The Kingdom of God is like this:
A certain King had vast holdings of land. The land produced rich crops, even though it by nature was made of dry and rocky soil. On his lands the King had a natural spring with put forth copious amounts of water, enough so that a huge reservoir was made to hold enough of the water to withstand many years of drought. Although the soil was poor, the water contained an unusual amount of nutrients useful to amend the poor soil. Through use of this water for irrigation, coupled with the husbandry of plants well suited to the amended soil, and superior farming techniques, the King had mastered the art of getting his lands to bring forth abundant fine produce without resorting to harsh and artificial treatments. The King had one child, a son whom he loved dearly, and taught his son all that he knew. The son ruled his father's estates as the King's regent, and, through many excellent workers, produced an abundance of food, plenty for all the workers' families, all of whom lived on and worked the King's lands, and shared in their bounty. There was even enough left over to share with the King's neighbors when they faced hard times.
The King's neighbors, however, resented the King, and were filled with jealousy for the King's bounty, and envious of the good health and well-being of the King, his son, and all his subjects (whom he treated not as vassals but as extended family). Despite this resentment, the King was generous to his neighbors, offering to provide his water in exchange for only a small portion of their crop yields, as acknowledgment of the source of the water; he also freely gave advice as to what crops would flourish under that water's unique nutrients, and offered as well to instruct them in his well-designed natural farming techniques. They refused his kindness, insisting that they knew as well as the King how to get a yield out of their own lands; they would brook no instructions from him. The King's kindness only inflamed their irritation and envy.
Over time, however, one or another of the King's neighbors would fall upon such hard times that they would be forced to abandon their lands. In rare cases, one of the neighbors would come to the King humbly, saying "you have been right all along, and I have been too stubborn to admit it. I'm ruined now, and must beg for your mercy. Will you rescue my lands and my workers, so that they and their families may live?" The King would welcome such as chose this tack. He agreed that if the neighboring ruler would cede his lands to the King, becoming part of the Kingdom, and agree to farm in the way the King has developed, that the ruler and all his workers would be allowed to stay on those lands and work them, able to share in the bounty that would surely come as the King and his son brought their resources, wisdom and care to those lands.
Most, however, had no interest in being part of the Kingdom, and roughly demanded that if the King was so generous, he should buy their lands from them at an inflated price they claimed was a true market value. Invariably, the King agreed, paid the price and acquired the lands, but did not allow the ruler and his family to stay on the lands, since it was clear they wanted no part of the King except his money.
To the workers the King offered a choice: "These lands are now mine, bought with a fair price. Follow your former ruler and seek your fortune elsewhere if you wish, or you may stay on and work these lands, provided you are willing to follow our methods, obeying my son's instruction." Some, acknowledging their need, would accept the King's offer, but most would not, since it appeared to them as charity with a loss of autonomy (as if they had really had any before this.) And so, as one or another neighbor surrendered to the inevitable effects of their poor soil and mis-management, whether by cession or by purchase, the King's lands grew, and his Kingdom expanded.
Frequently the King would lament the stubbornness of his neighbors and their refusal of his generosity, friendship and cooperation. The King's son shared his father's sadness over this. One day he went to his father and said: "Father, I have many trusted brothers here who can care for your estate. Let me go to our neighbors and persuade them of the wisdom of becoming part of your Kingdom; surely they will listen to me if I go in person, and offer to show them how we care for our lands." The King was glad to hear this from his son, as it had also been in his mind. Now that his son had made the offer to go spend time with the neighboring rulers, the King felt glad to send his son on this mission to be reconciled with their neighbors, regardless of the fact that any estrangement among them was not at all due to the King's actions. He was blameless in the separation; rather it was the self-centeredness, pride and hard-heartedness of the neighbors that was to blame.
The King's son, then, left on his mission of reconciliation, and went from neighbor to neighbor to extend a hand of friendship and testify to them again of the King's benevolence and generosity, saying: "Judge for yourselves; what you see of me is what you can also know of my father the King. We are of one mind." But one after another refused his offer of reconciliation, and instead spoke harshly of the King's arrogance and condescension, as if the King saw himself as superior to them. Some went so far as to lay hands on the King's son and expel him from their lands by force.
