The problem with theological types- like yours truly- is they think that God has explained himself. In the Bible. In Jonathan Edwards. In the Lutheran Confessions. In the CRCC. In the latest Piper book. In the ESV Study Bible notes. Somewhere.
The fact is God doesn’t explain himself.
Romans isn’t God explaining himself in your life. There’s some “big picture” stuff there, and you’ll do much better if you realize that “big picture” explanations are what God is interested in. But if you want explanations for why you have no friends, or why you seem to fail the harder you work or why your daughter became a Hindu, you aren’t going to get those explanations.
And you must especially beware of people who pretend to have explanations for you. Churches are full of these people, usually at the pulpit end or in the academic section. They have a favorite book or a DVD presentation that gets right to the explanation for your family’s troubles or your business failure, and what you should do now.
It’s a lot of hogwash. The Bible is what God is going to tell us about his interaction with this world leading up to and into Jesus. It’s a very subjective kind of book, with much more to say about the experiences we have than the answers we need.
In fact, Jesus explains one parable, and actually makes a lot of demands. Job repeatedly wants an explanation, but he’s not going to get one other than “Where were you? Were you there?” (Very Ken Hamm.)
The answers we give each other suck. The answers in the Bible are big, generic and can’t be fit into the map of your life as specifically as you want. God wants us to trust who he is, what he’s done for us in Jesus and what he promises to finish doing. Along the way, he has some good advice and specific commands, but not many answers to the mysteries of life that torment us.
Believe in the God of the Bible, and have lots of questions of “Why?”…..You’re probably going to get tired of hearing things like “Everything God does he does for our good” or “God allows evil so that good will come from it.” God’s not sitting in a booth playing fortune teller or shrink for a nickle.
He’s God. His goal is that we trust him, and live the best lives we can based on that trust. A significant part of that kind of life is moving past the “Whys.”
In the TBS movie “Abraham,” God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son. Abraham goes out and screams “Why?”
In the Bible, that never happens. Maybe it did, but the Bible never mentions it. Hebrews says Abraham took Isaac to be sacrificed convinced by God’s previous promise that he and the boy would, somehow, return.
Abraham took that all the way, never pausing to say “Why?” along the way. When Isaac asked where was the sacrifice, Abraham didn’t get smart and say “Good question.” He said “God will provide a lamb.”
God doesn’t give explanations very often. He’s working for a bigger result- faith and trust in who he is and what he’s done for us- and will do- in Jesus.
That’s the life. I need to get busy living it, because every moment I’m shouting “Why?” I”m wasting my breath.
Thanks for this post. As a pastor, I try to avoid the trap of explaining God as though I have the answers to why, but I also know that I often fail in this. You have given me some hope here however that the effort I expend in this endeavor is worth it.
Really enjoyed this post. Thanks for it. This is something I have struggled with a lot in my past. I always thought I needed a reason or explanation.
Thanks a ton for tht post…it is really useful. best of luck.
It is interesting that you include the story of Abraham and Isaac, because in this story we do have an explanation provided.
Genesis 22:12 – “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
Now I know that you fear God! That is only explanation provided! Yet, the explanation that we are left with makes us uncomfortable because it raises the question whether or not God knew how Abraham would respond. “Now I know” presupposes a “then I did not know” and so calls into question our understanding of omniscience of God. Could it be that God limits his knowledge to allow for our free will?
What ever our answer is to that question the bottom line is that from God’s perspective:
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” – Isaiah 55:9
Maybe the reason why God doesn’t offer a lot of explanations is that we wouldn’t come close to understanding them.
A few years ago we felt very strongly that God was calling us to go to a church (as lay people). Three years after arriving the Church closed. It left us saying, “What was that all about?” An explanation sure would have been helpful, but none was forthcoming.
Thanks for the good word Michael. I think many of us will have loads of opportunities to learn and grow in this during the coming months as the time of our Lord’s coming draws near. May God give us the grace to grow in our trust of Him.
The book of Job has been a source of comfort to me many times when I have gone through trials. I can remember reading the last part of the book when God restored and blessed Job and being struck by the fact that God never did explain to Job why He allowed all those bad things to happen. I came away understanding “God is God and I am not”.
That image of God in Job speaking from out of the whirlwind with “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world?” is my favorite image from the Bible emphasizing the God of No Explanation, so to speak.
I spent years railing and shaking my fist at God like Lt. Dan on top of the mast in Forrest Gump.
Then one day it was calm.
Turns out I’m more Forrest than Dan and God is still God.
The Lord directs our steps,
so why try to understand everything along the way?
Proverbs 20:24 NLT
Sounds so simple doesn’t it?
In the four years since I surrendered my life I’ve realized one thing, simple isn’t on the plate.
*applause*
Seriously, people get tired of me saying, “He is God. He doesn’t need your permission to be God. Either realize who He is and get on your face before Him, and OBEY Him, or don’t.”
Yeah, I don’t have many friends.
They don’t call it surrender because you have options.
Very Well put!!
