This comment is hardly worth replying to, but I...

2009-09-03T13:03:10.423-05:00

This comment is hardly worth replying to, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and lean on the "Answer" side of the balance in Proverbs 26:4-5.

1) Neither Piper nor I said that every disaster is caused by human sin. Many are the result of living in a world which has been marked by sin. And many others are the result of God allowing human beings free will to destroy themselves and each other (which would include the starving people that you mention - the world has always had plenty of food for everyone. The reason people starve is because of war, discrimination, and greed; i.e. human sin).

This particular tornado, however, did not kill anyone, and struck only the building where the Lutherans were meeting to discuss the ordination of practicing homosexuals. "No injuries, lots of damage." It was a very odd tornado.

Piper did not say sin caused the tornado, rather that the tornado was sent as a warning and a sign that what was being done inside was abhorrent to God. Perhaps He sent it as a warning for the people inside to think twice about what they were about to do.

2) The idea that starving people prove that God doesn't exist (or is impotent, which is the same thing) is based on the assumption that we know God's agenda. Usually the argument is presented this way:

A. God is all good.
B. God is all powerful.
C. An all-good God would want to help starving people.
D. An all-powerful God would be able to help starving people.
E. People are starving.
F. Therefore, God doesn't exist.

The argument falls apart on proposition C. How do we know what God's agenda should be? The argument presupposes that God is just like us. To put it mildly, the Bible calls that assumption unwise. (Psalm 50:21-23)

What if instead of making sure as everyone was happy and comfortable in this life, God had a different agenda? What if what He was doing was seeking to allow human free will to run its course, so that human self-will and pride would be seen for the truly ugly and abhorrent thing that it is? What if - in the midst of the cesspit of history created by human free will - He was creating a new people who would live in a completely different way - in humility and servanthood and love for Him and their neighbors? What if He was - for a few thousand years - exerting His power in only an extremely limited way so that what He intended all along would only be seen through this new people? What if He was intending to win as many as possible to His side - by free choice, not by force - so that when He recreated the entire world, it would be filled only with people who had voluntarily chosen to trust and obey Him?

According to the Bible, that is the story that we live in. Why doesn't God do something about suffering in the world? He has done something about it. He is doing something about it, and He will do something about it once and for all. The problem is that what He is doing is just not what we want Him to do. He is doing something profoundly more complicated, profoundly more surprising, profoundly more difficult, and profoundly more beautiful than any of us are comfortable with.

That's why He said that the way into His kingdom was narrow, and only a few would find it. The only way you get in is by dropping your agenda and your demands and getting on His program for His creation. And then you get up the next day and do it all over again. And again and again and again, until either you die and meet Him face to face or He comes back and finishes His plan and you see it.

Is that Medieval? No, it's older than that. It goes back to a bloody stake on a hill outside of Jerusalem... and then all the way back to a burning bush in the desert before that.

saying sins cause natural disasters is medieval th...

2009-09-01T18:33:59.515-05:00

saying sins cause natural disasters is medieval thinking. god plays with the weather while watching people in the third world starve? if he has the power to make air spin and cause destruction he also has the power to make food. god seems just as distracted by scripture as christians are.

Comments on Today and That Day: Piper: the Tornado, the Lutherans, and Homosexuali...

This comment is hardly worth replying to, but I...

saying sins cause natural disasters is medieval th...