For volume two, we have the fresh tears and blood flowing from Blacksburg to consider.
Yesterday, I walked through Turlington Plaza, and found Joey Johnsen preaching, as is par for the course. We talked about it a while, and he basically said it was evidence that men were sinners. The manifold problems with this way of thinking all center on the fact that if God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good, then there is an obligation to act to prevent harm and suffering in the creation to the greatest extent which is logically possible. As I've argued elsewhere, there are ways to do that which do not violate freedom of will.
Listen to a fellow alumnus weigh in as regarding the tragedy at VT:
The line stretched by the Baptist Student Union and Latter Day Saints outreach centers. The BSU had a big sign out reminding us that God is real, hears our prayers, and is able to move to heal us. Apparently, He is simply unwilling to move to save us in the first place. I am an atheist with respect to every god I’ve met in religious literature, and an agnostic on the concept of god in general. This kind of event seems more explicable as a person’s response to something horrible in his finite, physical mind and taking action in a finite, physical world. What is the alternative? A demon torturing his soul, and an all-powerful God who lets the innocent die? A God who is willing to clean up the mess by healing the survivors, but would not intervene to save those killed?Albert Mohler, the guy who only thinks biotechnology is useful for curing "teh gay", has now weighed in on VT:
The Bible never flinches from assigning responsibility for moral evil. Human beings are capable of committing horrible acts of violence, malevolence, cruelty, and killing.Riiiiiiiiiiight (Dr. Evil). And the question of why God didn't create creatures who freely choose only good is still unanswered.
The Bible locates the problem of moral evil in the human heart.
Sort of like a husband who beats his wife on their honeymoon, but then promises her flowers for the rest of eternity, God's rectifying a bad situation is supposed to absolve him of responsibility/blame for allowing it to occur in the first place?In taking moral evil seriously, the Bible affirms that we are responsible creatures. Our Creator will hold us fully accountable for our actions. All are sinners. Some sinners embrace evil with virtual abandon -- leading to horrors such as these killings on a university campus. We dare not attempt to minimize this moral responsibility.
Then, as C. S. Lewis so powerfully reminded us, we must trust that God's perfect justice will destroy evil and reset the moral equilibrium of the universe.
Sort of a problem to argue that the Incarnation makes sense of the problem of evil. Allowing an innocent person to suffer for those who are guilty is not justice, or mercy, but a grave injustice. Only a twisted sort of logic could see it otherwise.A central tenet of the Christian faith is the claim that, on the cross, Jesus Christ willingly suffered the full force of evil, even unto death -- and that in raising Christ from the dead, the Father vindicated Christ's victory over sin, death, and evil.
The Virginia Tech horror reminds us all what human beings can do to each other. The cross of Christ reminds us of what Jesus did for sinners in bearing the full punishment for this evil.
And yet to me, it is only in a world where an all-powerful, all-good, all-knowing Being sits on its thumb that the world is senseless. In our world, the real world, human minds are organic and can thus malfunction, causing some people to be mentally ill and to kill for no reason whatsoever. In a world with supposedly nonphysical minds, one wonders how mental illness occurs...Christianity does not deny the reality of evil or try to hide from its true horror. Christians dare not minimize evil nor take refuge in euphemisms. Beyond this, we cannot accept that evil will have the last word. The last word will be the perfect fulfillment of the grace and justice of God.
In the meantime, we are witnesses to the true nature of moral catastrophes such as the killings at Virginia Tech. We mourn with those who mourn, and weep with those who weep.
Who could calculate the pain and suffering of these victims and their families? Even as I pray for those who grieve and suffer such excruciating loss, I place my confidence in the assurance that God will bring all things to the perfect conclusion of his judgment. Without this confidence, how could I make sense of what surely appears to be senseless evil and violence?