I find it so amusing that when people are explaining someone talking on and on and on like they think they know something, they use the phrase “yawdah, yawdah, yawdah”.
Which means in Hebrew, “I know, I know, I know”.
Truth is we KNOW so very little of God.
The Holy Bible is the singularly appropriate resource for all that we know and think about God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
Makes me wonder if He is the author of the line: “Those of you who think you know everything, really irritate those of us who do…”
Why ask Why?? ;-)
The explanation offered in the Book of Job is different from the one you articulated. It’s found in God’s dialogue with Satan. Evil is morally necessary for the production of a completely selfless love for God. It’s not a particularly easy explanantion to accept, though it might be defensible.
You might be interested in this online commentary “Putting God on Trial: The Biblical Book of Job” (http://www.bookofjob.org) as supplementary or background material for your study of the Book of Job. It is not a sin to question God, to demand answers from God. There is a time and a place for such things. It is written by a Canadian criminal defense lawyer, now a Crown prosecutor, and it explores the legal and moral dynamics of the Book of Job with particular emphasis on the distinction between causal responsibility and moral blameworthiness embedded in Job’s Oath of Innocence. It is highly praised by Job scholars (Clines, Janzen, Habel) and the Review of Biblical Literature, all of whose reviews are on the website. The author is an evangelical Christian, denominationally Anglican. He is also the Canadian Director for the Mortimer J. Adler Centre for the Study of the Great Ideas, a Chicago-based think tank.
Robert Sutherland
[This post edited by the moderator.]
I have to say I’m with Mr. Sutherland on this, Michael. A little more study and prayerful thought might be best ….. I’m all for exercising discernment when it comes to human counsel, but Scripture has more explanation that you might have noticed (see Eclectic as well as Sutherland).
You say God doesn’t “sit in a booth and play shrink for a nickel,” but …. in fact he’s very interested in your pouring out your heart and hearing some response from him, which some shrinks might say is the usurpation of their role and theft of their income. Shouting “Why?!” a la Job’s wife–an accusation full of angry blame and cursing–is indeed a waste of breath. But asking “Why?” in an honest desire to love the Lord of Compassion with all your mind can yield some amazing results. There may or may not be an answer forthcoming, but it’s really okay to humble oneself and ask questions at the foot of the cross in a desire to love more fully.
I’ve heard Christians say some bone-headed things from the pulpit concerning Job. Most of them don’t want to acknowledge God’s dialogue with Satan before the earthly action starts. Muslims are more than happy to say “God gave you cancer,” “God took your suicidal son,” etc. Christians know the true picture of the spiritual realm, and we ought to be saying things that reflect that reality, rather than saying things that reflect Islamic teachings. Does talk of demons and Satan make us uncomfortable? Best to consider the source, and turn to Scripture and reflect on the authority of Jesus over all.
I’ve known people who’ve heard answers to the questions you list. They had no friends because they lived in an area akin to Pergamom, and were hated because of their allegiance to Jesus. They failed the harder they worked because they were doing things in the flesh, and striving for fame and power in their desire to pastor a mega-church. Their daughter became a Hindu because she’d slept with a gorgeous Hindu in college and the entanglement
influenced her in many ways.
These people were glad they at least asked why, because they received responses which led to comfort, repentance and discernment for intercession for their children. The issue is not actually about not asking “Why?”– it’s about the spirit in which we ask, and our willingness to respond appropriately to the answers we might get from our Master.
I’m confused. Is that you, Robert Sutherland, talking about yourself as “the author” in the third person, giving a plug for your book?
Or are you someone who admires his book and typed in his name instead of your own?
Either way your conduct is odd . . .
Granpajohn: He did say “If anyone thinks he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know.”(I Cor 8:2). Is that close enough?
Note that although as readers of the book of Job, we’re told what’s going on, it isn’t explained to Job. What God does bother to explain to Job seems to me to basically boil down to “There are a ton of things in the universe of which you have no knowledge or understanding(and here’s a small sampling). Why are you surprised that your situation should turn out to be one of them?”. We seem to be easily surprised or even offended at not knowing or understanding something, yet in actuality we normally walk around ignorant of the vast majority of what goes on in the universe. What we do know is a miniscule portion of what there is to know. Yet we at times seem to act as if we’re entitled to the knowledge and understanding we want.
I think it’s that sense of entitlement, and the pride that goes with it that’s the problem. Scripture encourages us to seek knowledge, understanding, and wisdom (see much of the Proverbs). What it doesn’t seem to encourage is the sense that we’re always entitled to find it. I think I’ll agree with parishioner – the problem isn’t asking “Why?”, it’s asking “Why?” as though God owes you the answer and has inexplicably withheld it from you.
Note that 2 chapters through the ’samples of things you don’t know’, God stops, and Job responds in “I’m not worthy” mode. He’s going to put his hand over his mouth and stop speaking. This doesn’t seem to be what God is looking for, as He goes back to listing ’samples of things you don’t know’. The second time Job gets it – he echos God’s initial accusation (”Who is this who darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”). It’s now not “I will shut my mouth”, it’s “I will ask, and do you instruct me”. The latter seems to me to be a proper attitude – we’ll ask, and let God instruct in his own time.
