The following is an excerpt from a larger piece I’m working on. That piece (and this section) is unedited – and the piece is largely unfinished. But I want to share elements of it as I continue to write.
Before we dive into the fuller nature of what we can and can’t know, I want to spend just a few moments and wrestle with a truth that we cannot miss – we cannot ignore. It’s both poignantly beautiful and complicated while simultaneously basic and life-giving. Simply, it’s the fact that the very reason we wrestle with the why – the very reason doubt takes hold of our hearts and causes us to ask seemingly unanswerable questions – is because God is real and because we are quite sure of that.
And that fact – in every minute that we can rest and relax and let go of our worry, anger, and fear – should give us peace and hope.
Let me explain.
It’s the very fact that we know – down to the core of our hearts and with a pain that cuts deeply – that this is not the best of all possible worlds, it’s that fact that should assure us that God is exactly who He claims to be.
Follow me here. We know what the world is – we just spent a fair amount of a chapter wallowing it in. The world is a broken, hurting, desolate place, full of evil, sin, tragedy and grief. That leaves us with four options as to the nature of God.
First, perhaps God doesn’t exist at all. Just a figment of our hope in a brighter world or a hereditary attempt to explain a universe far greater than we are.
Second, God might exist and be good but is woefully incapable and unable to put a stop to the evil of the world. In his omniscience, he is forced to sit and observe the atrocities of the world, incapable of stopping or even adjusting the flow of history.
Or third, perhaps God is all powerful, but instead of being good, he’s capricious and evil. He delights in the gore and the pain – or at very least is indifferent towards it. This is an option; many have rejected Christianity because their hearts have settled here. Many philosophical arguments have sought to level this charge against the God of the Bible.
None of these seem to hold any weight at all.
The first option evaporates when we consider that we know – we long – for a better world. Like I said in the beginning of this section – it’s the very reason you’re reading this book. If there is no God, there is no why – none of this has meaning. We are all here by chance – a cosmic, universally-sized laughable chance that created life from nothing and then added complexity over eons to lead to you – a clump of cells with no true purpose, reason, value, or destiny. This is the inescapable conclusion of a world without God.
But the very fact you picked up this book is evidence that your heart longs to reject this option. Your heart longs to understand why this world isn’t as you know it ought to be. There is a restlessness, an unsettledness to your heart that knows you were made for something – something greater and better and more profound than nothingness.
There are other arguments that could be made against option one, but for me, this simple one has always seemed enough to make option one puff away into a cloud of improbability. I know in my heart it cannot be. If you are truly honest with yourself, you do as well.
The second option is even more laughable. If there is a good God who created something, he must then have the power to intervene in what he created. You and I, no matter what level of schooling you’ve achieved, haven’t nearly the power to create life – much less something approaching the scale of the universe! The God who created is a God who has power; one who didn’t create is not God. This is perhaps simpler than the ontological argument for God’s existence; I’d call it the logical argument for God’s potency. The thought that God would create and either lose control or choose to cede control makes no sense. As we’ll see in the next chapter, it bears no logical weight.
Which leads to the third option – that God might be powerful, but not good. Like the first option, I feel that it falls flat against the weight of our own hearts. It also entirely fails to explain the goodness in the world.
Because make no mistake – there is goodness. There is rich sacrifice, and tender sweetness. For every atrocity, there are neighbors pulling together and serving those they hardly know. For every birth defect, there are parents gritting their teeth and giving their lives for the care of their invalid child. For every murder there is a marriage held together by nothing more than sacrifice and care. In short, there is simply too much good to imagine an all powerful evil. At worst, the question simply flips, “Why would an evil God allow so much good?” But in reality, that question lands on our minds as far less true and profound than the question at the heart of this book. In short, option three is entirely unsatisfactory.
Which leads us to the fourth option. That there is vast evil and wrong in this world, and above it all, a sovereign, good God. How is this so? It would take a book to explain, perhaps, why this is the case (you have that book in your hands).
But don’t miss how we came to that conclusion. We came to it by asking the very question that arises from that conclusion! The only way we can satisfactorily explain the existence of this world is by wrestling with a sovereign, good God. But the question of “why” shouldn’t stop us from trusting this God who exists.
So, from the outset – take heart. We might never have all the answers, and we might never have a full enough understanding to make us comfortable with this broken world or satisfied with the choices God has made. But allow that very dissatisfaction to fuel your trust: there is a good God, who is in control. He knows differently than we do, and peace will be found in surrender.
Trust Him.