Tag Archives: Brian Morley

Carl F. Henry, Ways of Knowing.4

19 Tuesday Jul 2016

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The final aspect of intuition considered by Henry is Christian, rational intuition:

There is a Christian form of rational intuition, such as that held by Augustine and Calvin, which holds that human beings possess a limited set of rational truths which makes cognition and knowledge of God possible:

Augustine held that on the basis of creation the human mind possesses a number of necessary truths. Intellectual intuition conveys the laws of logic, the immediate consciousness of self-existence, the truths of mathematics, and the moral truth that one ought to seek wisdom. Moreover, he held that in knowing immutable and eternal truth we know God, for only God is immutable and eternal. As knowers all men stand in epistemic contact with God. Calvin too held that man’s knowledge of self-existence is given in and through a knowledge of God’s existence, and that the created imago Dei preserves man in ongoing epistemic relationships to God, the world, and other selves.

Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 76–77.  Contemporary Alvin Plantinga similarly argues that belief in God is “properly basic”:

He believes that we should broaden foundationalism to include belief in God as properly basic. So that means that a person can be rational in believing in God even without being able to produce supporting arguments.

Awareness of God, the sensus divinitatis, comes form how we were created plus, typically, some catalyst of our experience. The more detailed belief in Christianity is also a divine gift. The former is part of our created nature, producing a knowing not unlike perception. The latter, the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit, is not.

Brian K. Morely, Mapping Apologetics (Downers Grove: IVP Academic 2015) 138-139.

 

 

Carl F. Henry: Ways of Knowing (2)

22 Wednesday Jun 2016

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Portrait of John Calvin

John Calvin

Intuition 2:  Rational Intuition

Rather than thinking of intuition as a non-rational, it is possible to consider intuition as consisting of some sort of information which we just know:

Those who espouse rational intuition insist that human beings know certain propositions are immediately to be true, without resort to inference; in other words, that all men possess certain underived a priori truths without any process of inference whereby these truths are derived. Rational intuition must therefore be clearly distinguished from mystical intuition.

Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 74. This a position which Christian thinkers have often advanced. For example, John Calvin argues that human beings have an intuitive sense of the divine:

There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity. This we take to be beyond controversy. To prevent anyone from taking refuge in the pretense of ignorance, God himself has implanted bin all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty. Ever renewing its memory, he repeatedly sheds fresh drops Since, therefore, men one and all perceive that there is a God and that he is their Maker, they are condemned by their own testimony because they have failed to honor him and to consecrate their lives to his will. If ignorance of God is to be looked for anywhere, surely one is most likely to find an example of it among the more backward folk and those more remote from civilization. Yet there is, as the eminent pagan says, no nation so barbarous, no people so savage, that they have not a deep-seated conviction that there is a God

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1 & 2, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 43–44. A similar position is advocated by Alvin Plantiga:

A major thrust of his early apologetic work was to show that Christian belief can be rational even if unsupported by traditional evidence, there being in his view no adequate, noncircular arguments to had for belief in God. Yet he has never regarded faith as a fideistic leap. Rather, it is a kind of knowledge that can be had immediately because of the way we are created and cthe action of the Holy Spirit, producting in us what Calvin called the sensus divinatatus – an intellectually grounded by noninferential awareness of the divine ….

Brian K. Morley, Mapping Apologetics (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2015), 119. (As for apologetics, this is a unique book. It explains the nature of the various apologetic schools, there relationships to one-another; together with critiques and praises. I don’t know of any book like it. I work with Dr. Morley (and he even gave me my copy of the book – full disclosure), but I could not more highly recommend the book. I used it with my graduate students.)

Book Review (Part Four): Inerrancy and Worldview: Answering Modern Challenges to the Bible, Vern Poythress

12 Friday Apr 2013

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Part Four: The Impersonalist Misreading of Scripture

          Poythress identifies two basic worldviews.  On one hand, he identifies the biblical worldview of a personal God who “upholds all things by the word his power” (Hebrews 1:3): “The laws derive from God’s speech, which is the speech of a personal God. But our modern culture has moved away from this kind of regularity” (52).

          The opposing worldview sees such regularity not as the kind action of a loving God, but rather as the blind action of an enormous machine, “[O]ur modern culture has moved away from this kind of conception of regularity. The nineteenth century saw the triumph of natural science in interpreting the physical aspect of the cosmos. Nineteenth-century natural science produced a kind of mechanistic model of the universe, which could be easily interpreted as implying a kind of mechanistic model of the universe …a universe governed by impersonal law” (52). He calls this worldview “impersonalism” (30).