But always while he spoke to them, some of the neighbors' servants would listen and wish that their rulers would join the Kingdom so that they and their families would have lives worth living, glad for the chance to be working hard for a master who was kind. The King's son knew this and made sure to tell the servants before he left that they only needed to come to the gates of his father's Kingdom and mention that they wanted to be his brothers, and he, the King's son and regent would vouch for them with the King. If they came in his name, he knew that the King would say: "if my son says he knows you, then you are welcome here; we will care for you and find you good work to do. Come, take your place in our family!"
So, while the King's son was abused and rejected by their neighbors, he was glad of those few who decided to come and be part of life in the Kingdom, and thought "for that alone, all the rejection was worth it." Yes, there was an adjustment to be made for each one who came, but the King's son and his appointed leaders helped them make the adjustment to the ways of the Kingdom. Some decided after not too long that they could do better for themselves, adapt what they'd learned here, and be just as well off on their own, without being ruled by anyone, and so left the Kingdom. Stories of their downfall would drift back to the Kingdom, and there was grief over them. But, for those willing to leave their former allegiances & identify with the King's son, and embrace the benevolence of the King, they found life in the Kingdom to be a life of joy and abundance, where the hard work they were assigned to restore dry lands to fruitfulness seemed to fit them well, and was not burdensome. The King's son asked them for no service for which he did not also equip and train them, and so they hardly thought about their life for the joy that pervaded it.
And the Kingdom grew. As it grew, the lands were transformed, as were the people who worked them.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Sunday, April 19, 2015
From Here to Obscurity: in 5 generations
The other day, I updated a retirement savings spreadsheet of mine with statements through first quarter of 2015. There's a plan, and so far, we're on target. Depending on how frugal or prodigious we are in retirement spending, there may or may not be anything left over after our passing as a financial legacy for our heirs. A question then naturally surfaces: do I sacrifice some pleasure during retirement by spending less, in order to pass along wealth to my heirs, or... am I generous with them now, and so save less for retirement, but then spend every dime that's left, leaving nothing behind? I think I'd rather be generous with them now, when they most need help.
Naturally, that got me to thinking about non-financial legacies, and Stephen Covey's writings on what he thought of as important, the basic desires all humans have. He said they are: to Live, to Love, and to Leave a Legacy. So I wondered just what kind of influence I have had to date on my children, to what extent am I responsible for who they are today? And what of that will cascade down to their children (if any), and even further down than that?
Then I started thinking about my grandparents, and what lessons I may have absorbed from them (like what lasting damage a mother can do by pitting one child against another for her own amusement, like my Mom's mom did), what physical characteristics (like my maternal grandfather's wispy hair, and my paternal grandfather's box-like build), or what values & character I may now carry that were also theirs (perhaps Grandpa Bill's tendency to hum or whistle constantly - which reflected his generally happy disposition). :-)
Of my great-grandparents I remember almost nothing, and of the previous generation only a couple of family stories... if that's even whom they were about. I'm honestly not sure. I never met them, and am not convinced that I ever really heard anything about them, much less retained any of their characteristics. They are total blank spaces on a family tree, and if I am honest about it, they are so obscure they mean absolutely nothing to me at all.
What are the odds, then, that one of those great-great-grandparents has in fact had a lasting influence on me of which I am unaware? Related to that, what are the odds that I will have any influence at all on my descendants in the fifth generation down from me? Will I essentially lapse into complete obscurity in the span of 5 generations? If so, then why am I thinking about a legacy at all? Was Covey wrong on that? Did his Mormon theology bias his viewpoint? Do I also carry a bias toward the drive to leave a legacy behind?
Well, maybe I should start by quantifying what the chances are that something may have passed down to me from some ancestor 5 generations past. Just thinking about the math of it, the chances are... not great. It's the power of 2 in operation, to wit:
Naturally, that got me to thinking about non-financial legacies, and Stephen Covey's writings on what he thought of as important, the basic desires all humans have. He said they are: to Live, to Love, and to Leave a Legacy. So I wondered just what kind of influence I have had to date on my children, to what extent am I responsible for who they are today? And what of that will cascade down to their children (if any), and even further down than that?
