January 03, 2005
tsunami #7: Christian afterburn
The fundamentalists are now openly saying that the tsunami disaster is the will of God sitting in judgement on the sinfulness of humanity.
So says Phillip Jensen, the Anglican Dean of Sydney,who holds that a sovereign God rules all things. He said disasters were part of God's warning that judgement was coming. When asked if the tsunami was the will of God, he replied:
"Yes. The will of God in this world involved his creation of the world, but it also involves his judgment upon the sinfulness of humanity and it also involves his salvation of people through the death and resurrection of his son. And so all the beautiful things we see in this world are an expression of his creative goodness to us and all the disasters of this world are part of his warning the judgment is coming, and both these things should focus our mind on the death and resurrection of his son and how he saved us."
Judgement is coming? Were those living on the shore of the Indian ocean punished because they were more sinful than those in he West?
Similar sentiments were expressed by Amjad Mehboob, the chief executive of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils:
"We believe that whatever happens in the world, it happens with the sanction of God, and nothing can happen without his sanction. No one could say whether the victims had brought the disaster on themselves, only God could know that."
God sanctioned the tsunami!
And Rabbi Mordechai Gutnick, president of the Organisation of Rabbis of Australia, said to question God was to question with our finite minds His infinite wisdom. "What we consider tragedies are part of His plan, and the final result is what counts." The world runs to God's plan.
Presumably,the reasoning is this. God rules the world. If God is warning us, then it is either because human beings have stayed from God's teaching, or they are wicked and done evil. Evil ones need to be punished. Therefore, they need to be punished by a wrathful God.
So God send the tsumani. That is the inference. Hence there is no benevolent God guiding human affairs.It is Lisbon all over again. The Christian fundamentalists have a credibility problem because Christians believe that God is all-loving and that his compassion and love reach out to all, especially to the most helpless and abandoned.
Jason South
Their views are really the counter enlightenment, and it should be treated as such. The values they express are fundamentally at odds with the education in our universities.
The explanation given there is that the tectonic plates off Sumatra, collided, causing an earthquake and then the tsunami.There was compression between the Indian and Burmese tectonic plates. Scientists would argue that one plate that comprised the landmass from India to Australia has broken up into two. The initial eruption happened near the location of the meeting point of the Australian, Indian and Burmese tectonic plates.
That is the explanation for the suffering caused by settlements being swamped by then giant waves of the tsunami, and then turned into a nightmarish landscape of sludge, flattened homes and tangled corpses.
So what do we do about the clash of biblical values with the values of our universities? You can imagine the religious fundamentalists setting out to remodel our universities to "balance" college courses with the religiously correct rightwing views based on biblical values.
Christians are being evasive about tackling the fundamentalists. Barney Zwartz, the religious editor of The Age, says:
"Theodicy discusses suffering as a theoretical abstraction to be justified by logical inference from an abstract philosophical deity who is reduced to a set of attributes: perfect goodness, perfect knowledge, perfect power. This philosopher's god is a metaphysical creation of the Enlightenment for purposes of argument - the person and teaching of Jesus, for example, does not enter the discussion."
This is a reference back to Voltaire and the Lisbon earthquake.
Barney misses the problem.It is the fundamentalists who are talking in terms of the judgement of an powerful, wrathful God, and who forget about the compassionate ethics of Jesus.
Update
Rowan Williams talks more sense. A post on theodicy by Mark Bahnisch over at Troppo Armadillo.
i think that god was souly responsible for this disaster - he clearly wanted all the aisians dead and so he sent a tidal wave. simple as pie
Posted by: on February 12, 2005 12:07 AMTHE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD
The word "sovereign" is not used in the King James Version of the Bible. It is used 303 times in the Old Testament of the New International Version, but it is always used in association with the word "LORD" and is the equivalent of the King James Version's "LORD God." Not a single one of those times is the word "sovereign" used in the manner that it has come to be used in religion in our day and time.
Religion has resulted in the invention of a new meaning for the word "sovereign," which basically means God controls everything. Nothing can happen but what He wills or allows. However, there is nothing in the actual definition that states that. The dictionary defines "sovereign" as, "1. Paramount; supreme. 2. Having supreme rank or power. 3. Independent: a sovereign state. 4. Excellent." None of these definitions means that God controls everything.
It is assumed that since God is paramount or supreme, that nothing can happen without His approval. That is not what the scriptures teach. In 2 Peter 3:9, Peter said, "The Lord is...not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." This clearly states that it is not the Lord's will for anyone to perish, but people are perishing. Jesus said, "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide [is] the gate, and broad [is] the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat" (Mt. 7:13). Relatively few people are saved compared to the number that are lost. God's will for people concerning salvation is not being accomplished.
This is because the Lord gave us the freedom to choose. He doesn't will anyone into hell. He paid for the sins of the whole world (1 Jn. 2:2; 1 Tim. 4:10), but we must choose to put our faith in Christ and receive His salvation. People are the ones choosing hell by not choosing Jesus as their Savior. It is the free will of man that damns them, not God.