          Drawing out the theological implications, Poythress notes that the impersonal view begins without God’s existence: “[I]t substitutes the God of the Bible for a kind of god of its own invention, in the form of impersonal laws. The god is the substitute for the real thing, and that sense, an idol” (53).

          But what of polytheism? Poythress notes that if all things are ultimately and only physical matter, human beings and trees really are the same. The natural human desire for some spirituality combined with a materialism has a tendency to invest the physical world with spirits. 

          Such a thing is seen in ancient polytheism, where physical things: winds, ocean, rivers, stars, et cetera are understood to be gods worthy of reverence.  In modern times, a full-fledged religion is rare as with respect to physical items (although it is not completely absent). More often it takes a more diffuse superstition, “Everyday people within advanced industrial societies are looking into astrology and fortune-telling and spirits ….That direction may seem paradoxical. But ….If a materialist viewpoint is correct, all is one” (31).

          I spoke recently with a scientist and professor from one of the most prestigious universities in the world.  He casually mentioned that his materialist science colleagues were “very superstitious”. When I questioned him, he thought the matter beyond quibble.

          Poythress goes onto draw out the religious commitment of such pantheism: When a viewpoint includes spirits and gods, it may in a sense appear to be personalist. But ultimately it is impersonalist, because the “one” dissolves what is distinctive in persons” (31).

          In the book, Poythress demonstrates and works out the impersonalist convictions which underlie modern disciplines of science, history, linguistics, history, sociology, anthropology and psychology. In particular, he shows how such presuppositions necessarily will undermine any value for the Bible, but assuming at the outset that the Bible is cannot be true:  What he means is that the Bible describes a personal God uphold the world. The impersonalist presuppositions which underscore modern study assume such a God cannot and does not exist.

          To demonstrate the nature of such misreading of Scripture, Poythress interacts with the biblical texts in light of various disciples. By drawing out the impersonalist presuppositions in such disciplines, he exposes the manner in which such disciplines create conflict and confusion – not because it exists in the text, but rather because the presuppositions cannot account for or incorporate the claims of Scripture.

          I remember my anthropology professor in college discussing his works among pygmies in Africa. The pygmies lived in the forest and rarely saw anything more than thirty feet away (I don’t remember the precise distance, but it was not far – due to the extremely dense vegetation). When he took some people out to the plains and showed them large animals at a great distance, they thought the animals were very small – not far away. Their understanding of the world did not include the fact that things far away would look small.

          The impersonalist cannot rightly see the universe or Scripture, because he cannot admit to the evidence of God’s personhood – even though such denial comes at the cost of one’s own humanity.[1]

[1] Poythress does note that the regularity – but not utter and absolute uniformity – of God’s interaction with creation permits impersonalist “laws” to approximate some aspects of reality. For the good and value of God’s consistent regulation of the natural world, see God in the Shadows, by Dr. Brian Morley.

Book Review (Part Two): Inerrancy and Worldview: Answering Modern Challenges to the Bible, Vern Poythress

11 Thursday Apr 2013

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Part Two: The Self-Destruction of Impersonalism.

          From the title, one might expect to read of the 40 “hardest” challenges to the Bible: the sort of book where one explains Cain’s wife and the genealogies of Jesus.  Yet, rather than consider isolated “problems” Poythress confronts the basic worldview which confronts the Bible: impersonalism.

          Any thorough, consistent worldview must come to grips with the fact that human beings are personal.  Yes, theists must answer the question of “If God is real, then why he is invisible?”[1]

          But, materialist must answer the question of person:  the materialist must say that he does not actually exist as a person. His thoughts are solely the result of physical processes — just like water boiling or freezing. Indeed, the experience of the thought is ultimately an illusion.

          Now this leads to all sort of nonsense: If my thoughts are merely complex mechanical processes, then the thoughts are compelled. My thinking that the world is merely material/impersonal is compelled by materialism.  I cannot “know” the truth of the process, because I have no choice in the process. My knowledge of materialism is as compelled by physics as it water freezing or boiling.

          If that is true then nothing is true or false, good or evil: these are and are not (although I could not know that – I actually can only point to other physical processes responding to previous physical processes – and even that may not be a real pointing, because  it is only a physical process itself: just like the turtles holding up the world, there are only previous physical processes all the way down – which itself cannot be known to be true: it’s like a hall of mirrors, except that there is not “real” object reflected in the mirrors, here there is only mirrors).