Then I started thinking about my grandparents, and what lessons I may have absorbed from them (like what lasting damage a mother can do by pitting one child against another for her own amusement, like my Mom's mom did), what physical characteristics (like my maternal grandfather's wispy hair, and my paternal grandfather's box-like build), or what values & character I may now carry that were also theirs (perhaps Grandpa Bill's tendency to hum or whistle constantly - which reflected his generally happy disposition). :-)
Of my great-grandparents I remember almost nothing, and of the previous generation only a couple of family stories... if that's even whom they were about. I'm honestly not sure. I never met them, and am not convinced that I ever really heard anything about them, much less retained any of their characteristics. They are total blank spaces on a family tree, and if I am honest about it, they are so obscure they mean absolutely nothing to me at all.
What are the odds, then, that one of those great-great-grandparents has in fact had a lasting influence on me of which I am unaware? Related to that, what are the odds that I will have any influence at all on my descendants in the fifth generation down from me? Will I essentially lapse into complete obscurity in the span of 5 generations? If so, then why am I thinking about a legacy at all? Was Covey wrong on that? Did his Mormon theology bias his viewpoint? Do I also carry a bias toward the drive to leave a legacy behind?
Well, maybe I should start by quantifying what the chances are that something may have passed down to me from some ancestor 5 generations past. Just thinking about the math of it, the chances are... not great. It's the power of 2 in operation, to wit:
Me
2 Parents
4 Grandparents
8 Great-grandparents
16 Great-great-grandparents
If each of these generations were 30 years apart (the Biblical age of mature adulthood), it's no wonder I never met any of my great-great-grandparents. They would have been roughly 120 years old at my birth. In those rare photographs that very occasionally hit the newspaper showing "Five Generations of Smiths", the 5th generation is always a newborn, and may never remember meeting the oldest of the bunch. And besides, the oldest of the bunch is only one of 16 people who could have been in the picture... had they survived.
Could any one of those 16 people from the 5th generation back have been so influential that his/her genetics, or character, or memorable response to unusual circumstances could still be reverberating down to me, today? I highly doubt it. One person from that 5th generation would be competing with 15 others for influence; the math alone would say that one person from that set of forebears would have only 6.25% of that generation's effect on me.
Could any one of those 16 people from the 5th generation back have been so influential that his/her genetics, or character, or memorable response to unusual circumstances could still be reverberating down to me, today? I highly doubt it. One person from that 5th generation would be competing with 15 others for influence; the math alone would say that one person from that set of forebears would have only 6.25% of that generation's effect on me.
And that generation's effect surely would not account for all of the behaviors of the next generation. What would the decay factor be of influence from one generation to the next? Would it even rise as high as explaining half of who the following generation was as human beings? Even that seems a stretch, what with the influence of teachers, peers, co-workers, romances, partners, communities and large societal events all leaving an impact. Honestly, it's probably more like you could chalk up perhaps a third of who you are today to your parents' influence, at best. Maybe, though, by the time you are old enough to have children of your own (let's say... age 30), and you are busily forming their little psyches, it could be that half of who you are in forming your children can still be accounted for by your parents' influence. So let's go with that.
Then the math looks like this: one ancestor accounts for 6.25% of the total influence from the generation 5 back from you. But only half of that carries down to the generation 4 back, another half to generation 3, and another half to generation 2 (your parents), and half of that to you. 6.25% x 50% x 50% x 50% x 50% = 0.004 = 0.4% or four tenths of one percent. It doesn't even round up to one percent's worth of influence; and even that is probably optimistic.
So unless you are a larger than life individual, known far and wide for something (like John D. Rockefeller, or John F. Kennedy, or Robert E. Lee, or Henry Ford), by the time the 5th generation from you reaches adulthood (~30 years)...
you are statistically irrelevant! As far as lasting influence is concerned, you might as well not have existed at all.
Isn't that an encouraging thought?
So what do I do, then? Forget about leaving any kind of lasting legacy on those who come after me? Concentrate on getting down in print (or digital form, like here) what wisdom I might have to share with those yet unborn? Or raise my eyes beyond this world to the next, so that when I have shuffled off this mortal coil, my soul will be glad that I have paid it forward with whatever self-less generosity and kindness I can show to others here?
