(This post is a rerun, but I got to reading it and enjoyed it so much I thought I'd post it again.)
There's an interesting discussion occurring on World Magazine's Blog and across the Internet, about Theodicy. That's the theological term used for questions about God's goodness in the face of pervasive evil. The discussion was, of course, started by the recent Tsunami in Southeast Asia. If God is good how could he cause or allow such a horrible thing to happen? How could a loving God allow so many men, women, children and even infants to die?
There are only so many possible answers to this question. Some say that the reason God caused it or allowed it is because God doesn't exist, and that it happened proves that he doesn't exist. Others suggest that there is a God but he's way out there some place and doesn't really care about what happens down here. That's the standard Greek philosophical idea of God. God is impassable.
Among Christians there are generally two answers depending on your theological predisposition:
The first, which you could call the, God is a murderer but it's okay because it turns out murder is good, position flows from the assumption that God is "sovereign", by which proponents of this theory seem to mean that God causes or at the very least permits everything that happens. Their reasoning goes something like this: God is sovereign and God is good therefore since He caused this horrible thing to happen it must be, somehow, mysteriously good. That position is represented by this article written by well known author John Piper, who says the following:
Every deadly calamity is a merciful call from God for the living to repent. That was Jesus’ stunning statement to those who brought him news of calamity. The tower of Siloam had fallen, and 18 people were crushed. What about this, Jesus? they asked. He answered, “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:4-5).
The point of every deadly calamity is this: Repent. …
… the Christian Scriptures do indeed license us to speak of God’s “inscrutable counsels” and how he works in all things for mysterious good ends …
Jesus said that the minutest event in nature is under the control of God. “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father” (Matthew 10:29). He said this to give hope to those who would be killed for his name.
He himself stood on the sea and stopped the waves with a single word (Mark 4:39). Even if Nature or Satan unleashed the deadly tidal wave, one word from Jesus would have stopped it. He did not speak it. This means there is design in this suffering. And all his designs are wise and just and good.
One of his designs is my repentance. Therefore I will not put God on trial. I am on trial. Only because of Christ will the waves that one day carry me away bring me safely to his side. Come. Repentance is a good place to be. (Emphasis mine.)
Of course if you start with the assumption that God causes everything that happens and you also believe that God is good you have no choice but to conclude that even the worst, most tragic, horrible incidents are somehow good. That's the only logical conclusion. If you start with those assumptions.
My sister once told me a story about a husband and wife who got up to testify during the Sunday service at a church my sister was attending. They explained how they had traveled from their home, several hundred miles away, to visit a murderer imprisoned in a nearby California state prison. The man had murdered their daughter. They were coming to visit him because they wanted to lead him to repentance, that he might accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Apparently during the course of their testimony they gave praise to God because God had allowed this man to murder their daughter so that her parents would then have an opportunity to witness to the murderer about Jesus. (I guess God must be pretty hard up for clients if he's taken to murdering people to get more people saved.) That's basically what Rev. Piper is saying only the killing is on a much larger scale.
The problem with this approach is pretty obvious: if "good" can mean anything then it means nothing. What does it mean to say that God is "good" if He kills hundreds of thousands of people or if He is able to do something about it and doesn't? If God can "put out a hit" on your daughter and still be considered good, then "good" has lost all meaning. As C.S. Lewis put it, if your God can just do anything then the God you serve might just turnout to be the devil.
Those who take Rev. Piper's positon are being logical but, their assumptions are wrong. God is good but God is not controlling everything that happens. God has given mankind responsibility. He has given man authority in the earth. We have a say as to what happens in this world just like Adam had a say when he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It's because of Adam's authority that his actions resulted in death entering into the world.
You can see that we have responsibility even in the scriptures which Rev. Piper quotes:
“Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:4-5).
Unless you repent you shall all likewise perish. Doesn't that mean that if you do repent you won't likewise perish? Rev. Piper apparently takes this scripture to be a reference to perishing in hell, but the word translated "likewise" here means: "
Likewise, equally, in the same way." So we could translate that scripture this way, unless you repent you will all perish in the same way. In the "same way" as who or what? In the same way as the people who had been murdered by Pilate and the people who had been killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them. Luke 13:1-5. But Jesus says if we repent we won't perish in the same way as them. We won't perish at the hands of murderers we won't perish in accidents. The word repent just means to change your mind or to turn around or to go a different way. One man compared it to the marching order, "About face!" If we will stop going the way we're going and go God's way we won't likewise perish.