          The materialist – or as Poythress calls him, an impersonalist (he actually uses the word “impersonalism”, (30) must answer the question of why he has a mind, why he can think. The impersonalist must explain why he would hate one who would injury his family – and why he has love for his family.  The impersonalist must give an account for the fact of persons at all.

          Now the proposition that person arises from matter in motion is nonsense.[2]  This is usually obscured by philosophical jargon and complex arguments. But in the end, the fact of the passion and the arguments undercuts the entire proposition. I find it far more sensible to start with the fact that you and I are persons, and answer the question of God’s invisibility; than to start with plasma (the almost gas stuff, not the blood stuff) and end up with Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

          Poythress notes this trouble in the discussion of religious gullibility. While he will go on to express some admiration for skepticism of religious claims (see part two), he notes the trouble with such materialist rejection of God.
He notes the greatest strength of the materialist/impersonalist mindset does not derive from the strength of the argument, but rather from its commonality in the culture, “This kind of materialist explanation of religious belief has a considerable plausibility in our time because materialism itself is widespread and lends its support. In addition … materialism carries with it some of the prestige of natural science” (220).

          However, as noted above, skeptical materialism ends up as eating its tail, “When this principle is followed consistently, it leads to the conclusion that beliefs in general must be debunked. And that includes the belief in materials, belief in evolution, and belief in brain structures. The debunker ends up with no grounds on which to stand to do his debunking” (220).

[1] It is a trick question: it is sort of like “Do you still engage in illegal activities?” The trouble comes from combining two (or more) questions into one sentence: Have you ever engaged in an illegal activity? If you have, do you still do so?  Lawyers would object that he question assumes facts not in evidence. Debate coaches would call it the fallacy of many questions.

 

The question about God being invisible first assumes as true the proposition; Everything which is real is visible (or otherwise subject to physical measurement). Let us ask that question first: Is everything real/true subject to physical measurement? The answer is “No.” The very act of thinking about the question is a thing not subject to physical measurement.

 

Even if it is true that every thought must correlate to brain activity (that is itself a problematic proposition), it does not further mean that every thought is brain activity. The thought, the subjective reflection is not physical.  A player runs all the bases and comes Home in a baseball game. The player touching home plate corresponds to a score, but touching the home plate is not the score. You get a point for touching home plate, but the point is not the act of touching home plate.

 

Interestingly the most certainly “real” knowledge we possess is knowledge of things which are not physical.  You may misperceive the physical world (poor light, hallucination, et cetera). You may have a mistaken or confused thought about some aspect of the external world. But, you can never be confused as to the fact of your own perception or thought. The mental state may not correspond correctly (another rabbit trail) to the physical world, but the fact of the thought is certain to you.

 

The question asked of God corresponds to a non-physical reality: true or false. Neither the truth nor falsity are physical, although both are real.

 

God is by nature incorporeal – as our all our thoughts, emotions, hopes – as is truth, beauty, goodness, faith, hope & love. Such is made of that which is most certain and most real.  In short, it’s a trick question.

[2] Poythress notes, “Materialists conveniently ignore the evidence that does not fit, just as the person who consults fortune tellers ignores the cases where the alleged fortune does not pan out” (229).

God in the Shadows.3

19 Thursday Jul 2012

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In chapter 3, Dr. Morley explains that physical pain is necessary in this world to develop character and to restrain sin.  As physical creatures, we need physical pain to restrain us from actions which would cause worse injury. For example, imagine a man who could not feel pain: were he to break his arm, he would continue to use his arm and would soon utterly destroy his arm. Leprosy famously destroys the ability to feel pain, and thus the human being self-destructs, rubbing off and breaking off body parts until one is left horrifically deformed.[1] Pain tells us to stop.

Moreover, pain results from the regularity of physical processes of the world: we fall because gravity always works the same way.  Were God to constantly intervene to prevent pain, we would never be certain what would happen next.  “Pain is part of the learning process for us, teaching us how to live in our surroundings. And pain being so unpleasant, we make sure that we don’t repeat the damaging behavior” (63).

Pain also exists in this world, because evil exists in the world. The fact of evil, the fact of the Fall and the Curse are consistently missed by those who contend against the lack of order, good and design in the world.

The world as it currently stands is a mixture of extraordinary good, order and blessedness; coupled to frightful error, ruin and pain. Consider the human body: it is an extraordinary piece of engineering.  Consider this video in which two Darwinists keep trying to stop using the word “design” when referring to the human body. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/07/video_to_dawkin062031.html

Even when they try to come up with an example of “bad design” (the bone structure of our forearm), the doctor ends up saying that it is a good design and better than our “better” designed robots!

Now, mixed with the remarkable design of living things, one finds the mess of damage and destruction. There are terrifying genetic errors which lead to sad malformations. There are infections and diseases which utilize these same mechanisms, albeit for a bitter end. One must ask, does the world look more like a palace which has been ruined, or like a ruin in which accident and error have routinely thrown up elements of beauty? And if beauty is the result of error, how do we recognize it as beauty? Moreover, do the observed processes show themselves to be building better or worse?  An honest look at the evidence leads one to conclude that the genome suffers from entropy: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110613012758.htm

The effects of the rate of genetic decay are such that any hypothetical “good” mutations will be rapidly lost to the swarm of defects and “neutral” mutations (a neutral mutation is merely does not cause immediate harm: sort of like a door scratch on the car or a nick in a widow which does not lead to a full scale break: in the end, the “neutral” mutations will lead to observable damage).  Here is a bit by a Cornell geneticist on the issue: http://www.amazon.com/Genetic-Entropy-Mystery-Genome-Sanford/dp/0981631606/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320287817&sr=1-1

There is a related question: Why has God permitted evil at all? Setting that issue aside for this moment (not because it is not important, but because every rabbit cannot be chased at all times), the fact of evil and the curse explains the decay, the entropy and thus the damage of pain.

Moreover, by permitting pain, God permits evil to be understood for the wickedness it is. Often times, the horrors which provoke us merely demonstrate how dull we are to matters of wickedness. We are rightly horrified at the murder of this person – while we blithely ignore the damage to ten thousand others. We need pain to understand the fell nature of our rebellion, the utter heinousness of turning from God:

The pain of this world in part (if ultimately not all pain) derives from evil.  Morley explains,
Another problem with a world in which God ensures that no one gets hurt is that we would never see evil for what it is. That is because every time someone would try to harm another person, the natural process would change to make the harm impossible (67).

Moreover, as noted by Morley, pain actually prevents many bad decisions: A great element of temptation is the lie that some sin will procure good. The pain which follows along with the temptation acts to limit and protect against bad decisions. Granted, such limitation is not perfectly effective, but punishment and pain are deterrents when the actor believes that such will result:

Naivety about the moral dimensions of our environment is dangerous. According to Proverbs, wise is the person who realizes the physical and moral realms are linked, and that a deeper knowledge of how troubles come about can help us avoid many of them. (71)

What then may we do about pain? Pain can also be provocation to love in others. Our stupidity will at times crack when we see the pain of another, leading us to compassion. Indeed, God give comfort that we may comfort others:

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. 6 If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.

7 Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

8 For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9 Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. 2 Corinthians 1:3–10 (ESV)

As Paul also notes, the trouble of this world causes us to exercise a more profound faith upon the God will ultimately delivers from death. Thus, pain in the life of the Christian becomes a motor for greater sanctification in that it drives us to love of God and love of neighbor. Indeed, our response to the pain of others will become a basis for the judgment of humanity:

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Matthew 25:31–46 (ESV)

And as for those who have experienced pain in this life:

1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” 5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” Revelation 21:1–5 (ESV)

[1] Q: What causes leprosy?

A: A germ, or bacteria, called Mycobacterium leprae. It causes an infection that affects the skin, destroys nerves and can also cause problems in the eyes and nose.

Q: Why is leprosy also called Hansen’s disease?

A: The medical name for leprosy is Hansen’s disease. Norwegian doctor Armauer Hansen was the first to view the bacillus under a microscope in 1873.

Q: Do fingers and toes fall off when someone gets leprosy?

A: No. The bacteria attack nerve endings and destroy the body’s ability to feel pain and injury. Without feeling pain, people injure themselves and the injuries can become infected, resulting in tissue loss. Fingers and toes become shortened and deformed as the cartilage is absorbed into the body. Repeated injury and infection of numb areas in the fingers or toes can cause the bones to shorten. The tissues around them shrink, making them short.

http://www.leprosy.org/leprosyfaqs.php

God in the Shadows.2

13 Friday Jul 2012

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In the second chapter of God in the Shadows, Dr. Morely begins to examine the problem of evil and God’s goodness by examining the concept of “goodness.”[1]  We question God’s goodness, because what we find in the world does not square with our concept of goodness. Thus, either our concept of “goodness” is somehow flawed; or, God is not good.