In St. Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 6, Jesus lays the groundwork for that very concept: this life gives us an opportunity to pay it forward into the next life. ("Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth; give to the poor and you will have treasures in Heaven") The implication, then, is that I shouldn't view my legacy as being on this earth at all, where it's effects are fleeting at best, and will eventually dwindle to nothing. Instead, I should view my legacy as in my future - in the next life, where it will be of great and permanent good.
In St. Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 6, Jesus lays the groundwork for that very concept: this life gives us an opportunity to pay it forward into the next life. ("Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth; give to the poor and you will have treasures in Heaven") The implication, then, is that I shouldn't view my legacy as being on this earth at all, where it's effects are fleeting at best, and will eventually dwindle to nothing. Instead, I should view my legacy as in my future - in the next life, where it will be of great and permanent good.
Kinda like saving for retirement, isn't it? You direct your resources away from your immediate benefit, while you're working, in order to be able to use them to enjoy the next phase of life, when you're not. That idea I think I get. My monthly cash flow and my retirement account balances seem to prove it.
When it comes to leaving a lasting legacy, though... the hard part is connecting giving of yourself to others in this life (showing kindness and generosity today), with giving to yourself in the next. It's a complex calculus that requires this perspective: that the economics of Heaven are as different from earthly economics, as Quantum Physics is from arithmetic. The proofs of it are not obvious to me; I have to trust the Expert who knows.
Thursday, April 16, 2015
So much for an original idea...
But honest, I did come up with it independently. Just not first. Apparently not by a long stretch.
I'm reading a small book of essays on Relational Theology, written mostly by pastors and theologians from the Wesleyan tradition (incl. Nazarenes, open Theists, etc.), and so far am really enjoying it. While it's disheartening to know my views aren't original, it's also nice to know I'm not the only theologian with some out-of-the-mainstream notion that nobody else agrees with.
So, I go out to Goodreads.com to log my progress in the book, half-expecting that Goodreads will know nothing of this book, that it's far too obscure to be in their catalogue. Not so! It popped right to the top of the search list, along with over 20 others! Holy relationships, Batman. There's a treasure trove of titles out there to explore.
Still, not to worry that the whole field has been tilled and planted already. I'm still seeing essays I could write that would "contribute to the literature", as they say. There'll still be something to do in retirement after all...
I'm reading a small book of essays on Relational Theology, written mostly by pastors and theologians from the Wesleyan tradition (incl. Nazarenes, open Theists, etc.), and so far am really enjoying it. While it's disheartening to know my views aren't original, it's also nice to know I'm not the only theologian with some out-of-the-mainstream notion that nobody else agrees with.
So, I go out to Goodreads.com to log my progress in the book, half-expecting that Goodreads will know nothing of this book, that it's far too obscure to be in their catalogue. Not so! It popped right to the top of the search list, along with over 20 others! Holy relationships, Batman. There's a treasure trove of titles out there to explore.
Still, not to worry that the whole field has been tilled and planted already. I'm still seeing essays I could write that would "contribute to the literature", as they say. There'll still be something to do in retirement after all...
Sunday, April 05, 2015
The Problem of Evil (Revisited via The Walking Dead and the Chicken Pox)
And now for a short break from our discussions of Relational Theology and an Ethic of Relationship.
So it's Easter Sunday morning, and I'm listening to the pastor preach while scenes from The Walking Dead flash through my head; in so doing, quite by accident I stumbled onto a Christian analogical response to the ancient Theodicy problem. Wanna hear it?
Of course you do.
The pastor was making the point that the Resurrection is not simply a historical fact to be believed, but also a present reality to be experienced, much as the original thunderstruck disciples did, with awe and wonder.
Intellectual assent to the historical Resurrection is a necessary but not sufficient condition for salvation, and the same can be said for the experience of it - it must somehow be appropriated by us, becoming our own internal witness to the Resurrection in our hearts - but neither is that experience enough without intellectual assent to the historical reality of it.
The pastor then quoted from Saint Paul in Philippians 3, the part where the apostle wrote about sharing in Christ's sufferings, becoming like him in his death, so as to somehow attain to his eternal life as well.
