Thanks to Michael Lloyd’s book Cafe Theology I have begun to redefine my views on the doctrine of a fallen creation. He has helped me overcome what I thought was an insurmountable obstacle.
My old view was this: Suffering and pain is an unavoidable part of the universe. God’s creation is vast and intricate. He has produced a cosmos in which the basic forces and elementary particles combine to produce a range of elements, coalescing over billions of years into stars and planets. He has created the fundamental laws of nature by which life has gradually involved into the world we now know and love. Unfortunately the process by which life is formed includes planetary upheavals such as earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes. The mutations which are vital to the evolution of human beings also give rise to disease and disability.
Just as you can’t have a system of mathematics which has only even numbers and no odd numbers, I cannot see how it is scientifically possible to have a universe in which life in all its glory exists but without any form of destruction or chaos or pain. My daughter asked me many years ago “Why did God make the wind?” This was said as a complaint because she was finding it difficult to walk against a strong headwind. But the question prompted me to think how, if I were God, I would organise the world so that the air never moved at more than say 20 mph (a bracing, but non-destructive rate of motion.) Given that air currents are a consequence of a spinning planet and the unequal warming effects of the sun, I concluded that the only ways to avoid strong winds would be to create beings capable of surviving in no atmosphere, or to change fundamentally the laws of physics such that gravity and light behaved differently so we could live on a flat earth.
I was reasonably happy with my conclusion. My view that natural disasters or diseases were simply an essential part of the fabric of creation helped to answer the question “Why does God allow earthquakes?” The answer: “Because without earthquakes the earth would be a barren rock and life would not exist.” And similar answers could be given for all other forms of suffering. Even God in all his wisdom couldn’t produce a system of laws which gave rise to life but didn’t allow for any harmful consequences.
But I recognised one big problem with this view. I was essentially arguing that our universe is the best possible one God could have created. No other kind of universe could give rise to living creatures. So what about heaven? My concept of heaven is that it is a perfect place – no more tears, no more pain, no more death – and it is more real, more physical, more solid than our present existence. The present universe is a pale shadow of the new creation God has in store for us. But if God can create a perfect heaven – a place where life is lived to the full without any of the drawbacks of earth – then this present universe is not after all the best God could have come up with. You see my dilemma?
Michael Lloyd’s view is that this universe is NOT how God intended it to be. The doctrine of the fall shows that God doesn’t always get what he wants. He wanted Adam and Eve to leave a particular fruit untouched. Instead they ate it. Even if we take this story as a metaphor, the principle is surely correct. God doesn’t want people to suffer. He didn’t plan for earthquakes or diseases. So what went wrong?
To say that we humans are to blame because we have made wrong choices is only part of an answer. God made us as free agents. He wants us to love one another. If we choose not to love one another, then people get hurt. Murder (for example) is not God’s wish or God’s plan. You can explain some suffering as a consequence of God loving us enough to give us freedom. And this is real freedom – he doesn’t step in to interfere whenever we choose to act in a hurtful way. But you can’t explain tsunamis or cancer in those terms.
Violence, geological upheaval, carnivorousness, disease, destruction and death – these have been around for much longer than human beings, and do seem (as I argue above) to be part of the fabric of the universe. So if the universe itself is not as God really intended, something must have gone wrong at a very early stage.
There are hints of this in the Biblical narrative. The serpent was clearly up to mischief, working against God before the fall of Adam and Eve. Also, part of God’s purpose for the human race was to “subdue” the earth (Genesis 1:28) which implies that creation was not quite what God yet wanted – it needed someone to take control and make it as it should be.
Lloyd’s suggestion is based on the assumption that the physical universe is not the only thing in existence. There is a spiritual dimension to reality, inhabited by spiritual creatures who (like us) have been given free will and work with God in all his activities. Before the dawn of time, some of these ‘angels’ (to use the traditional term for them) chose to work against God. The ‘fall’ had already taken place before God’s creation began. Hence the universe, though essentially good (Genesis 1:30), had a flawed streak running through it. Part of the role of men and women was to mend this flaw and bring creation to perfection. We have failed to do this and instead chosen to act in ways which have made the situation worse.
However, all is not lost. God’s ultimate plan is for a world in which the lion and the lamb can coexist peacefully, and he has shown us in Jesus what it means to tackle the flawed nature of the world head on. Jesus cured disease, made the disabled whole and even took control over the wind and the waves. His reaction to the storm was not “oh well, it’s an inevitable part of creation that we just have to put up with”; it was “Peace! Be still!”
So my view has changed. And hopefully for the better. No longer should I shrug my shoulders at natural disaster or disease and say “well it’s the downside of living in an environment that can produce life”. Instead I should resist all forms of suffering as Jesus did, saying “This is not as it should be. This is not what God wanted. How can I help to put it right?”
I am still left with some deep philosophical and scientific questions. I’m not quite sure about the nature of heaven. What is the perfect world God is going to bring about? Is it an entirely new order of creation based on even more awesome laws of nature which I can’t possibly imagine? Or is it a version of our present universe with its flaws fixed? And if the latter in what way can they be fixed? Will human beings be able to turn off storms at will whenever they threaten to be too destructive? Will lions become herbivores?
