The Greatest Earthly Tragedy.
We praise Your name,
Stand in awe.of your neverending love.
-lines from a recently popular Christian worship song.
And the question arises often, and it is to many the strongest argument against Christianity or any kind of god that can be suggested: If God is good, how can bad things happen (say, death), especially to innocent people?
Last year, at this time, when I was doing my student teaching, I did a lot of moving around to different classrooms to see how different teachers went about doing their classroom activities. One of the classes I visited was a class called, “Values: Death and Dying.” The class was basically an introductory class to the humanities, ethics and philosophy. I thought (and still think) that the title of the class was profound. The reason might not be obvious to you, but it was to me. As humans, ultimately, the way we think about life, and the way we think just generally, is more closely tied to our beliefs about death than what most of us ever imagine. We don’t posit our ideological statements that way (e.g. “I act this way because I feel in such and such a way about death.”), but that really is one of the guiding tenets of why we do what we do.
Why do I go into that experience before addressing this question? For this reason: How you view death is the most critical factor in how you answer the question I’ve asked above. Let me explain a bit.
There are a number of assumptions that the question makes, both explicitly and implicitly, that have to be addressed here. As always, there are definitional issues. We should expect this. Those will be easy enough to point out. But there is an underlying principal we have to address before the rest of the debate will make any sense, and that goes beyond the definitional level. The assumption, plainly stated, is this: that death is the greatest evil, the ultimate sign of judgement. That assumption is implicit in the question. There would be no need to ask the question if death was a valueless statement, or if death was good. The hypothetical situation that involves someone very young dying of incurable disease infers that that scenario is both bad, and that it is somehow unfair. From the worldview the question comes from, it is a reasonable and correct criticism.
But here is the difference: from a Christian worldview, death is not necessarily evil, in fact, it is quite the opposite. Doctrinal Christian worldview really does purport the death is just one step in the eternal. Leaving this physical world is just a gate through which everyone must pass. If the same God who grants life can take it back, as a sign of His sovereignty, that doesn’t infer evil. For Christians, in fact, death is perhaps even something to look forward to: Leaving the sinful world to spend eternity with God. (See my entry about Leaving Home to Go Home for more on this.) Death in that scenario is only getting on the plane that touches down in the promised homeland. Having that said, Christians should (that being the operative word) handle death quite differently than those without that worldview. If someone is going to be with God, we should be mourning our fate that we are still here, struggling with sin. (Many tasteless and overly critical jokes are made about this in the media and elsewhere.but they are not making any attempt to treat Christian worldviews with any respect whatsoever.)
Now.here is the kicker: The folks who ask the question about the innocents dying are really meaning to ask about something different: damnation, or the fate of those who do not come to faith in the time they are allotted on earth. The question is supposed to point at a fault in Christian dogma: namely that only those who make a conscious choice to follow and believe in Christ go to heaven. Surely this must constitute a grave injustice for those who either cannot choose due to their lack of mental capacity, or because they have never heard the message. But the question shows a complete lack of understanding for Christian doctrine.
(continued, next entry)