Along the way, I have learned that it is generally unproductive for those currently going through personal pain and suffering to question God’s actions, or, as the case may be, inactions. The inquiry degrades from “How can God allow evil in this hypothetical case?” to “Why me?” There is a barb attached to the inquiry; a bias in the questioning that rejects most valid answers as unacceptable, cold and without compassion, and thus not very “God like”.

But for those seekers/inquirers of God who honestly desire to reconcile the Bible’s description of a holy, compassionate and all-powerful God allowing rampant evil to pervade his creation, let’s open the discussion…

First, I offer this anecdote regarding the generic form of evil that confronts humankind “naturally”:

My maternal grandmother was a saint – not in the Catholic sense with the characteristic halo and Mona Lisa smile, but in the catholic (universal) biblical sense. She understood God’s grace and thanked him in return with her love and service on a daily basis. Her life was full of trials, ending with a painful death from breast cancer and dementia. My uncle is an atheist and uses this event to “prove” the non-existence (or at the very least absence or apathy) of God. “If God existed”, he’d say, “he sure doesn’t take very good care of his followers.” Then he might follow up with the more classic, “How could an all powerful, compassionate God allow a righteous person to suffer needlessly?”

So, does this “prove” the non-existence of God? Is it reasonable to expect God to give preferential treatment to his followers? A short reflection on this should make it clear that, if “natural” pain and suffering is permitted for anyone, it is only fair that it be permitted for everyone. Another perspective is that pain, suffering, death, et. al. shouldn’t even be considered part of “evil”, since these things are part of the natural order, “circle of life”, “a time to be born, a time to die”, and the like.

What about behavioral evil, that is, evil that is inflicted by one person on another. Why doesn’t God just eliminate all evil and be done with it? The Bible hints that behavioral evil wasn’t part of the original creation – but introduced by his creation (in this case Satan, but Man certainly shares culpability) . Once in the mix, it has proved remarkably resistant to removal. Jesus sheds some light on the topic with the following story:

He told another story. “God’s kingdom is like a farmer who planted good seed in his field. That night, while his hired men were asleep, his enemy sowed thistles all through the wheat and slipped away before dawn. When the first green shoots appeared and the grain began to form, the thistles showed up, too.

The farmhands came to the farmer and said, ‘Master, that was clean seed you planted, wasn’t it? Where did these thistles come from?’

“He answered, ‘Some enemy did this.’

“The farmhands asked, ‘Should we weed out the thistles?’

“He said, ‘No, if you weed the thistles, you’ll pull up the wheat, too. Let them grow together until harvest time. Then I’ll instruct the harvesters to pull up the thistles and tie them in bundles for the fire, then gather the wheat and put it in the barn.’”

Matthew 13:24-30, The Message

With this parable, we are introduced to God’s version of Gene Roddenberry’s Prime Directive (those of you unfamiliar with the Star Trek franchise please bear with me). Also known as the Non-Interference Directive, it limits Starfleet personnel’s contact with lesser developed cultures. The thought is that most interaction would likely have unexpected and deleterious results. According to the mythos, the Prime Directive probably originated from the hyper-logical Vulcan race.

Jesus thus answers here two often asked questions: “How can a loving God allow evil to exist and thrive?”, and, “Why doesn’t God just eliminate evil once and for all?” The answer to both questions: “He chooses not to interfere because rooting out evil would damage the good.”

Think about the implications of this for a moment. God’s economy, if you will, runs on faith. Direct interference tends to damage that faith. True, there are times when God chooses to interfere in a big way, but it follows a calculated weighing of the costs vs. the benefits.

Another mistake people make when judging God for evil’s effect on our lives is the thought that our comfort is paramount. God illustrates in the Gospels that relationship with him trumps our comfort, and even our very lives, every time. This lesson is aptly demonstrated in the life and death of Jesus.

“Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death – and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.

Philippians 2:8, The Message

So far, it would appear that I’ve been building a case for God having his hands tied when dealing with his creation so as not to interfere with its natural development. Thankfully, God knows no such limits. I’ll discuss this topic in a future post. Until then, I welcome your thoughts and comments.

I had an experience recently that struck home. I’m an electronic engineer by profession, and I was getting pricing for an expensive integrated circuit. I got one price from the web site of the distributor ($670). I called the distributor directly and received a lower price over the phone ($530). I then spoke with my account manager, and she quoted a still lower price ($382). These are no small differences! Certainly they have the right to set whatever pricing structure they want, but I was a little miffed at the inconsistency…

I then realized how important consistency is to our lives. Fixing design problems is a given as an engineer. But a bug showing up at random intervals can lead to rapid hair loss! We humans will refuse to conduct business, or even have a relationship with someone who is inconsistent.

