The God I do believe in

After yesterday’s post on the God I don’t believe in, here is something on the God I do believe in:

• The God who created the universe out of his love
• The God who made us out of his love
• The God who cares for us out of his love
• The God who grieves for us out of his love
• The God who has died for us upon a cross, and who does everything possible to lead us back to him out of his love
• The God who is love!

Yet the question always arises in any event like the Norwegian atrocities, ‘How can a loving, caring God allow it?’

Eighteenth Century philosopher and sceptic, David Hume, puts it this way: ‘Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?’

The Bible takes us back to a world that is perfect in every way. God creates the heavens and the earth, the vegetation, animal life and human life. ‘God saw all that he had made and it was very good’ (Gen 1:31). It describes how God set men and women to rule over the earth. Surely, they would obey God perfectly in such a perfect world? Surely, we would do the same in a world without suffering and pain? But no! Adam and Eve in a world without suffering chose against God! The best of all possible worlds ceased to be the best possible world as sin entered in – and all of humankind ever since has been affected.

God created in love, and you may say, ‘How could a loving God allow sin to happen?’ But love involves freedom. What if God forced us to love him? It is a contradiction in terms, because you cannot force someone to love you. You can attract them, woo them, care for them, appeal to them but you cannot force them! If you force them, what they give in return would not be love. God’s love gives us freedom to love him in return and freedom not to; freedom to obey him and to disobey; freedom to choose life and freedom to choose death! A consequence of God’s love is that the freedom he gave has given us includes freedom to sin, and we see the results of that all around us: in Norway, in Afghanistan, in our own lives.

I hope that I would still believe in this God if, God forbid, it were my own children who died in an act of atrocity. A question remains: where was God when 93 or more people were killed last Friday, by the actions of one man?

May be tomorrow ….

The God I don't believe in

It seems a grim old time at the moment! The East Africa crisis, the acts of atrocity in Norway and the death of Amy Winehouse. In their own way, each highlight the question of suffering, and ask the question, 'Where is God in all of this?'

I looked back this morning to the sermon I preached after the terrible tsunami of Boxing Day 2004. Here is the start of what I shared:

In ‘Catch-22’, a novel by Joseph Heller, one of the characters Yossarian, holds the following conversation with a colleague’s (Lt Scheisskopf’s) wife:

‘Don’t tell me God works in mysterious ways. There’s nothing so mysterious about it. He’s not working at all. He’s playing. Or else He’s forgotten all about us …How much reverence can you have for a Supreme being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in His divine system of creation? What in the world was going through that warped, evil, scatological mind of His when He robbed old people of the ability to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did He ever create pain? …Why couldn’t He have used a doorbell instead to notify us, or one of His celestial choirs? Or a system of red-and-blue neon tubes right in the middle of each person’s forehead? …What a colossal, immortal blunderer! When you consider the opportunity and power He had to really do a job, and then look at the stupid, ugly little mess He made of it instead, His sheer incompetence is almost staggering …Why, no self-respecting businessman would hire a bungler like Him as even a shipping clerk!’

‘Stop it! Stop it’! Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s wife screamed suddenly …’Stop it!’

‘I thought you didn’t believe in God,’ he asked bewilderedly.

‘I don’t,’ she sobbed …’But the God I don’t believe in is a good God, a just God, a merciful God. He’s not the mean and stupid God you make him out to be.’

What about the God you don’t believe in and the God you do?

The God I don’t believe in:

Ø A God who has created the universe then lost control. A God who is powerless to do anything for his created beings, never mind to do anything about the unbelievable forces of the Tsunami that ravaged territories around the Indian Ocean. A God who loves but cannot help.

Ø A God who does not love his created beings! A God who created human beings and then callously condemned many to die by a giant tsunami! A God who could help us but has chosen not to.

Ø A God who is non-existent – the way of the atheist. With this God, no one created the universe, but everything is random. There is no God who created me, no God to love me, no God to call me towards a better life, no God to give me hope for the future whether in this life or the next, and no future life to look forward to! With this non-existent God, evolutionary processes of natural selection will ‘improve’ the human race, at the cost of those who, through no fault of their own, happen to have been born and raised in areas subject to natural disaster. I just don’t buy it!'

That's more than enough words for now! Tomorrow, I may post part 2 of the sermon - the God I do believe in.