, endings, and tragedy. There is both comfort and outrage in the fact that God is behind everything that happens. How can we be both comforted and outraged!? It makes no sense, and yet its there, unavoidable and obvious, even if we try to blind ourselves to it. "The problem with these mysteries is they're so mysterious" as Caedmon's Call puts it. This is where faith is really tested, not in questions of believing certain statements or whether or not we are strong in our Christian walk. Its when the storms hit and meaning is absent and we can see no reason why things are happening that hurt SO MUCH. We humans long to know WHY WHY WHY, but God is not a God who answers why so much as he says "Wait" and waiting is not a strong human ability...
God is in control, but he also grieves with us. All things work out for good, but the best things are recognized in light of the darkness that came before. Victory over evil requires us to have experienced evil, before we can experience the victory, the peace, the sigh of relief. This is a dangerous topic to share ideas on because every person is at a difference place emotionally when it comes to the crap of life. And yet, one response from Paul is that God uses perceived evils to strengthen us and make us holier, reminding us of our mortality so we can strive to be nearer to God. Let the pain in. Let the pain make you strong. But let God control the pain. Do not let the pain control you.
And remember also, God is the only one in a position to judge and control events. The ends do not justify the means for us. The "greater good" argument applies only when God uses it. If we try to use it, we are claiming to be God... and that can have TRULY serious consequences...
And also, just before verse 3 in James 1, see v. 2: "Count it all joy my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds."
ReplyDeleteAnd my personal all-time favorite passage:
"[W]e know that all things work together for the best unto them that love God, even to them that are called of his purpose. For those which he knew before, he also predestinated to be made like to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom he predestinated, them also he called, and whom he called, them also he justified, and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What shall we then say to these things? If God be on our side, who can be against us? Who spared not his own Son, but gave him for us all to death, how shall he not with him give us all things also? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's chosen? it is God that justifieth. Who shall condemn? it is Christ which is dead: yea, or rather, which is risen again, who is also at the right hand of God, and maketh request also for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake are we killed all day long: we are counted as sheep for the slaughter: nevertheless, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor Angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
That last one -- from Romans 8:28-39.
ReplyDeleteNice... That is an amazing passage! The problem is being careful when using it with someone who genuinely hurting. It might be good, or it might send them over the edge. Still, this is what's up!
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