Men virtually have to climb over the roadblocks that God puts in their way to continue on their course to hell. The cross of Christ and the drawing power of the Holy Spirit are obstacles that every sinner encounters. No one will ever stand before God and be able to fault Him for withholding the opportunity to be saved. The Lord woos every person to Him, but we have to cooperate. Ultimately, the Lord simply enforces the consequences of people's own choices.
God has a perfect plan for every person's life (Jer. 29:11), but He doesn't make us walk that path. We are free moral agents with the ability to choose. He has told us what the right choices are (Dt. 30:19), but He doesn't make those choices for us. God gave us the power to control our destiny.
Typical teaching on the sovereignty of God puts Jesus in the driver's seat with us as passengers. On the surface that looks good. All of us have encountered the disastrous results of doing our own thing. We desire to be led of the Lord, and teaching that nothing happens but what God wills, fits that nicely. However, the scriptures paint a picture of each of us being behind the wheel of our own lives. We are the one doing the driving. We are supposed to take directions from the Lord, but He doesn't do the driving for us.
Man has been given the authority over his own life, but he must have the Lord's direction to succeed. Jeremiah 10:23 says, "O LORD, I know that the way of man [is] not in himself: [it is] not in man that walketh to direct his steps." God created us to be dependent upon Him and our independence is at the root of all our problems. As if it wasn't bad enough for man to try to run his affairs independently of God and His standards, it has been made even worse by religion teaching us that all our problems are actually blessings from God. That is a faith killer. It makes people totally passive.
James 4:7 says, "Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." This verse makes it clear that some things are from God and some from the devil. We must submit to the things that are of God and resist the things that are from the devil. The word "resist" means, "Actively fight against." Saying, "Whatever will be will be" is not actively fighting against the devil.
If a person really believed that God is the one who put sickness on him because He is trying to work something for good in his life, then he should not go to the doctor or take any medicine. That would be resisting God's plans. He should let the sickness run its course and thereby get the full benefit of God's correction. Of course, no one advocates that. That is absurd. It is even more absurd to believe that God is the one behind the tragedy.
Acts 10:38 says that Jesus healed all those who were oppressed OF THE DEVIL. It was not God who oppressed them with sickness. It was the devil. It's the same today. Sickness is from the devil, not from God. We need to resist sickness, and by faith, submit ourselves to healing, which is from God through the atonement of Christ.
I know someone is thinking, What about the Old Testament instances where God smote people with sickness and plagues? There is a lot I could say about that if I had the space, but a simplified answer to that question is that none of those instances were blessings. They were curses. God did use sickness in the Old Testament as punishment, but in the New Testament, Jesus bore our curse for us (Gal. 3:12). The Lord would no more put sickness on a New Testament believer than He would make us commit a sin. Both forgiveness of sin and healing are a part of the atonement Jesus provided for us.
Deuteronomy, chapter 28, should forever settle this question for all who believe the Word of God. The first 14 verses of Deuteronomy 28 list the blessings of God and the last 53 verses list the curses of God. Healing is listed as a blessing (Dt. 28:4). Sickness is listed as a curse (Dt. 28:22, 27-28, 35, 59-61). God called sickness a curse. We should not call it a blessing.
Knowing that God is not the author of my problems is one of the most important revelations the Lord has ever given me.
It is very comforting to know that God only has good things in store for me. Any problems in my life are from the devil, of my own making, or just the results of life on a fallen planet. My heavenly Father has never done me any harm and never will. I KNOW that.
I am not saying that there is nothing to learn from hardships. Most of you reading this letter have come to the Lord because of something in your life that overwhelmed you and caused you to turn to the Lord for help. That situation was not from God regardless of the results. It was you turning to the Lord, and the faith you placed in Him that turned your life around, not the hardship.
If hardships and problems made us better, then everyone who has had problems would be better for them. Those who have the most trouble would be the best. That simply is not so.
I don't believe it blesses our heavenly Father for us to blame Him for all the problems that come into our lives. Sure, He will comfort us when we turn to Him in the midst of our problems, but He doesn't create the negative circumstances that hurt our lives.
God is sovereign in the sense that He is paramount and supreme. There is no one higher in authority or power, but that does not mean He exercises His power by controlling everything in our lives. God has given us the freedom to choose. He has a plan for us. He seeks to reveal that plan to us and urge us in that direction, but we choose. He doesn't make our choices for us.
In many instances, it is our wrong choices that bring disaster upon us. In other cases, our problems are nothing but an attack from the devil. In some cases, natural forces of an imperfect world cause us pain. Our tragedies are never the judgment or correction of God. Jesus came to give us abundant life. The devil came to steal, kill and destroy (Jn. 10:10). Don't ever get that confused. If it's good, it's God. If it's bad it's the devil.
This is a fundamental doctrine of Christianity that must be understood properly if you want victory in your life. Believing that God controls everything renders a person passive. Why pray and believe for something better? Whatever God wants will come to pass. That simply is not true.
The Lord is the answer to all our problems. He is not the problem.