Okay, so... what's the connection to The Walking Dead? Well, in the same passage, Paul talks about our old self dying so that we may live a new life; all must die, yes, but not all will be raised to new life. Faith in Christ is required for that last bit. And that's when the zombies came stumbling into my mental picture. After all, aren't we all just walking dead? Dead in our present condition, awaiting some kind of cure. For the zombies on TV, it doesn't come. But for those TV characters not yet infected with the virus, death will still come, whether by eventually succumbing or by natural causes. Every analogy has it limits, and I realized I was quickly running up against the limits of that one. Surely, though, there were other analogies that could do a better job, and my mind went searching for some.
When you were little, did you catch the Chicken Pox? And weren't your parents relieved, even happy about it, although it caused you discomfort? Did your Mom or your Dad even go so far as to drive you to some kid's house who they heard was sick with the Chicken Pox to purposely get you infected with it? My parents did so, and I did the same with my own kids. The reason? It's so pervasive a virus, with no known vaccination, that everyone is sure to get it someday. But, when you're a child, the symptoms aren't nearly as severe. The earlier you are exposed to, and so deal with, the virus, the easier a time you have of it. If you wait until later in life, it becomes a very difficult and painful disease to go through - and some don't make it, the effects of Chicken Pox defeat them.
Okay, so again... what's this got to do with the Problem of Evil, the Theodicy?
There is a virus running making its way through the human race, like the Chicken Pox, or the walking dead. Except it's not physical, it's spiritual. The virus... is sin. I did not create the Chicken Pox virus, but I saw to it that my kids were exposed to it as early as possible, because it was better for them to suffer a little - early - than to suffer a lot - later. So with sin. God did not create the "sin virus". We did, Adam & Eve did, back in the Garden of Eden. The tempter offered the infection, cleverly disguised as something beneficial, and they bit. And now, that Original Sin virus is working through the species - in fact, it's genetic, it's hereditary, and not a regressive trait but a dominant one, so it is sure to pass down.
In some people it stays latent for a long time, in others it presents early in life; the symptoms are worse in some, milder in others. All are exposed to it, all must go through some degree of suffering because of it. But God did not bring it, our forebears chose it voluntarily (using the free will given them by God) which made them free moral agents and culpable. And who's to say we wouldn't have done the same, in their same place?
So, what to do? The longer you wait to deal with what's malicious and latently resident in your spiritual "system", the harder it is on you when the virus catches up to you, and it will. Oh, it will.
For some, the effects of sin undetected and untreated become like a terminal cancer discovered too late to be treated. The virus will have eaten away too much of the spirit to permit treatment (redemption through conviction, confession, repentance, turning to God). Their spirits are already dead to God, and they only wait for their body to follow. The problem is that once that happens, the next life holds nothing for them but more of the same: separation from God and all that is good.
But what if there was a Cure? A spiritual vaccine that would limit the symptoms to only those that you could handle (I Cor. 10:13), and would hold the promise of your spirit being whole, healthy, alive to God now, and in union with God in the next life, even while your body suffers, decays and dies here. Either way, our physical, mental, emotional suffering in this life - which is what is at the core of the arguments about the Problem of Evil, all the suffering in this earthly existence - is only temporary! One way or another, whether experienced while following God or ignoring God, the suffering of this life will pass. It is in the next life where how we deal with this life really matters. If there is a Cure, it does not eliminate suffering in this life, but it does provide the strength to bear it, and assures us of complete and total remission in the next life.
Is there a Cure? And if so, what is it?
Well, my posting this on Easter Sunday should give you a clue.
Scenes from two different movies provide further analogies that we can mine for understanding. One is I Am Legend in which Will Smith plays a bioscientist who is combatting a virus that is responsible for turning the human race into violent, flesh-eating, light-hating subterranean (and sub-human) creatures. He happens to be resistant to it (unaffected), and decides to stay at his lab and do experiments on infected rats with synthesized versions of his genetic material, in order to create a vaccine that will provide a cure for the infected. He dies in the process, but his last version of the vaccine proved successful, and he got it to another survivor who could reproduce it and spread it. Smith is a Messianic figure, who gave his life to create the cure - from his own blood.