Do we have a right to expect God to be consistent? Thinking further, why did Jesus go out of his way to emphasize that a central tenet of God’s grace is inconsistency (again, from our perspective)? Since consistency, justice and fairness are as central to our lives today as they were in Jesus’ time, this saying – “Many of the first ending up last, and the last first” – must have tweaked Jesus’ audience as well.

I think the key to understanding this lies in the nature of “consistency”. Consistency implies cause and effect. I do action ‘A’, and response ‘B’ will always occur; hence I have a predictable, consistent relationship between what I do and the result I’m seeking. God’s grace is the antithesis of this, and it is imperative that it be that way! For, if God’s grace depended on anything we did, it wouldn’t be grace. It would be the natural response of a stimulus we provided. I’m not saying that his grace must be inconsistent; only that we have no grounds to complain when it is.

We’re far from the end of our journey to understand the paradigm shift that God’s grace brings to light. In the interim, I’d encourage you to leave a comment and convey your own “musings”. What do you think about all this? Remember, We’re just as open to views from those of you who disagree, as with those who agree! Scripture has a saying, which I believe contains wisdom…

“You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another”

Proverbs 27:17, The Message

The short answer: No, and this is a good thing!

When I was a lad growing up with my older brother, fairness was at the forefront of my thinking. A considerable amount of effort was expended by my parents to ensure that we were both treated equally, along with refereeing our disputes when we’d accuse each other of the cardinal sin of “unfairness”. We always had enough to eat, but it seamed that there was always some last bit of food that we’d fight over. The rule at our house was that one person would cut the food item in half, while the other would select the piece he wanted. The “cutter” would go to great effort to ensure that the pieces were exactly equal so he wouldn’t be “cheated”.

Sometime toward the beginning of junior high (AKA middle school), my parents mantra of “life isn’t always fair” sunk in. I can’t remember the moment I became aware of this, but there were many, many incidences that reminded me that life wasn’t fair, and it was always interpreted as a “bad” thing.

Studying the Bible didn’t help either… God often seemed to act capriciously in the Old Testament, but, when spoken of, was always praised for his sense of justice and fairness. Fast forward to the New Testament, where Jesus challenges our concept of fairness.

“God’s kingdom is like an estate manager who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. They agreed on a wage of a dollar a day, and went to work.

“Later, about nine o’clock, the manager saw some other men hanging around the town square unemployed. He told them to go to work in his vineyard and he would pay them a fair wage. They went.

“He did the same this at noon, and again at three o’clock. At five o’clock he went back and found still others standing around. He said, ‘Why are you standing around all day doing nothing?’

“They said, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He told them to go to work in his vineyard.

“When the day’s work was over, the owner of the vineyard instructed his foreman, ‘Call the workers in and pay them their wages. Start with the last hired and go on to the first.’

Those hired at five o’clock were each given a dollar. When those who were hired first saw that, they assumed they would get far more. But they got the same, each of them one dollar. Taking the dollar, they groused angrily to the manager. ‘These last workers put in only one easy hour, and you just made them equal to us, who slaved all day under a scorching sun.’

“He replied to the one speaking for the rest, ‘Friend, I haven’t been unfair. We agreed on the wage of a dollar, didn’t we? So take it and go. I decided to give to the one who came last the same as you. Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?’

“Here it is again, the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first.”

Matthew 20:1-16, The Message

I’m going to go out on a limb and split some hairs: God may be just, but he isn’t necessarily fair (at least from our perspective). Our concept of fairness often implies getting something – almost an entitlement, if you will. And to quote the wisdom of Miss Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird, “Entitlements is bad”. They foster a sense of “deservedness” that just isn’t healthy.

Note that this parable works just as well if the stakes are raised arbitrarily. The estate manager in the story could have negotiated a much larger daily wage and there still would have been grumblings when the foreman paid each laborer. Today, we have athletes, movie stars, and company executives arguing for ever increasing salaries, bemoaning the unfairness of prematurely signing contracts before they came into their prime. The feeling of deserving something based on our perceived “worth” compared to someone else is the error here. The act of being slighted merely exposes our flawed character.

How should this change the way we go about our lives? How should our thought patterns change in order to have a Kingdom view of life? How do we respond when the tapes of our childhood fairness doctrine are played back? How do we answer our post modern culture with it’s warped sense of fairness? I have few answers. I’d really like to here from you – your comments are greatly appreciated!