Beautiful Tensions

This New Year's Eve among all the fun, I found myself in an interesting conversation. One of my friends had some interesting questions about God. None of us really had any answers, but it we came to a place where we could all marvel at God’s beauty. We had trouble coming to conclusions because every answer ignored something we knew to be true about God. For instance one of us was concerned about where evil could come from if God is good. Christians believe that God is a benevolent, omnipotent creator. Since God created everything, and the reality of the existence of evil is undeniable, we must conclude that God created evil. If God created evil how could he be good? If God did not create evil, then evil created itself, and evil must be God. We came to agree that evil must not be a thing to be created, but rather an expression used to describe certain choices. Still these choices bring about suffering. When we make an evil choice, we cause suffering, but what should we say about seemingly random suffering? Is it sent by God?

Israel’s worship reflected an understanding of God’s goodness despite the suffering they had experienced. They understood that God was their deliverer and that he loved them (Psalm 109:21). The author of Lamentations says that both good and calamity come from God, but that God is good to those whose hope is in him (Lamentations 3:25-38). Can it be true that suffering could come from God? The death of Jesus had a greater purpose, but it required him to suffer. The suffering that Jesus endured was not deserved by him, but it served God’s greater purpose. God used Christ’s death to atone for all who would place their faith in Him (Romans 3:25-26). Sometimes God is the source of suffering, often he is not, but it seems he always has a purpose. While this is not always a comfort, we can rejoice in suffering because of the hope we have in God (Romans 5:3).

This conclusion requires us to hold two truths in a delicate tension. God is the source of some of our suffering, yet he is good. We can speculate all we want on what this might mean, but if we use these two truths as our boundaries, our conclusions remain true to the biblical witness.

Our goal in the discussion was not to come to an orthodox conclusion necessarily. We didn’t even presume to think we could propose any satisfactory answers, but when we came to the conclusion that the answer required us to hold a delicate tension we could only marvel at the beauty of God. We couldn’t find God in the orthodox and logical answer, but we found him in the beautiful tensions of truth.