very often will raise one question above all others. The problem of evil: that is, how a God that claims to be all-good can allow evil to exist. They will bring up the holocaust in World War 2 and the killing fields of Cambodia, or any instance of the plethora of evil that has shown its face in our world and ask "how can your God, who claims to be both omnipotent (all-powerful) and omniscient (all-knowing) allow this to occur if he is also all-good?" That is the question: how can He? If one were all-good and all-powerful, certainly he would end evil- he would have to. To us, in our day and age, this is a no-brainer. One need look no further than the recent uproar at Penn State, where an iconic football-coach was fired because a former staffer was arrested for sexually assaulting boys in the locker room over a period of years. Joe Paterno was not involved, and he informed his bosses when he found out -as the law required- but he did not call the police, and was therefore guilty of breaking a “moral law” by allowing this to continue to happen. How much more, then, would an all-knowing and all-powerful God be guilty of such crimes? Certainly, if he were omnipotent and omniscent he could not be all-good and let this evil happen. “In the beginning…” these are the first words of the Bible. They establish not a book of science, noting facts and figures as some would have us believe, nor a book of philosophy- although it certainly contains some of that as well. However, the Bible is primarily a narrative, a story. From this starting point, the Bible takes us on a journey through the ages, ending at some point in the future in the book of Revelation. To understand why God allows evil, one must put down the philosopher’s pipe and clear their throat and tell a story. Not any old story, mind you, but an epic story, for that is what the Bible is- the ultimate battle between good and evil. Before man had math and science, he had stories. We are created with this love of the narrative, an innate love which no evolutionary advancement has weaned us from. Only our technologies have changed, moving from an oral tradition, to the printing press and now to television, movies and the internet. No matter its venue, the art of story is what makes us who we are and is passed on from generation to generation. What kind of book(s) would The Lord of the Rings be without the “black lord of Mordor” or Harry Potter without “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named”? Any story worth its salt has a character of overwhelming evil who contributes to an utterly hopeless situation; that is where the story is born; it is a key element of good storytelling. J.R.R. Tolkien created the world of Middle Earth, a beautiful and tragic land where millions of readers get lost for days on end each time they read it. Does it make him evil because he allowed evil to flourish in this land for most of the book? Or, in reality, does it make him a master storyteller? If we are but characters in God’s story, some of us may perish, like those in the attack of Isengard, victims who fall before the great evil sweeping over the land, but a few of us may play a larger role in furthering the story that the Author has set before us. If God does exist, as the Bible insists, then there is ample evidence that he uses storytelling as his way of communicating to us (the Bible). There is also ample evidence that man is universally predisposed to narrative as a means of communication, since it exists in all known cultures throughout history. Therefore, it stands as completely logical that God can remain all-good and be both omnipotent and omniscient while allowing evil to exist in this world because it furthers his eternal narrative.
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Dr. Who. To those of you have never seen this cultural icon of the BBC… It is the story of a time lord, the last of his kind, a humanoid alien who travels with a human companion through both space and time. The series started in the 1960’s and restarted a few years ago with much better special effects and for the most part, a killer story line. One week he will be fighting witches with Shakespeare and the next he could be stopping cat nurses in New New York from breeding humans as vaccine incubators. Dr Who is written in an agnostic/atheistic viewpoint which makes the following statement that much more ironic- pretty much in every show, the Doctor reflects Jesus Christ. Now this is not an iron clad description – the Doctor has faults – the show wouldn’t last very long on TV if he didn’t (nothing duller than perfection on a TV show). But if you look at the similarities they are unmistakable:
There are so many others examples I could not list them all. From end of season 3 when the entire world rose up in one voice saying “Doctor, Doctor, Doctor…" (Every knee shall bow and proclaim Jesus Christ is Lord), to the fact that the Doctor gives every enemy a chance at repentance before he destroys them, just as Christ gives us the same. The similarities between this work of fiction and the Messiah are undeniable. Perhaps this is mere coincidence, just the happenstance ramblings of a collection of gifted writers. Or perhaps it is a small statement buried deep under the language and imagery of atheistic secular humanism. Then again, maybe it is just the figment of my own mind, searching for any straw of faith in the barren wasteland of modern television. Any of these could be true, but as for me – I believe. |
AuthorSteven Van Haitsma Archives
June 2015
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