"Forget what is behind and reach toward what is ahead."

I recently had dinner with a friend I had not spent much time with in several months. She sent me a note the next day expressing how "glad" she was I "seem in better spirits.” She then paraphrased from Phil 3:13: "Forget what is behind and reach toward what is ahead,” concluding with, "That is all we can do."

There was poignancy to her final words that touched me. I'm reminded we all have been hurt in ways we may never share even with those close to us.

My second reaction to her note, however, is that forgetting is not "all we can do." Certainly, we are free to respond to the vagaries of life in many ways. I think, rather than saying forgetting was our only choice, she was recommending forgetting as a desirable way, perhaps the best way to deal with disappointment and pain.

I'm not sure I agree with her. Of course disagreeing with her also puts me in disagreement with Paul, but as my friend herself told me over twenty-five years ago, "It wouldn't be the first time, and disagreeing with Paul does not automatically mean you disagree with God."

So, forgetting, while it may in fact be the best way to deal with the vagaries of life, is not all we can do. We are free to respond in many ways.

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"Should we receive good from God, and not evil?"

This phrase (from Job 2:10) haunts me a bit. It is troublesome in part because it is possible to extract from it the idea that we sometimes “receive evil from God”--which throws me into cognitive dissonance--and in part because a friend recently asked me if I thought God allows evil in the world so we can suffer the consequences of our sins. The core issue here is an old one and a big one, the problem of evil; how do we reconcile our concepts of God with the presence of evil in the world? I don’t have the answer to the big question, but the perspective given me by Job’s story has helped me keep my bearings when thrown into its' proximity.

First, word studies seem to urge the meaning of “good” and “evil” in this passage towards our contemporary use of “good” and “bad,” and away from “good” meaning divine perfection and “evil” meaning it’s opposite. Language scholars agree Job is not saying that we receive things from God that are anti-God, contrary to divine nature. So perhaps there is some comfort in translating the phrase as, “shall we accept what we like from God and not also what we don’t like?” But seeking that comfortable translation sidesteps the big question and also steps away from the events recounted in Job.

That translation trivializes Job’s experience. His trials go beyond minor misfortune. He has lost his wealth, many servants, his children, and his health. He still has his wife—poor comfort there; her response to these tragedies is to tell him to “curse God and die” (2:9). This is a lot of grief for a man who is pure and upright, who fears God and turns away from evil (2:8). We are inclined to think God's man will not face these tragedies. In fact, that's Satan's accusation: Job is God's man because God protects him from tragedy. It is easy to understand why Job might refer to these apparently capricious calamities as evil. Still, the passage says, “In all this Job did not sin, nor did he charge God with moral impropriety” (1:22). When lesser spirits would curse God and die, Job keeps his integrity, and--I think--his faith. Satan was wrong about Job.

Still, whose actions were these, God's or Satan's? I don’t have evidence or book-chapter-and-verse authority to answer that question. I do reason from my view of God that nothing happens unless he at least allows it, even though that view doesn’t ease my discomfort. I’m uncomfortable with the thought God may be allowing evil to exist, but—oddly enough—don’t feel that discomfort at a deep faith challenging level. When I’ve encountered those who point at such apparent inconsistencies and say, “I can’t believe in a god like that,” I’m always in agony more at their lack of belief than at the reason they offer to justify it. As quoted earlier, one sign of Job’s faithfulness was--even though overcome by inexplicable tragedy--he, “did not charge God with moral impropriety.” I understand Job’s choice there. I feel his choice, even though I have never been able to communicate it very well, especially to those who find such situations faith challenging. I wish I could.

Several teachers have emphasized God only allowed Satan to harm Job. They stress that God did not harm Job directly. This difference seems to ease discomfort for some. The text seems to support this interpretation, but the difference doesn’t seem significant to me. Certainly it wasn’t to Job. Regardless of causality, Job found himself bereft, wounded, in ashes and subject to the comfortless yammering of his wife and friends. To emphasize the difference seems to me to reveal insecurity, as if faith would fail if God had harmed Job directly. In fact, the small moral difference between refusing to stop harm and actually causing harm seems more like the small hook on which the weak hang self-justifying rationalizations than a pillar of theological insight into God’s nature. I think distinguishing causality here is ultimately no comfort.

In a lifetime of thought, reasoning, belief, and prayer, I have been unable to explain the existence of many phenomena I’m tempted to call evil. From the minor personal distraction of mosquitoes to the worldwide irritant of rampant materialism, from the tragedy of international warfare to the personal misfortune of polio, many things give me pause, particularly when I allow my perspective to shrink down to the ephemera of this world. Do we suffer these harms to build character, as consequences for sin, to serve some good only God can see? I think the answer to each of these questions is both yes and no. For the most part, I am untroubled by the ambiguity of these answers because no single answer is the tripwire of my faith. At the risk of being charged with intellectual flabbiness, I try to trust in the ultimate goodness of God even while twisting in agony over personal tragedies. I think it is possible to praise God through tears.

