Now, mind you, I'm no apologist. I'm no philosopher. What I am is a friend who received an email the other day. Here is the entire text of the email:
"A vindication of God's goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil."
It's cancer. It's in both lungs. It's malignant.
The person being spoken of in the email has suffered for years with a mysterious degenerative illness that has caused incredible pain and dying fingers. Now this. Sometimes life this side of heaven really sucks.
So, why is there evil?
The answer does not help the emotions of those close to this person, but it is true and it helps eventually. In the beginning of life on earth humanity told God to stick it and that we'd rather do the being like God thing on our own. Result? Evil now resides in every part of humanity and in every part of creation. Some evil rises from the current nature of things. My friend's cancer and the recent Tsunami fall into this category. Other evil rises from human choice. The sale of insufficiently tested drugs falls into this category.
Somehow, we must live between the expression of God's glory and the destruction of humanity's pride.
Kingdom come... please...
The question that still remains to be lived out - "how?" How do we "live between the expression of God's glory and the destruction of humanity's pride." That is the hard part! A question I have been asking of myself lately...
ReplyDeleteLast year some time a phrase came to me that has helped my thinking on this matter.
ReplyDelete"Holiness is direction, not destination."
I think we edge ever closer to God's glory and ever further from humanity's pride--though sometimes (most times?) it's two steps forward, one step back. Thank God there's grace, otherwise, splat.