Hmmm, I don’t think Mr. Spencer is saying that God never explains things or that in certain senses explanations aren’t possible or even necessary. I think he is saying that God does not need explanations nor does he need to give them all the time. I doubt that this is a call to stop praying during times of confusion or a time to stop rational reflection on Christian doctrine or God’s current actions in creation and history. I think that it is more a call to obedience during times of trial and confusion rather than simply demanding things of the God who has the right to demand things of us.
Think of it like this, the book of Hebrews calls terrible trials a form of discipline that we should remember God’s love during, calls God’s children to discipline themselves, and fails to explain exactly why God allows such terrible things from 10:32-34 to function as discipline for these people.
In Ephesians Paul takes great pains to explain that the salvation experienced by the church is part of God’s great plan from before creation, explains the results of this salvation since the time of the gospel, then gives prescriptions for obedience, without once explaining why some people aren’t believing the same gospel.
Then of course, there are all the passages in which God declares that he does not have to explain himself. It’s not that theodicy is bad or even that it is useless. It’s that it isn’t the point and that with lack of a good theodicy obedience is still necessary for those who believe the gospel. Remember this isn’t apologetics for those outside the church, but for those already following Jesus, so apologetics only have limited value.
I could have misread this entirely though.
This is such an excellent post! I certainly get caught up in this kind of explaining, and then can’t seem to find my way out. Why? Because God has not give detailed answers that provide for the explanations I try to give. Truth is, I’m going by what someone else has said that sounds good to me. I’ve got ZERO to back it up. Well, maybe not zero, but not much.
Thanks for what you do, Michael. There are not many people I know of who lay it all on the table like you do, especially Christians. It is refreshing to read someone who ADMITS not knowing all the answers, or most of the answers, or some of the answers… :) Thanks.
I agree that the pat answers that people give are not helpful (at best) and probably harmful (at worst). We should avoid the kind of explaining that is provided by much of Christian culture.
However, I am not sure that this post allows for the expressions of pain that we see in the scriptures, like Job or the Psalms. I do not think that we either have to offer up some kind of lame explanation, or shut up and accept it. There is a middle ground. We can allow ourselves, and others, to express the pain that we feel in our hearts over what is happening to us.
God has made a covenant with us, and as a part of that covenant he has promised us certain things. Time and again the psalms remind God of his promises in the covenant and call him to act on them. There is honest and authentic expression of real pain to God. No hiding behind silly explanations, or false humility.
If we have a child who is going through a tough time, either with a bully, or their school work, or with in a relationship, we would want them to come to us and confide in us. We would want them to express their pain to us. We would want them to trust us enough to allow themselves to be willing with us.
God is our Father, and he is standing with open arms, waiting for us to trust him enough to share our pain with him.
I don’t spend much time anymore asking “why?” although I did at one time, perhaps because if the answer was forthcoming, often it was of little comfort to me. That is to say, more often than not the answers expected are not what we get. Perhaps it is necessary from a human perspective to ask “why”, as sort of a built in reflex response to quite the emotional whirl wind that so often takes hold on us when we don’t understand calamity. Then, if or when the understanding is presented to us ( generally by revelation ) we have a tendency to behave as though we acquired it through much travail and hard work. So I think the question “Why?” is not as important as our response to the answer, what ever that answer may be. What do you have that you have not received? Or as another said, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. After all, it’s not as though some strange thing has come upon you such as is not common to us all. The Father does send His rain upon the wicked as well as the righteous, have you question Him about that? If God were to answer us by saying “because I’m God and your not” would we quit shaking our fist at heaven, and say ” Oh….. I’m good with that! You can bet that what ever God’s answers might be in any given situation It does not rest on easing our egocentric existence. It has always been about His Son Jesus Christ and the redemption of all things to Himself. Everything that God has done, everything that God is doing now and everything that God will do in the future is all about gathering all things together in Christ. And I don’t imagine that is going to be painless. Be thankful He loves us that much. I can hear Him saying ” this is going to hurt Me more that it is going to hurt you”. For God so loved the world that He gave us His only Son, to redeem us to Himself, He has already given us all that He has. If you want to ask the question “why” you might want to start there.
I’m no theologian, but isn’t Gods covenant with us fulfilled in Jesus Christ, as in, ” it is finished”? Was it not Gods purpose to redeem us from a contract that we could not fulfill? You know the whole If you do this, then I will do that and if you don’t do this then I will surely do that, type of covenant that none of us could keep? John said it very well and sometimes we forget the significance of his words as he saw Jesus walking near the river Jordan, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. If He has taken away the sin of the world then the whole covenant thing has been fulfilled and religion has been replaced by relationship. The holy of holies has been exposed, the veil has been torn apart and the glory of God ( the Spirit of God) now dwells in a temple not made with hands. For the Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the Law of Sin and death. Religion in all its forms has been a failure, lets face it, only One has been able to keep the covenant, and that is God in Christ Jesus.