In contrast to Job, I remember the example of Adam and Eve—who may very well have been brought into a world without evil, or pain, or any of the other ills that give rise to the “big question.” In this idyllic existence, Eve listens to Satan who questions God’s motivation by saying Adam and Eve were commanded not to eat from the tree to deprive them of something desirable. In a heartbeat, Eve doubts the beneficence and superiority of God and chooses disobedience. The consequences of that choice—which Adam followed, apparently without hesitation—were significant. They were significant for Adam and Eve, for their family, for the generations that followed them, possibly even for all humankind. From the cushy ease of the garden, Eve appears quick to doubt and disobey. From the depths of tragedy that an ephemeral perspective would easily label evil, Job, though he feels and expresses grief and anger, does not disobey. He does not lose sight of the eternal.

The Preeminent Verity

Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds
by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is the ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 Corinthians 13
(NIRV)

Suppose I speak in the languages of human beings and of angels. If I don't have love, I am only a loud gong or a noisy cymbal. Suppose I have the gift of prophecy. Suppose I can understand all the secret things of God and know everything about him. And suppose I have enough faith to move mountains. If I don't have love, I am nothing at all. Suppose I give everything I have to poor people. And suppose I give my body to be burned. If I don't have love, I get nothing at all.

Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not want what belongs to others. It does not brag. It is not proud. It is not rude. It does not look out for its own interests. It does not easily become angry. It does not keep track of other people's wrongs.

Love is not happy with evil. But it is full of joy when the truth is spoken. It always protects. It always trusts. It always hopes. It never gives up.

Love never fails. But prophecy will pass away. Speaking in languages that had not been known before will end. And knowledge will pass away.

What we know now is not complete. What we prophesy now is not perfect. But when what is perfect comes, the things that are not perfect will pass away.

When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I had the understanding of a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Now we see only a dim likeness of things. It is as if we were seeing them in a mirror. But someday we will see clearly. We will see face to face. What I know now is not complete. But someday I will know completely, just as God knows me completely.

The three most important things to have are faith, hope and love. But the greatest of them is love.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

While these passages may allow an interpretation that love is something that "happens" to one, or something "found," I think it more likely eternal love is a choice. Love is not an external force sweeping us off our feet and out of control, not something we "can't help," not subject to the vagaries of time, wealth, or status. It is not a part of the ephemeral, ever changing, world, but a part of the eternal spirit of God.

Ontological Proof

Rene’ Descartes

Descartes, as I understand it, in his Discours de la méthode (1637), was attempting “to unify all knowledge as the product of clear reasoning from self-evident premises.” Following the 11th century work of St. Anselm, Descartes added his reasoning to something called the “Ontological Proof.” It appears to be an attempt to assert the existence of God rationally. I find the proof compelling for that very reason, rationality reaching to explain what many rationalist appear to consider irrational.

There are different versions, possibly translations, of the proof. What follows I owe once again to Dr. Tom Morris’, Philosophy for Dummies. In short, the proof says, “God's existence is inferred directly from the fact that necessary existence is contained in the clear and distinct idea of a supremely perfect being,” or in a longer version as a construct:

1. Whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive to be contained in the idea of something is true of that thing.
2. I clearly and distinctly perceive that necessary existence is contained in the idea of God.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Morris writes, “Descartes compared the ontological argument to a geometric demonstration, arguing that necessary existence cannot be excluded from idea of God anymore than the fact that its angles equal two right angles can be excluded from the idea of a triangle.” The ontological proof asserts God’s existence is as obvious and self-evident as basic mathematical truth.

Descartes and Morris point out this proof is intuitively both compelling and unsatisfying. I am less troubled by the ambiguity of their responses. In fact, Descartes ambiguity is part of what I find compelling about the proof. He is represented as believing the most compelling proof of God is primarily experiential, making rational proof just an addendum to faith already embraced, and not evidence bringing the unbelieving rationalist to faith. He presents rational argument asserting God’s existence is “obvious and self-evident,” but draws his faith from what he perceives to be God’s actions in his life.

To me it is as if Descartes recognizes the inherent weakness of rationality. Rational conclusions are only as valid as their supporting data. Rational conclusions are subject to the changes brought about by new data, more complete data, or a new understanding of old data. Rationality is ephemeral because it is totally dependent on evidence from an ephemeral world. Rationalists claiming to have found something eternal or universal, by that very claim, step onto metaphysical turf and away from their core belief, for nothing in the rational world can be eternal or universal.

I believe, by presenting rational proof as secondary to the faith engendered by experiencing God in his life, Descartes asserts faiths’ supremacy. The faithful are sure their hopes will be fulfilled and are certain of things they do not see. The faithful are irrational. They develop faith by believing others testimony about God, by responding to the loving acts of God in their own lives, by making leaps of faith, by any or all of several inherently “irrational” actions. When the faithful step into their core beliefs, embracing the certainties hopes will be fulfilled and that the unseen exists, they embrace the only things eternal and universal accessible to anyone in the transient ephemera of this world.