Why?

by P.L. Hickling, Southport, England | Category: General | May 1989

Anyone who has small children knows that they reach an age, round about five, when every other word is "why?". We don't always find it easy to deal with; sometimes the first answer is quite straightforward, but the next "why?" is more difficult, and the third is impossible.

For example, a child might say "Why does it rain?", and the reply could be "The rain falls out of the clouds". The next question might be "Why does the rain fall down, and how did it get up there?". An adult would then have to explain the mechanism of evaporation, convection and condensation, which he might be expected to know, but the child would probably find difficult to follow because of his limited knowledge. If this was followed by "Why does water evaporate, instead of just getting hotter?", neither parent might know why a change of state takes place at a particular temperature - if anyone does.

All of us sometimes want to ask "Why?". A parent dies, someone suffers in an accident, someone else is unjustly treated, or loses his job; all of them good, kind Christian people, and we want to ask why God should let it happen. Some kindly and well meaning people will try to console by saying "It's all in God's plan. He never makes a mistake, and He knows best". One doesn't like to pour cold water on what seems a trusting and faithful attitude, but is this really satisfactory? God doesn't plan to do evil things to anyone (Jas. 1:13), and the things which are undesirable but not evil are not designed by Him. He knows that they are going to happen, and permits them to happen, but this is not the same as making them happen. The case of Job illustrates this. God pointed him out as "a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil" (Job 1:8). In spite of this, God permitted Satan to touch first his goods and family, then the man himself.

Some of the bad things that happen to us are caused by our own or other people's error, or sometimes by ill will. What would we have God do? To use His power to prevent any act of ill-will or misjudgement by man or demon? If He did this, there would be no such thing as free will or moral responsibility. Every being would be an automaton, doing exactly as it was told. One reason "why", therefore, is that God has restricted Himself by giving man free will - making him "in the image of God" (Gen. 1:27). A consequence of this is that bad decisions are sometimes taken, which God could only prevent by a wholesale and full-scale intervention in human affairs which He will one day make. Nonetheless, most Christians would think that there are some occasions on which God overrides human actions, or influences their timing in such a way

that ill effects are avoided or reduced. A natural question is "Why doesn't He do this more frequently, or in all cases, to protect His Own?"

One answer is that God is able to bring glory to Himself out of situations where people mean to oppose Him, and to bring good results from evil intentions. For example, Scripture records how Joseph's brothers sold him to the Midianites, and feigned his killing by wild animals (Gen. 37). Joseph's reaction was "ye meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive" (Gen. 50:20). Other instances are the way in which Adam's, sin was used as the reason for bringing redemption to the human race, and the way in which the scattering following Saul's persecution was used to spread the gospel (Acts 8:4). The greatest example of all lies in the death of Christ. The vile betrayal of the Lord was an act for which Judas was fully responsible, but it was part of the chain of events through which the Son of God earned our redemption (Mat. 26:24). Scripture shows us again and again that the proof of our faith is "more precious than gold that perisheth though it is proved by fire" (1 Pet. 1:7).

The originators of the Church of England's Shorter Catechism asked the question "What is the chief end of man?" and answered it "The chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever". This is a correct assessment; no greater reason for our existence can be found than that we should exalt God Almighty, who is the epitome of all that is good, and for whose sake everything exists. Thus God gives to some the opportunity and duty to glorify Him by putting their faith into action; this is an opportunity to be grasped, not a calamity to be bewailed. Is not this sort of test too hard for some? Yes, it is; and God, the all-knowing, says that He "will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation make also the way of escape" (1 Cor. 10:13). To this extent He does use His power to control events and actions, and no one should fear that God will set him an impossible task. If we should find that God has entrusted us with a difficult situation, we can be sure that God will give us the strength to surmount it.

This is the essence of faith. It is a trust in God's goodwill and love; a recognition of the statement of Scripture that "to them that love God, all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to His purpose" (Rom. 8:28). Thus the question "why?" will seldom provide much enlightenment, and may well cause energy to be spent on introspection that could better be spent on other things. The past has gone, and we cannot alter it; the future is unknown, except that we can believe God's promises about its general nature; but our duty lies in the present, and God has given us this time in which we can decide to act or not to act. As far as we ourselves are concerned, the simple even rather crude - fact is that we need not ask "why?", just "get on with it".

In the case of calamities happening to others, we are like the child in our initial illustration; it may not be possible for us to have the ultimate reason explained to us, because of our lack of knowledge. Certainly we can say that the view which considers the ultimate evils to be bodily suffering and death is a very temporal and earth-bound one. It is true that while one may adopt the higher spiritual attitude for oneself, it is hard to communicate it to others who have no faith, and see in calamities an obstacle to it. What we can do is to seek to demonstrate it in ourselves, and for that we need the help of God.

P.L. Hickling, Southport, England | May 1989
General