Another movie is "Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt?" which portrays a deteriorating society and an increasingly oppressive government (remember this is the novel by Ayn Rand, a hard-core Libertarian, so the virus infecting and tormenting people is the seductive and oppressive world government). Select individuals, recruited by word of mouth, flee and survive in a secret mountain refuge, under the tutelage of a man named John Galt, another Messianic figure, but one who saves people from the Libertarian version of the Problem of Evil - massive central governments which first make citizens dependent on government benefits, and then use increasing coercion and force to dominate them. John Galt founds the secretive communities which withdraw from the world. Through the suffering which comes from denying themselves the resources of government, they also can avoid the viral nature of it. Oh, but don't get me started on politics! ;)
Back to the Problem of Evil, then. Christianity's answer to the "problem" is that this virus of sin and its resulting effects of suffering is not from God... it was brought in from the outside by the tempter, and voluntarily chosen by humanity. Now that it's loose, it's inevitable that we will succumb to it, and will suffer. And what has God done about it?
God has created a cure, through the suffering and death of Jesus. God created the antidote by experiencing the sufferings which we do, as well as experiencing full remission. God now makes that antidote available to all. Anyone who, in this life, accepts the antidote, can be confident that:
1) our suffering is temporary, it will stop when the body dies
2) the symptoms we suffer through on this earth will be bearable, and
3) there is life after death, and in that life we will live in complete, permanent remission from the sin virus - forever.
Problem of Evil? Not for Christianity (at least not for the theological tradition of the faith in which I live). God not only was not the originator of suffering (we were), but suffered himself (on the cross) to create the cure (faith in Jesus), and makes it freely available to all who choose to receive it.
Happy Easter!
So it's Easter Sunday morning, and I'm listening to the pastor preach while scenes from The Walking Dead flash through my head; in so doing, quite by accident I stumbled onto a Christian analogical response to the ancient Theodicy problem. Wanna hear it?
Of course you do.
The pastor was making the point that the Resurrection is not simply a historical fact to be believed, but also a present reality to be experienced, much as the original thunderstruck disciples did, with awe and wonder.
Intellectual assent to the historical Resurrection is a necessary but not sufficient condition for salvation, and the same can be said for the experience of it - it must somehow be appropriated by us, becoming our own internal witness to the Resurrection in our hearts - but neither is that experience enough without intellectual assent to the historical reality of it.
The pastor then quoted from Saint Paul in Philippians 3, the part where the apostle wrote about sharing in Christ's sufferings, becoming like him in his death, so as to somehow attain to his eternal life as well.
Okay, so... what's the connection to The Walking Dead? Well, in the same passage, Paul talks about our old self dying so that we may live a new life; all must die, yes, but not all will be raised to new life. Faith in Christ is required for that last bit. And that's when the zombies came stumbling into my mental picture. After all, aren't we all just walking dead? Dead in our present condition, awaiting some kind of cure. For the zombies on TV, it doesn't come. But for those TV characters not yet infected with the virus, death will still come, whether by eventually succumbing or by natural causes. Every analogy has it limits, and I realized I was quickly running up against the limits of that one. Surely, though, there were other analogies that could do a better job, and my mind went searching for some.
When you were little, did you catch the Chicken Pox? And weren't your parents relieved, even happy about it, although it caused you discomfort? Did your Mom or your Dad even go so far as to drive you to some kid's house who they heard was sick with the Chicken Pox to purposely get you infected with it? My parents did so, and I did the same with my own kids. The reason? It's so pervasive a virus, with no known vaccination, that everyone is sure to get it someday. But, when you're a child, the symptoms aren't nearly as severe. The earlier you are exposed to, and so deal with, the virus, the easier a time you have of it. If you wait until later in life, it becomes a very difficult and painful disease to go through - and some don't make it, the effects of Chicken Pox defeat them.
Okay, so again... what's this got to do with the Problem of Evil, the Theodicy?
There is a virus running making its way through the human race, like the Chicken Pox, or the walking dead. Except it's not physical, it's spiritual. The virus... is sin. I did not create the Chicken Pox virus, but I saw to it that my kids were exposed to it as early as possible, because it was better for them to suffer a little - early - than to suffer a lot - later. So with sin. God did not create the "sin virus". We did, Adam & Eve did, back in the Garden of Eden. The tempter offered the infection, cleverly disguised as something beneficial, and they bit. And now, that Original Sin virus is working through the species - in fact, it's genetic, it's hereditary, and not a regressive trait but a dominant one, so it is sure to pass down.
