I told a friend, Dorothy, about the main character in my novel, True Status. He is skeptical about God’s goodness and power. Dorothy (not her real name) has devoted her professional life to the care of mentally and physically disabled adults.
Dorothy said, “I have a problem believing in a God that allows innocent people like babies to be raped and murdered.”
“God makes people responsible,” I said, “for what they do. God gives all of us free will to choose right or wrong. God isn’t the problem.”
Dorothy shook her head. “God ought to be able to change people’s hearts so they don’t do such things. He must not be powerful enough.”
Dorothy’s conclusion assumes God is looking on powerless and frustrated, wishing he could prevent people from choosing to commit heinous crimes.
Is God strong enough to make humans do some good thing they don’t want to do? Does God have the power to cause people not to sin when sin is what they desire?
Consider the Bible stories of Jonah and Balaam. Numbers 22 tells of when Balak, king of Moab, offers to pay Balaam to curse the Israelites. Moab and Israel were enemies, and Balak feared Israel. Balaam, a non-Jewish prophet of God, was greedy for money, and he hopes God will allow him to curse Israel so he can receive the fee Balak is offering (see 2 Peter 2:15-16 for more on Balaam). God causes Balaam’s donkey to speak with the voice of a man to restrain Balaam from cursing Israel.
In Jonah 1, God commands Jonah to go to the Assyrian city of Ninevah to preach to the people and warn them to repent of their sins or else God will destroy the city. Jonah is a Jew and he hates the Assyrians. Jonah doesn’t want the people of Ninevah to repent, he wants to see God destroy Ninevah, so instead of going to Ninevah, Jonah pays the fare to board a ship sailing in the opposite direction of Ninevah. God strikes the ship with a terrible storm, and the crew tosses Jonah into the sea. God appoints a great fish to swallow Jonah and after three days the fish spits Jonah out onto dry land. God again commands Jonah to go and preach in Ninevah. This time Jonah obeys God. He preaches in Ninevah, the Ninevites repent, and the city is saved from destruction. Jonah is very angry that God showed the city mercy.
In the case of Balaam we see that God has the power to force a man not to sin when he truly wants to sin. In Jonah, we see God has the power to make a man do the right thing against the man’s will. We should not admire Balaam or Jonah because they did right only because they had no choice. God is omnipotent and has the power to make human beings to do whatever he wants them to do.
Dorothy would likely reply, “From childhood, I was taught, ‘God is love’. If God has such power and still allows innocent people to suffer, there must be something morally deficient in God’s character. God cannot be love.”
In the Bible, from beginning to end, we see God teaching what is right and wrong. God told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, and we all have suffered the consequences ever since.
When Cain was angry enough to kill his brother, the Bible records the Lord’s intervention.
Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why is your face gloomy? If you do well, will your face not be cheerful? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (Genesis 4:6-7 NAS)
Cain ignored God’s warning and killed Abel. Why did God allow this first murder to take place? God made the choice to let Cain decide what to do. Why? God wanted Cain to show faith in God by overcoming his anger and choosing to obey God. Cain chose wrongly and innocent Able suffered for it.
The Bible is packed with the stories of sinful people who are confused, frustrated, cowardly, fearful, angry, adulterous, or murderous. The sins these people committed had terrible consequences for innocent people, yet afterwards some of them God accepted and others he condemned. The difference is one group repented of their sins, trusted God and obeyed him. What if God had overruled their wills and didn’t allow them to sin? God would not have been able to commend them when they turned away from their evil deeds.
God is wiser, smarter, more moral, and more compassionate than we are. We shake our heads in disgust at the heinous crimes we hear about, but God’s moral standards are so much higher than ours that the Bible says God is justified in condemning every one of us. This passage by the apostle Paul explains our predicament and our deliverance.
All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. (Ephesians 2:3-5 NIV)
Remember Dorothy said, “God ought to be able to change people’s hearts so they don’t do such things.”
The irony of Dorothy’s complaint is that she is right in that the only way any of us can give up habitual sin is by God working in our hearts. Freedom from sin’s control is a continuing act of God’s grace available only to those who have faith in Jesus Christ. We need to desire to change, but none of us can change without God’s power.
What are your thoughts about suffering in the world? What is your solution? Let me know in the comments.
Photo by Arwan Sutanto on Unsplash