Can Your Theology Survive A Tragedy?
Can your theology survive a tragedy? Should terrible difficulties and irreversible losses come into your life, will your theology – your understanding of God – be able to withstand the existential reality of suffering and pain? Even grow stronger and fuller? Or will you abandon God, or perhaps be forced to “reinvent” God because the theology you held to previously could not now withstand the present adversity.
Rabbi Harold Kushner is an example of the latter, one who reinvented God because of tragic suffering. The author of the popular book Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, Rabbi Kushner had a son who suffered a rare disease which caused him to rapidly age, dying in his teenage years with the body of an old man. Kushner surmised that while God was indeed good, he lacked the power to prevent bad things. He wants to help us but can’t. He thus concluded: “There are some things God does not control…Are you capable of forgiving and loving God even when you have found out that He is not perfect?… Can you learn to love and forgive him despite His limitations?” In another place, Kushner writes, “faced with evil, God has his powerlessness as his excuse. He aims, intends, seeks, works and ‘tries his best’ to overcome evil: rather than blame, he deserves sympathy, even pity.” Quite obviously, Kushner’s theology could not survive a tragedy.
Another leading Jewish theologian, Richard Rubenstein, has argued that in a post-Holocaust era, Jews can no longer believe in an omnipotent, omni-benevolent Creator. Rubenstein’s theology could not survive the unforgettable tragedy of the Holocaust. And while his view does not represent the views all post-Holocaust Jewish theologians, his reinvention of God as less than all-powerful and all-good certainly fits well with the majority viewpoint. Similar examples could be provided from Christian theologians, many of whom, on the basis of the so-called “problem of evil,” have likewise abandoned resolute belief in the classical divine attributes, such as God’s omnipotence and/or omnibenevolence.
But let us for a moment consider a stark contrast to these and reflect on instead the example of the patriarch Job, the sufferer of sufferers who became the model of faithful patience for all who would enduring intense suffering in life. Job, most likely a contemporary of Abraham, was a highly respected man, a fair and honest judge, a wise counselor, a trusted friend, hospitable and generous. In sum, he was renowned as the greatest of all the people of the east. He was great in prosperity, but he was also great in piety. Hear how God Almighty Himself appraised the character of this great man: “there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil.”
I assume you are familiar with what happened next in Job’s life. Without him ever knowing anything about the cosmic battle between God and Satan which raged behind the scenes, Job suddenly found himself devastated. His wealth vanished under enemy attack. His ten children were killed in a violent storm. He himself was stricken with painful boils. His entire life seemed ruined, and from his limited standpoint, there seemed to be no reason or explanation. Even his wife despaired, entreating him to “curse God and die.”
But how did Job respond? After the first satanic attack, the one which wiped out his possessions and his posterity, he fell to the ground and worshiped: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” Then the Scripture adds: “In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.” After the second satanic attack, Job responded to his despairing wife: “Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity.” And again, “In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”
Of course, as the story progresses, Job proves to be less than entirely blameless. He hardens into self-righteousness as his three friends accuse him of secret sin. But I think we can fairly say that Job’s theology survived a tragedy. Throughout his expressions of despair, we find resolute confessions of an intact faith, none more memorable than this from the 19thchapter: “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!”
In 1940, C.S. Lewis wrote his book, The Problem of Pain, a philosophical and theological defense of the classical understanding of God against the backdrop of evil, pain, and suffering in the world. The attempt to reconcile the reality of God with the reality of evil is known as “theodicy.” When Lewis was still an atheist, his “go-to” argument against Christianity was the fact that there was so much suffering and pain in the world. How could a God of love really exist? Either God is all-good and lacks the power to eradicate evil (as Rabbi Kushner suggests), or God is all-powerful and lacks the desire to eradicate evil as others have suggested. As he put it in Mere Christianity, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust.” But the more he reflected upon that apparent contradiction, the more he realized its boomerang-like effect: “But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”
In other words, the argument that evil and God cannot coexist (and for the atheist, that means God is the one who does not exist), is a self-destructive argument. We can’t even call evil “evil” without in the same breath recognizing an ultimate, unchanging standard of good. That is, the reality of evil, rather than an argument against God, turns out to be an argument for God. So Lewis, particularly in the Problem of Pain, makes a solid philosophical and theological case that one’s theology should be able to survive a tragedy. God is both good, and powerful. And yes, evil does exist. But evil will not forever triumph. Like a good book or musical score, God will bring ultimate resolution and good will finally and fully triumph over evil. Right now, we are yet in the midst of the story, so the conflict is real and still raging.
C.S. Lewis did not marry until late in his life when he married an American correspondent, Helen Joy Davidman. At the time of their wedding, Ms Davidman was dying of an incurable form of bone cancer. But she survived three more years, ultimately succumbing to the disease in 1960. Though Lewis had two decades earlier published a scholarly treatise on the problem of suffering, it now remained to be seen whether his theology could truly survive a tragedy – a personal tragedy which caused immense pain.
In 1961, under the cover of the pseudonym N.W. Clerk, C.S. Lewis penned one of his most powerful books, A Grief Observed. No longer would Lewis write concerning pain and suffering from a mostly academic standpoint. Now, it was an intense, personal reality that gripped him. The feelings that his grief produced within him surprised him. But more seriously, grief challenged his theology.
“Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?… Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all,’ but ‘So this is what God’s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.”
In the end, though still stricken with grief, Lewis is able to reconcile a traditional understanding of God with the pain of personal suffering. In other words, unlike Rabbi Kushner and even many Christian thinkers, Lewis’ theology did in fact survive a personal tragedy.
But I submit to you that part of the reason for the survival of a well-grounded faith is that his faith was in fact already well-grounded. It is certainly true that suffering can – and is intended to! – make us entirely uncomfortable with this life such that we would seek God and find our rest in Him. But the sad reality is that suffering often has the opposite effect: like Billy Graham used to frequently observe, the same sun that softens the butter hardens the clay. For some, suffering brings humility and brokenness which opens us up to a richer, fuller relationship with God than we could have ever know before. For others, suffering becomes the occasion for bitterness and hardness of heart, and sadly, rejection of God and His people. Examples of this are plentiful, and we all know those who have walked away from the faith, or simply become hard and embittered, because their theology could not survive a tragedy.
Perhaps today, you can identify – or at least know someone – who can identify with this struggle. Perhaps you, or someone you know, has cut off their heart from God; they no longer seek Him; they no longer believe His promises; they no longer hope in Christ; they no longer call out to Him in prayer. Here are some passages of Scripture we can consider through times and seasons of grief:
James 1:2–3 – Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
Philippians 1:29 – For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,
1 Peter 4:19 – Therefore let those who suffer according to God’s will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good.
Isaiah 57:15- For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.
The Scripture has much to say about suffering; and even more to say about God’s sovereignty over it and how we are to respond in faith. These and other passages may not and probably do not usher in immediate relief from emotional pain. But that is not the point; the point is that we must take God at his word and by that word see pain, suffering, and grief through His eyes. Ultimately, however, Christianity would have much less to say about suffering if it were not for the cross. With that in mind, I close with a quote from the eminent theologian John Stott:
“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross….in the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in light of his.”
Ultimately, only by looking to the cross of Christ can our theology truly survive tragedy:
“Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted.”
Let us humbly look unto him, the Author and Perfecter of our faith. For God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble.