Designed by an Idiot

If you look carefully at the car in this picture you will notice that it contains major design flaws. There are several. You might not be an engineer, so I will point them out to you:

• Notice the front, driver-side wheel. The way that it is bent down on an angle is a major design flaw. That is going to be terrible for gas mileage. It will also affect handling and give uneven wear on the tire. Ideally, all wheels should be straight. 

• The windshield on this car will provide terrible visibility. It will also provide less protection than if the windshield had been designed as one piece of solid glass.   

• The driver-side door also has major problems. The concave design is bad for wind resistance. It is also makes it difficult for the driver to get in and out of the car easily. 

Okay, enough pretending. Obviously this car has been in an accident. However, if somehow I actually thought that this car rolled off the assembly line in this condition, I could only conclude that the car was designed by an idiot.

There are people who make this same mistake when they look at the world we live in. The look around and they see sickness, and earthquakes, and violence. They conclude that there simply can’t be a perfect God who designed this world.

We live in a world of conflicting data. When we look at the world, it is obvious that there are things that point to its design. Even looking at the crashed car, a person can tell that certain parts were designed to fulfill certain purposes. The car was in an accident, but it wasn’t the result of an accident. It wasn’t put together by a tornado in a junkyard. There might even be some parts of the car that still work.

In our world we see a combination of design and disaster. There is beauty and there is ugliness. The world is finely tuned to support life. Statistically, we should be shocked that there is even one planet in the universe that is able to support life. When we think of our bodies, we should be amazed that they work even half as good as they do. But other people look at the world and see all of the things that are badly bent out of shape and ask why would God do that? 

Why do I have this sickness? Why did my family fall apart? Why are there birth defects and diseases if there is a God? Why did my friend die? Many people look at the disorder in the world and conclude that there simply can’t be a God. It just would not make sense. 

In fact, this was one of the motivating factors that caused Charles Darwin reject God and develop his theory of evolution. Nature was red in tooth and claw. In a letter, Darwin wrote:

“There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designed and created the Ichneumonidae [parasidic wasp] with the expressed intention of their [larva] feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that the cat should play with mice.”

Darwin saw too much pain and misery in the world to believe that it was designed by a good and all-powerful God.

There were many people in Darwin’s day who argued for the existence of God based on design. If you walk along the beach and find a watch, you can look at its parts and conclude that it was designed and thus that there was a Designer. But Darwin and others saw the flaws and reached the opposite conclusion. Darwin looked at the pain and suffering in the world and concluded that it could not be the work of a competent Designer. 

The problem was that people had forgotten the Biblical storyline. Creation, Fall, Redemption…

Deistic arguments from design failed because they didn’t take into account the Biblical narrative. And because of that failure there were unable to explain the real world that confronts us. We exist in a world that appears to contain both unfathomable design as well as unexplainable chaos.  Biblical Christianity is able to explain what other worldviews cannot. In fact, this world is exactly the one we would expect if Biblical Christianity is true. 

According to the Biblical story this world was designed and created by God. God is perfect in goodness and unlimited in power and wisdom. When the world that God created rolled off of the assembly line, it was in pristine condition. God inspected His handiwork and certified it as “good” (Genesis 1:31). 

Yet as soon as God handed over the keys of creation we proceeded to drive it directly into a tree. 

Our first parents rebelled against God and in doing so plunged God’s good creation into ruin. This is what we call “the fall.” Since the event of the fall in Genesis 3, this world has been a different place. There is still evidence of design, but the creation is horribly damaged. Romans 5 tells us that because of one man’s sin, death spread to all men. Romans 8:19-21 describes the created order as now being “subjected to frustration” and in “bondage to decay” because of the fall. Although God had created the world as "very good" things are no longer the way they were. 

The car was designed well, but it was in an accident. That’s the world we live in. 

If you don’t realize that, you might say to yourself, Why is my body such a disappointment if I am designed by God? How can there be a God when my aunt or uncle died of cancer? How can there be a God when my family fights so much? If there is a God and things are designed this way, why aren’t my parents together? Why did the person I love die? Why do tsunamis kill thousands? Why is there so much hurt? Why is there so much pain? Why do I struggle with these temptations? Why would God design me with desires that I’m not supposed to have?  

The Bible explains why there are things that are beautiful. It explains why there are so many things that work wonderfully. It explains why we can even be here. The Biblical story also explains why there is disorder and death and cruelty and suffering. It explains the order as well as the disorder. 

God has made a way to fix this broken world. He did this by coming into this messed up world and fixing it from the inside out. By Christ’s perfect and life and death, He is able to make all things new.  

When God Seems Like a Bad GPS

Sometimes a badly programmed GPS can seem to make more sense than following God. We expect God to take us on the most efficient route to our destination, but He doesn’t. Sometimes, we get driven right into a lake.

This shouldn’t surprise us, since God did the same thing to the Israelites as He was bringing them out of Egypt. These people were being directly led by God. He led them as a pillar of cloud during the day and as a pillar of fire at night. (I don’t think many of these people were writing books at this time debating the existence of God or the difficult mystery of finding God’s will.) Wherever the pillar went, the people followed as God set the route. And from the way God led them, we can learn at least two things about the way that God sometimes leads. God leads us for what we need and for His glory.

God leads us for what we need. In Exodus 13:17-18 we read:

 “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, ‘Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.’ But God led the people around by the way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea.  And the people of Israel went up out of the land of Egypt equipped for battle.”

God knew that the direct route would not have been good for the Israelites. They thought they were ready for a fight, but they weren’t. Out of His wisdom and love for His people, He would not give them what they wanted right away. It would not have been good for them. 

God leads us for His glory. Then we read that God specifically led them to the sea so that He would get glory over Pharaoh and His army. Exodus 14:1-4 reads:

 “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of Pi-hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, in front of Baal-zephon; you shall encamp facing it, by the sea. For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, ‘They are wandering in the land; the wilderness has shut them in.’ And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.’ And they did so.”

First God leads them away from the direct route. Then He leads them to the sea and pins their back against the wall. The point is that you can be following God, exactly like you should be, and He may lead you on a detour or He might lead you into a tight place. 

In those situations, you might be tempted to think—as the Egyptians would have thought—that God no longer has your best interests in mind. You might think that God has abandoned you, or that He no longer cares, or that God is not in control, or that He is mad at you, or that He no longer loves you.

I don’t know what kind of curve ball God might have thrown into your plans, but remember that the God of the Bible is not like the capricious gods of the Egyptians; He faithful and keeps his promises. When God leads you on a detour or into a tight place, remember: God leads us for what we need and God leads us for His glory.

Tornados and Locusts, Joplin and Joel

This past week I started a Bible Study on the Old Testament book of Joel.  When I started preparing for chapter 1 I thought it was going to be difficult to help the students see how a description of a locust invasion is relevant to their lives.  However watching the news it was easy to see how relevant this is.  In chapter 1 Joel describes an unnerving natural disaster.  It doesn’t take us long to think of recent natural disasters that have caused massive devastation: the Joplin tornado and other recent killer tornados, the Mississippi flood, the Japanese earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 that killed 230,000 people, and the list continues.

In Joel 1 (read it) the prophet describes a locust invasion of unparalleled proportions.  This was not the kind of thing that happened to every generation (see verse 2-3).  All vegetation was completely stripped away by the locust army.  The crops were destroyed.  Food for the people and their animals was gone.  Think about the effect this would have on a society in Old Testament times.  It isn’t as though they could drive to the next town to buy food.  No trucks would be coming with supplies from FEMA.  Their animals were going to die.  People were going to die.  There was no escaping this tragedy.  Even the drunkards would not be able to escape by drowning their sorrows in alcohol (vs. 5). 

Why did Joel spend so much time writing about this?  Joel could have just written, “There was a terrible locust invasion that destroyed all vegetation.”  This would have been true, but it wouldn’t have helped others to feel the impact of this tragedy.  In the same way, it is one thing to hear a news report about the Joplin tornado.  It is another thing look at the pictures.  It is another thing to be there, and another thing to actually live it.  I think that one of the reasons Joel wrote in poetry is that poetry communicates feeling.  This isn’t abstract head knowledge.  We need to notice that the Bible does not treat disaster lightly or downplay it as if it really isn’t all that bad.  It treats disaster as disaster. 

In verse 15 Joel uses the locust plague to remind people that “The Day of the Lord” is coming.  The Day of the Lord is a repeated term used in Scripture to refer to the time of God’s intense judgment against sin that will take place at the end of the world.  It will be the time when God stops holding back judgment.

The Bible does not let God off the hook for natural disasters.  For example, consider Psalm 135:6-7 and 2 Chronicles 7:13-14: 

Whatever the LORD pleases, he does,
 in heaven and on earth,
 in the seas and all deeps.
He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth,
 who makes lightnings for the rain
 and brings forth the wind from his storehouses. –Psalm 135:6-7

When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. -2 Chronicles 7:13-14

God is in control, although not in a sense that we can “blame” Him for having done anything wrong.  We live in a fallen world because of man’s sin.  Even in times of disaster, God does not give anyone worse than any of us deserve.  The problem is that because God usually gives us much better than we deserve, we start to think that we deserve the good life.  We do not.  Every day that we are not swallowed up by an earthquake is a day of God’s mercy and grace.

When God permits or ordains disaster, He is doing it for a purpose.  Yet this does not mean that the people of Joplin were any worse sinners than the rest of us.  We need to remember what Jesus taught in Luke 13:2-5:

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."

Often God uses these disasters to shake us out of our false sense of security.  Like the falling of the tower that Jesus mentions in Luke 13:1-5, disasters can be used by God as a reminder to us of the fate we all would deserve without a Savior.  If that is the case, then we need to learn from these events and not let them go to waste.  With Luke 13:1-5 in mind, James Boice makes a good observation in his commentary on Joel:

When we listen carefully we hear him [Jesus] saying [in Luke 13:2-5] that those who object to tragedies like Lisbon [the earthquake of 1755 that killed 60,000] or the locust plague do so because they are asking the wrong question.  They ask, “Why should disaster fall upon these?  Why should God strike such innocent people?”  But what they should be asking is: “Why haven’t these disasters come on us? Why haven’t they destroyed us?”  Our problem is that we have forgotten how sinful we are.  We have forgotten that it generally takes a disaster of unparalleled proportions to wake us from sin’s lethargy (Minor Prophets, 1:126). 

Mourn with those suffering from tragedy.   At the same time let us be grateful that God gives us time to repent instead of sending all the tornados we deserve. 

Is God to Blame for My Daughter's Birth Defect?

Today my daughter Zoe turns four year old. The following is something I wrote shortly after she was born:

Sometime about three weeks after conception—before my wife even knew she was pregnant—the small ribbon inside her that should have become our baby’s spine didn’t form correctly. By the time we found out about the spinal bifida, the damage was already done. When the specialist told us there was very little chance that our unborn child would ever be able to walk without assistance I got clammy and lightheaded and I had to sit down. I felt like all my blood had just evaporated.

The car was very quiet as I drove my wife home. By God’s grace, she was being very strong. I was having a harder time. Suddenly a thought ran in front of my mind. “Did God plan this? Some people would say that if God is responsible for this then He is to blame for this.”

Rewind one year: I had just finished my master’s thesis on God’s sovereignty, using Jonathan Edwards’ Freedom of the Will to critique openness theology. One openness theology book is titled Is God to Blame? Its author, Gregory Boyd, says no. God does not know the future until it happens. God does not plan our pain and suffering. If they were part of God’s plan, then God would be to blame for them. We can’t get God off the hook by appealing to some higher purpose that supposedly makes pain acceptable. Boyd writes, “If every evil event could have been avoided had God so willed, how are we to avoid thinking of God as a conspirator in evil?” (Boyd, 56.)

This was the theology I had examined and rejected. After years of studying this subject, I had come to some settled conclusions. But now it wasn’t abstract. Theology can look different when you are driving home after a doctor’s appointment.

As I drove, the question suddenly divided like the lanes in front of me. Is God responsible? Is He to blame? There are two questions, not one. “Is God responsible?” is not the same question as “Is God to blame?”

Was God responsible for the spinal bifida? Did He plan it? Yes. Was God to blame? No.

Yes, God was in control of my baby’s problem. God has revealed too much in His Word for me to believe anything else. If a sparrow can’t fall without his permission, how can a human be born paralyzed apart from His ordination? I couldn’t deny God’s sovereign plan just because I didn’t like part of it.

But was God to blame? No. Definitely no! That is a completely different question. Being blamed for something means having done something wrong. It means being blameworthy.

Thus Greg Boyd and I agree that God is not to blame for my child’s birth defect—but for different reasons. Open theists say it is because God does not control the situation. I say it is because God has done nothing wrong. God has committed no fault. As I continued to drive, I felt indignation—not at God, but at the idea of accusing God of guilt.

God knows what He is doing with our lives. I’ve heard some say not to throw Romans 8:28 at people in pain. They say it’s glib, insensitive, and unhelpful. Now, we need to be careful how we use Scripture to counsel people—but isn’t it true that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose? Painful times are when we need God’s truth the most. The promises of God are not placeboes. They are only glib clichés when they are not believed. When believed, they are a fortress.

Pain and tragedy force Christians to ask ourselves if we really believe what we say we believe. Be sure of what you believe before hurt hits home. To do otherwise is like waiting until the car crash to strap your seat belt.

As the c-section grew closer I grew in experiential—not just theoretical—knowledge of God’s providence and goodness. I pray that Zoe might someday be able to walk, but even more that she would walk with Christ. I don’t know God’s plan, but it is up to Him to decide how He wants to be glorified. I don’t say this as if it’s not hard. God knows it’s hard. The Father is no stranger to the pain parents experience when their children suffer. My daughter was born with a hole in her back. God’s Son was born to have holes in His hands and feet.

Death as an Argument for God

Death is usually viewed as an argument against the existence of God. A good God wouldn't allow suffering and evil and death, or at least so the argument goes. However it struck me that there is something about death that actually makes it a good argument for God.

If evolution caused the seemingly infinite variety of life forms and intricate biological functions that we observe, why is it that in the billions upon billions of adaptations found in nature, evolution has not found the one adaptation that--by far--would be the most beneficial to a species, namely, a lack of mortality?

I do not mean immortality in the sense that an animal could fall into a volcano and live. What I mean to ask is why there is not one single organism, from cockroach to man to bacteria, that does not possess natural mortality? Certainly pre-programmed death cannot be more beneficial to a species than an unlimited lifespan? Nor is there any inherent reason why, with as much complexity as life has, could it not find a way for at least one single organism to sustain itself indefinitely?

If blind nature can supposedly find a way to create eyesight and consciousness, then why couldn't it find a way for one simply organism to just keep on living unless meets a violent death? All that would be necessary for this would be the adequate repair or replacement or parts. Certainly that would have been easier for blind nature to achieve rather than biological reproduction--especially when it involves two different gendered parents. If blind nature can find a way for life to build itself automatically from a single cell after conception, then why can it not find a way for one organism to sustain itself indefinitely?

But death is a fact. And it is a fact that is explained by a Biblical worldview. Human death, at least, came into the world when Adam rebelled against God and cut himself off from the source of life (Genesis 3; Romans 5). Death is part of the curse that is now over this world, and which one day will be lifted because of Jesus' death on the cross. The existence of death is better explained by a Biblical worldview than by blind naturalism, and thus strangely enough death is actually an argument for the existence of God