Name a problem, any problem. Poverty. Crime. The History Channel no longer showing Historical content. Name a problem.
Now, here’s the argument that a critic who wishes to disprove the existence of God will offer: “A problem exists, so either God can’t or won’t fix it. If He can’t then He’s not all-powerful and if He won’t then He’s not all-good. Either way He’s not God.” The argument seeks to create a fallacy that unravels the very idea of God as the all-powerful, all-good Maker and Master of the universe.
Here’s a Wal-Mart brand version of Lex Luther trying it out on Superman…
But the problem with “the problem fallacy” is that the fallacy itself is built on a fallacy…and that’s a problem.
Listen to something God says in Ezekiel
My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill: yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.
Ezekiel 34:6
When the ancient people of Israel asked for a king “like the other nations” they, without realizing it, were asking for a ruler to lord over them, the way the pagan nations had wicked rulers who oppressed them. Though God gave them Saul, and later David and his line of Kings, He didn’t give them a King “like the other nations.” Instead, he created a royal system where a leader—not a ruler—was directly answerable to Him. This text, and the rebukes it contains, is a reminder of that distinction.
The sheep have gone in every direction, and no one is seeking for them, because no one with the power to help (a power which God gave them, by the way) cares to lift a finger for them. Note that the sheep are not so lost that they cannot be found. God knows where they all are: He sees them on the mountains and hills, and wherever else they may be across the face of the earth. All they need is someone willing to go get them, but the shepherds appointed to that task refuse.
Here we pause and consider the self-imposed limits on God’s intervention in this world. Someone might wonder: If God sees these lost sheep, and knows the shepherds don’t care to rescue them, why doesn’t He rescue them? Why doesn’t He just come down and save them Himself?
Setting aside the obvious layup you’re throwing me about Jesus Christ (and the fact that God, later, will promise to do just that through Jesus Christ), I will answer the question by saying this: God gave a job for the shepherds to do. They failed to do it, but God is not going to do it for them (yet, as God says later in this chapter, He will eventually step in, but only after firing the shepherds from their jobs and taking it over for Himself, a point which is critical to understanding the role of the Messiah, but that’s for another devo). He does the things we cannot do for ourselves, yes, but of the things we can do, especially of the things He commands us to do, His part to play is only to give the order. If we refuse to obey it and other people suffer, that’s not God’s fault, but ours because He gave us the order. If He was going to do it, He would have and never would have commanded it of us.
The fact that innocents suffer when people refuse to obey God is simply a lesson to learn about sin and the harsh consequences of it. It’s not a reflection on whether or not God is “bad” for not interfering, as critics like to allege. Instead it’s a reflection on whether or not man will choose to do the good that God commands. Like it or not, God defines what is good. So the old argument against God, which says “if He can’t do it then He’s not all-powerful, and if He won’t do it then He’s not all-good” is flawed, because it defines goodness and power by our measurements, not God’s.
What God considers good, a lost person might consider bad. Also, what God does not consider bad, someone lesser might argue is bad. When God commands someone to take care of the poor and they fail to act, that is bad as God defines it. We do not have the right to say “you should have taken care of the poor Yourself, God, and since you didn’t you are bad!” The “bad” in question is not the suffering of the poor (God repeatedly tells us to focus on the world beyond this one and be content even in the midst of suffering), but rather the refusal to help (which led to the suffering) on the part of the one commanded.
To be clear: It is bad when people suffer, but to blame God for it, under the guise of “He COULD help but WON’T so HE is bad” is misguided and wrongheaded. The blame lies with those whom God gave the power to help but who did not.
~ Matthew