Suffering and the Sovereignty of God
The other day a friend ask me about suffering in this world, the classic argument, if God is loving, why does he let bad things happen?
A question often asked by people and the obvious tension is as follows...
Either God is loving and not Sovereign, or he is Sovereign and not Loving.
That is the conundrum. Because if either one of the above statements were true then it would make sense of the situation.
However, neither one of those statements is true. What is true is that God is both sovereign and loving.
And _that_ is the way it is and is the _best_ way for it to be.
Let's consider the two elements of the statements...
a. A world where God is not sovereign
Wow! Do you _really_ want to live in a world where God is not sovereign, where _everything_ that happens is absolutely random and without any direction what so ever? At least if God is sovereign then someone is in control. What is the first thing that gets asked in a situation where there is total chaos? why it is "who is in charge here?". Imagine a military force without a commander, would it have any effect whatsoever? Furthermore, in a world without a sovereign God there is _no one_ I mean, no one to run to when things get bad, no one to pray to ask for deliverance? Life is reduced to having little more meaning and significance than sand that is brushed out the door.
b. A World where God is Sovereign, but not loving
I can remember, as a boy, having a lot of fun tormenting the ants in an ant hill in our back garden. It was fun to stick my finger down their hole and watch them all scramble to get rid of the intrusion. They would all bite attempt to disable whatever it was by sinking their pincers into it. I can also remember dismembering some of the ants, to see how they would fare without back legs, for instance. Imagine how the ants must have felt. Now that, is what a world without a loving God is. In fact, even _worse_ than the world without a soveriegn God because now the one who is in absolute control is also out to get you. So he can orchestrate things in the worst way possible!
So you see, when considering the issue of why a loving God allows bad things to happen, let's look on the bright sad and be thankful there is a Loving God, who _is_ in charge.
In
A question often asked by people and the obvious tension is as follows...
Either God is loving and not Sovereign, or he is Sovereign and not Loving.
That is the conundrum. Because if either one of the above statements were true then it would make sense of the situation.
However, neither one of those statements is true. What is true is that God is both sovereign and loving.
And _that_ is the way it is and is the _best_ way for it to be.
Let's consider the two elements of the statements...
a. A world where God is not sovereign
Wow! Do you _really_ want to live in a world where God is not sovereign, where _everything_ that happens is absolutely random and without any direction what so ever? At least if God is sovereign then someone is in control. What is the first thing that gets asked in a situation where there is total chaos? why it is "who is in charge here?". Imagine a military force without a commander, would it have any effect whatsoever? Furthermore, in a world without a sovereign God there is _no one_ I mean, no one to run to when things get bad, no one to pray to ask for deliverance? Life is reduced to having little more meaning and significance than sand that is brushed out the door.
b. A World where God is Sovereign, but not loving
I can remember, as a boy, having a lot of fun tormenting the ants in an ant hill in our back garden. It was fun to stick my finger down their hole and watch them all scramble to get rid of the intrusion. They would all bite attempt to disable whatever it was by sinking their pincers into it. I can also remember dismembering some of the ants, to see how they would fare without back legs, for instance. Imagine how the ants must have felt. Now that, is what a world without a loving God is. In fact, even _worse_ than the world without a soveriegn God because now the one who is in absolute control is also out to get you. So he can orchestrate things in the worst way possible!
So you see, when considering the issue of why a loving God allows bad things to happen, let's look on the bright sad and be thankful there is a Loving God, who _is_ in charge.
In
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posted by Michael Wiles at 3:14 am
3 Comments:
That's good... Good insight!
Dude - your point is right. The other thing to think about is that God is not only an all-loving-God.
So when a non-believer asks how can a loving God allow x to happen? Then a valid response is: 'Well at times he is not all that loving.'
Now this rattles alot of cages, for Christians as well as non Christians. But this is because Christians have grown up with the notion that God is all loving all of the time. And he is not.
Was it loving to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? No. It was God's wrath and his justice that demanded their destruction. Does that mean that God is unloving? No, because at the same time he showed grace by saving Lot.
It just means he is not loving all the time.
so what you're telling me then is that at arbitary times, based on human reasoning you can make a judgement on when God is loving and when he is not? By what measure do you assess when God is loving and when he is not?
Furthermore, when John says God is Love, it does not have a caveat which says, except sometimes he is not, nor does it give us license to decide when he is loving and when he is not.
Just because God judges and therefore punishes sin does not mean he is not loving. It was the loving thing to do in that context. Sometimes the loving thing to do does not seem loving by the human standard of love. The human standard, surprise surprise, is not God's standard.
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