But I’ve spent quite long enough already. Leaving such questions on one side... my shift of thinking is from “Suffering is unfortunate but it’s not God’s fault because it’s an inevitable consequence of a universe which can produce life” to “Suffering is not an inevitable part of the universe. God didn’t want it and is doing everything possible (short of removing our freedom) to defeat suffering and create a better world.”
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Further thoughts in answer to the questions in the penultimate paragraph:
(I tried to add this as a comment but it was way too long)
Consider the game of chess. A playing board, 32 pieces and a few simple rules. Yet from this comes an immense variety of game-play, not to mention books, tournaments, conventions, periodicals and grand masters. It’s amazing that simple laws can give rise to such fascinating, enjoyable and meaningful complexity. There is joy and fulfilment in outwitting your opponent. There is also disappointment and frustration when the game goes against you. The rules of chess have given rise to the pleasure of winning and the pain of losing. Would it be possible to have a different set of rules which led to all players experiencing the thrill of winning and no player downcast at having lost? It seems unlikely.
My view of the present universe is that it is like the game of chess. A few basic components and a few rules about how they interact – but all created so well that they give rise to beauty, variety, life, relationships, pleasure and pain. The fact that God can come up with simple laws of nature that lead eventually to people enjoying such diverse pleasures as sex, chocolate and The Lord of the Rings – well it’s mind-bogglingly awesome. The trouble is that those same rules lead to supernova, venomous snakes and swords. Would it be possible for God to create a different set of rules which led to just as much variety, complexity, wonder and joy in the universe, but without anything detrimental?
Yesterday my answer would have been no. This awesome universe is as good as it gets. There are no conceivable laws which will produce only pleasure and never pain. As I indicated above the problem with this answer is that if God can’t do it for earth, he can’t do it for heaven either. If there’s no better possible universe, then this one is what we’re stuck with.
Today I have two possible answers. Both effectively saying yes.
a) Just because I cannot conceive of new rules which would fit the bill, doesn’t mean such rules are impossible. Maybe there are a set of rules by which the universe could have come into being as a perfect place with no hint of sorrow or suffering in any part of creation. Such rules would have to be even more awesome than our existing laws of nature. Scientists exploring such a new creation would be even more gob-smacked than they are now at the beautiful way in which everything hangs together.
b) The rough and tumble nature of the universe wasn’t really a problem before life came into being. Stardust being sucked into black holes and volcanoes vomiting clouds of ash is hardly what you would call ‘suffering’ because inanimate matter doesn’t suffer. It is people who feel pain, not rocks. (Though there is a debate to be had as to quite where you draw the line at defining suffering – a dog going hungry? a flea going hungry? a bacterium being destroyed by an anti-body (or whatever it is that destroy bacteria)? a grapevine being pruned?) Basically it is only when life (arguably the higher form of animal life) developed that you could talk about the world being a place in which creatures suffered.
So maybe God’s perfect idea of creation is not radically different from what we have now. It started off the same, but in God’s ideal world human life would somehow rise above the problems and subdue them and experience pure joy. Imagine an accomplished hang-glider going out in the roughest possible winds. The elements can be massively chaotic and threatening and the hang-glider experiences nothing but joy and exhilaration as she navigates the currents.
Is that an image which illustrates how we should somehow get on top of creation and enjoy it to the full without fear or pain? And if so, how can that be possible in the circumstances? We can overcome much suffering through the ordinary means at our disposal (our words and actions), but not all.
Perhaps God’s plan is for us to be like Jesus in having the ability to impose our will directly on creation. What this means in scientific terms is that we would have the power to change the rules. The built-in laws of the universe say that the wind and the waves are going to move in this particular dangerous and disruptive way, but when they threaten our safety we can say “that’s enough! stop it!” and the universe itself bends to our command. The built-in laws say that these leg muscles have wasted away and won’t function, but we can say “walk!” and the cells and sinews and chemicals in the body will adjust to enable a lame man to walk.
When things happen which ‘break’ the laws of nature we call it a miracle. Perhaps miracles are no more than imposing a higher law. I’m not wanting to move into the realms of ESP and telekinesis and mind over matter and all that. I’m just speculating. Jesus was so in tune with God that he was able to bring to bear God’s loving purposes (safety for the disciples; health for the sick) in direct contradiction to the way the universe would ‘normally’ behave. And he promised we would do greater things.
So is it not that the problematic pain-containing universe needs fixing, but rather that it needs taming? And is it the Spirit of God working through us that can accomplish that? Allowing us to be so in tune with God’s ultimate purposes that we can participate in exercising conscious and loving control over the wildness of the universe?
And what if we could all exercise such control? The image springs to mind of a world populated by powerful magicians who can do what they want with a spoken word – but that’s not the picture I’m trying to describe. If life was just like now but with everyone having power over nature, there would still be arguments, factions, disagreements, curses etc etc. That’s not the kind of world God wants any more than I do.
The kingdom is where God’s rule is acknowledged, where people love one another freely and self-sacrificially, where everyone finds joy in living life to the full and experiences relationships with one another and with God as they were intended to be. In such a context disease and disaster would not be allowed to intrude and spoil things. The potential for suffering might still be ever-present, built into the very fabric of the universe, but as soon as any kind of problem started to raise its ugly head, someone would take responsibility to say (on God’s behalf) “Stop it! None of that!”
Now that truly would be heaven.
