April 17, 2013
Evidence of evil is all around us, tragically displayed on the evening news--wars, natural disasters, murder and mayhem every night. Some people take the obvious evils of the world as a statement that God either doesn’t exist, or if he does, he is not worthy of worship, for having allowed evil to exist. Yet, how is it that we can recognize evil when we see it? In reality, the existence of our conscience offers strong evidence that we have been created by a good, powerful and righteous God, who leads us to discern right from wrong (even if we sometimes deviate from good).
C.S Lewis, writing in Mere Christianity: Book 2 (Chapter 1), states that our very conception of evil actually points to the truth that there is a holy, just Creator. Lewis notes:
“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? ... Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too- for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist-in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless-I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality-namely my idea of justice-was full of sense.”
Although God’s creation was good, we live in a world tarnished by evil human choices. In chapter 3 of Mere Christianity, Lewis describes how God gave man free will--the ability to choose between good and evil. Lewis states:
“The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free.”
In order to allow the freedom to choose good over evil, God has allowed us the choice of right or wrong. We can only find happiness and peace through God. Yet, we cannot be good on our own; each of us has fallen under the attack of the enemy, and fallen short of God’s glory. Only through a relationship in Jesus Christ, as we were designed, can we be forgiven from our sins, and be transformed to fulfill our created purpose.
Who is Jesus, really, that we can have a relationship with Him? In Parts 3 and 5 of Mere Christianity, Lewis explains:
“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to…a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble-because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time, enabling him to repeat (in some degree) the kind of voluntary death which Christ Himself carried out…Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it.”
Lewis notes that in His own time, God will bring all evil to an end. The Tyndale Life Application Daily Devotion offers the following insight: "David asked God to guard his heart. Evil acts begin with evil desires." Psalm 141:4 is a plea: "Don't let me drift toward evil or take part in acts of wickedness. Don't let me share in the delicacies of those who do wrong.” The passage refers to evil as "delicacies;" As we think on that desire (evil or good), at that level, it becomes our delicacy--or in the words of Tolkien’s Gollum character in The Hobbit, our "precious."
Evil doesn’t look like Gollum in the real world, however; evil looks like…us. Our precious desire can be focused on good or evil, and we can ask the Lord to help us focus on good desires. Psalm 20:4 (NIV) says, “May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.” I look at this in two ways--God gives me the desire for something good, if I am in His will. Then God gives me the object of that desire. Evil can look pretty attractive, but the end is death.
In How Now Shall We Live? Colson answers the question of how to live for good, and offer hope to others:
“By embracing God’s truth, understanding the physical and moral order he has created, lovingly contending for that truth with our neighbors, then having the courage to live it out in every walk of life.” (Colson, 2004)
However, as we offer hope and comfort to others, we must take care not to pretend to have all the answers. God, by definition, is beyond our comprehension, and we cannot fully understand His purposes. Morris writes in Philosophy for Dummies:
“Any response to the problem of evil that does not allow an active role for a concept of mystery doesn’t grasp the magnitude of the issues under consideration. If we couldn’t offer any possible explanation for why God might be allowing evil in our world, we couldn’t justify at all using the concept of good in application to God. And yet it doesn’t follow at all that we must be able to tell an utterly complete story about what a Creator of the entire universe is up to in all ways.” (Morris, 1999)
The problem of evil remains, and we can’t fully comprehend God’s plans. However, God has delayed judgment for now, highlighting His mercy and goodness. Although we must for a time still live in the fallen, evil world, we function as ambassadors for Christ, shining light in the darkness for suffering fellow creatures. Families with children with health and learning challenges have suffered terrible loss and pain. I don’t like suffering; who does? To me, in the midst of personal pain, I have found the most comfort in remembering Christ’s love shown to me on the cross. I hope to be able to help families who are homeschooling children with special needs; I pray that I will daily grow closer in my relationship with Christ, and share the light of Christ with others around me, through my example and words.
Resources:
Colson, Charles, How Now Shall We Live (2004). Carol Stream, ILL: Tyndale House Publishers, page 487.
Lewis, C. S., Mere Christianity, Book 2: What Christians Believe, retrieved from http://www.truthaccordingtoscripture.com/documents/apologetics/mere-christianity/Book2/cs-lewis-mere-christianity-book2.php#.UWwr8kqyKjM 4/15/2013.
Morris, Tom, Philosophy for Dummies (1999). Foster City, CA: IDG Books, Page 278.
Tolkien, J.R.R., The Hobbit (2012). New York, N.Y.: Random House.
Tyndale Life Application Daily Devotion, http://dailystudybible.com/Morning_April_1.htm , accessed 4/1/2013