In some people it stays latent for a long time, in others it presents early in life; the symptoms are worse in some, milder in others. All are exposed to it, all must go through some degree of suffering because of it. But God did not bring it, our forebears chose it voluntarily (using the free will given them by God) which made them free moral agents and culpable. And who's to say we wouldn't have done the same, in their same place?
So, what to do? The longer you wait to deal with what's malicious and latently resident in your spiritual "system", the harder it is on you when the virus catches up to you, and it will. Oh, it will.
For some, the effects of sin undetected and untreated become like a terminal cancer discovered too late to be treated. The virus will have eaten away too much of the spirit to permit treatment (redemption through conviction, confession, repentance, turning to God). Their spirits are already dead to God, and they only wait for their body to follow. The problem is that once that happens, the next life holds nothing for them but more of the same: separation from God and all that is good.
But what if there was a Cure? A spiritual vaccine that would limit the symptoms to only those that you could handle (I Cor. 10:13), and would hold the promise of your spirit being whole, healthy, alive to God now, and in union with God in the next life, even while your body suffers, decays and dies here. Either way, our physical, mental, emotional suffering in this life - which is what is at the core of the arguments about the Problem of Evil, all the suffering in this earthly existence - is only temporary! One way or another, whether experienced while following God or ignoring God, the suffering of this life will pass. It is in the next life where how we deal with this life really matters. If there is a Cure, it does not eliminate suffering in this life, but it does provide the strength to bear it, and assures us of complete and total remission in the next life.
Is there a Cure? And if so, what is it?
Well, my posting this on Easter Sunday should give you a clue.
Scenes from two different movies provide further analogies that we can mine for understanding. One is I Am Legend in which Will Smith plays a bioscientist who is combatting a virus that is responsible for turning the human race into violent, flesh-eating, light-hating subterranean (and sub-human) creatures. He happens to be resistant to it (unaffected), and decides to stay at his lab and do experiments on infected rats with synthesized versions of his genetic material, in order to create a vaccine that will provide a cure for the infected. He dies in the process, but his last version of the vaccine proved successful, and he got it to another survivor who could reproduce it and spread it. Smith is a Messianic figure, who gave his life to create the cure - from his own blood.
Another movie is "Atlas Shrugged: Who Is John Galt?" which portrays a deteriorating society and an increasingly oppressive government (remember this is the novel by Ayn Rand, a hard-core Libertarian, so the virus infecting and tormenting people is the seductive and oppressive world government). Select individuals, recruited by word of mouth, flee and survive in a secret mountain refuge, under the tutelage of a man named John Galt, another Messianic figure, but one who saves people from the Libertarian version of the Problem of Evil - massive central governments which first make citizens dependent on government benefits, and then use increasing coercion and force to dominate them. John Galt founds the secretive communities which withdraw from the world. Through the suffering which comes from denying themselves the resources of government, they also can avoid the viral nature of it. Oh, but don't get me started on politics! ;)
Back to the Problem of Evil, then. Christianity's answer to the "problem" is that this virus of sin and its resulting effects of suffering is not from God... it was brought in from the outside by the tempter, and voluntarily chosen by humanity. Now that it's loose, it's inevitable that we will succumb to it, and will suffer. And what has God done about it?
God has created a cure, through the suffering and death of Jesus. God created the antidote by experiencing the sufferings which we do, as well as experiencing full remission. God now makes that antidote available to all. Anyone who, in this life, accepts the antidote, can be confident that:
1) our suffering is temporary, it will stop when the body dies
2) the symptoms we suffer through on this earth will be bearable, and
3) there is life after death, and in that life we will live in complete, permanent remission from the sin virus - forever.
Problem of Evil? Not for Christianity (at least not for the theological tradition of the faith in which I live). God not only was not the originator of suffering (we were), but suffered himself (on the cross) to create the cure (faith in Jesus), and makes it freely available to all who choose to receive it.
Happy Easter!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)