Through the years, as a pastor, I have listened to people raise objections to believing in God or becoming a Christian. The top three, in my experience, are clearly above all of the rest. "If God is a loving God, then why . . . ?" The question is completed in a number of ways, "is there a hell," do people hurt," "is there death," "is there evil" and much more. A second objection circles around the miraculous. "If God really exists, why don’t we see miracles like it is reported in the Bible?" This objection strikes at the heart of the veracity of the Bible as much as it does at God himself. However, the God we proclaim is portrayed through the Scriptures. So it is at least a secondary indictment. This objection also seemed to gain momentum purported by doubting theology professors of universities and colleges, mostly from yesteryear. [Nothing is more dangerous than a single theology class in the hands of a 19 year-old engineering student taught by a professor who became soured by cynicism.]
The third common objection questions the whole religious thing and thereby God, by suggesting, "How can you be so certain that ‘your God’ is real when there are hundreds of religions with equal zeal, commitment and filled with certainty in ‘their idea of god?’ This is the one I love to discuss the most. It is actually quite fun to discuss. But, this is not my focus today.
I want to spend a few moments on the first (a "few" because this is, after all, a blog not a tome). "How can a loving God. . . ?" I want to discuss it from our present circumstance of struggle, pain and suffering, because this seems to be a natural issue to rise and has risen at least twice to me in the confines of the hospital. Our son has certainly experienced some of the toughest stuff that anyone could experience. Mitch has taught me more than I have taught him. He has made up for the twenty-plus years of dad having the upper hand in instruction.
So, "If God is a loving God, why. . . ?" Let me try to walk through this from my perspective and you might be able to see why we not only find the question to be something far from us, but the farther into this we go, the more convinced we are in a loving God.
First, His "overall body of work" suggests that God is loving. If a person witnesses the brilliance of a sunrise, the majesty of mountains, the capacity and experience of love, the hope for something better, the profound possibility and wonder of relationships, the awe striking re-creation of humanity in every newborn baby, the unexplainable harmony and complexity of nature and the ever-expanding intricacy of the world in which we live, not to mention the body of knowledge that human intelligence can never fully grasp, there is a lot to leave us at least open to the fact that the design is not just intelligent, but good and kind and loving. This stuff is all inherently good. It is not, at least initially, bent or altered or bad until something happens to it. If I were to expand the list, it could include the inner capacity and the drive to do and be good that every human being has. That must come from Good. The internal and external resistance to bad and evil inherent in the conscience of individuals and society seems like a universal and planned resisistance against things that are truly the right and real order of the world and the Creator of it. They are bad because the war against everything we know to be good.
But, beyond the external witness of the world around and the philosophic and historic orientation to good and right and lovely, is the incomparable witness upon the soul that has been touched by love and goodness of God. It is the person who has made themselves susceptible to God’s goodness, love and hope who finds confirmation of that goodness. It is the person who has allowed the witness of external things to complement the surpassing internal experience of love in their heart. It is the experience of one who has yielded to a love that is so profound, that the struggle and pain become somehow opportunities to reach further into the love of God AND INEXPLICABLY FIND IT. The question shifts for that person to "How can a loving God take that which seems so unlovely, un-good and communicate his love and compassion so profoundly to them?"
You see, the traditional and hackneyed question, "How can a loving God . . . ?" argument starts without first looking for the pervasive and ubiquitoous love of the loving God all around. It doesn’t try to look at His "larger body of work." It doesn’t even broach the possibility that a loving God would be so unresistricted in his love that he would allow a free universe to corrupt or deter his love, or more hopefully, responding to it. Instead it pins the pain on God. It never asks how a loving God could take the evil perversions of his good and somehow restore or revive goodness. Those who ask the question often advance resistance by refusing to allow the loving God to "set up shop" and advance that love within the soul. It is an argument that further refuses to see that somehow the tough stuff, the pain and the struggle might possibly drive a person further into the arms of the loving God that would be otherwise unlikely. Just as difficulty in a flimsy marriage will tend to drive it apart. The same difficulty in a strong marrige presses the couple to deeper love and greater intimacy. Certainly, pain in our walk with God is similar. God is a loving God. We are convinced and more committed to thanking Him for his kind and tender love and compassion through hardship. We thank Him for bringing comfort and closeness in and through it all.