Morely wants to avoid a jejune Dr. Pangloss response[2], and so takes up the question squarely.  Morely breaks the problem down into two parts:

First, there is the matter of conflict between our personal standard of goodness and God’s actions.

Second, there is the conflict between what God establishes as goodness and his actions.

Thinking through the matter, Morely notes that God cannot be morally inconsistent. He takes this to the matter of justice: God should not be “required” to compromise justice to avoid some-thing which we would consider not “good” – like the repercussion for sin. Second, God cannot be mentally inconsistent (no logical nonsense).

Having taken care of preliminary matters, Morely goes the primary point of God being “good”:

This world is indeed enigmatic if we assume its point is to make every creature as happy as possible. But if we allow that the greatest happiness of every creature is not the highest goal in the universe, then the existence of evil become far less puzzling.

For God to have made the world the happiest possible place all the time would no doubt have been a good thing – but it should not be accomplished at the expense of a better thing. God should not make this world a better place of maximal happiness if there is something more important and He cannot do both. (45).

Returning to Voltaire and Candide, the “best of all possible worlds” was for Voltaire the happiest possible world. Dr. Pangloss’s gibberish about everything (no matter how frightful) being the best merely underscores the point. But what if my immediate happiness is not “best”?

The analogy is imperfect (because human suffering is far greater than presented here), but the principle may help understand the point.  A child’s best of all possible world apparently involves ice cream on demand and no pain. Yet, a parent will take a child to see the doctor to get a vaccination – which does entail pain and no ice cream.  The parent can see that the pain will bring about a better state of affairs – even it entails giving up a lesser good (pain) for a greater good (health).

Morely argues that there is a greater good than our immediate happiness. Thus, the best of all possible worlds is the world which brings about that greater end through the best possible means. That greater end lies in the glory of God[3].

Here is where the answer quickly becomes dissatisfying for many people: How can God’s glory possibly be more important than my happiness? And who is God to make such a demand upon me?

Seeing the question is such a manner demonstrates that the problem of good and evil in the world becomes a problem of God and understanding God rightly. There are two basic answers: First, the greater wisdom of God. God’s answer to Job at the end of Job draws out this aspect at length (Morely will work through the greater wisdom of God throughout much of the book).

Second, there is the matter of God entering into human suffering and conquering sin and death. Walt Kaiser writes:

If we are to properly understand suffering, we must also consider the fact that God himself is not unaffect by pain, but is afflicted just as we are. The concept of the nearness of God in the Old Testament should suggest to us that he experiences many of the same emotions as we do….The living God experiences deep agony, seen in Hosea 11:8-9:

8 How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender. 9 I will not execute my burning anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst, and I will not come in wrath. Hosea 11:8–9 (ESV)

It is at this point that the Gospel answers suffering:

9 But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

10 For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying,

“I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”

13 And again,

 “I will put my trust in him.” And again, “Behold, I and the children God has given me.”

14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

16 For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. Hebrews 2:9–18 (ESV)

The Son himself willingly enters into the world of suffering to redeem that world from sin and suffering. God did not inflict suffering upon the world and leave. Rather man sinned which brought death and suffering into the world. God, however, willing entered into that suffering to redeem the creation from suffering. Hebrews 2 demonstrates a bit of the willing suffering of the Son.

Or consider the Father. I knew a man who lost his son at a very young age. This man’s anger once burned against God, for God inflicted suffering upon men but God, himself, had never been forced to loss a son to death. And yet, as this man thought he realized that the Father had lost a Son to death – a grave and wicked and unrighteous death.  You may say, Yes, but the Father raised his Son from the dead. And, every son will one day be raised from the dead.  Yes, but the Father is God. Does that mean that He is less sensitive to, less understanding of wickedness?

Think of the surpassing love of the Father who sent his Son to bear the eternal weight and shame of pain of sin to redeem the world:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 (ESV)

The question of suffering is a question of God. But a question of God abstracted from the Gospel is a slander against God. When one places the matter of suffering square in the matrix of sin and ransom, it becomes a quite different matter.

[1] These reviews of the work miss a great deal of the book. By no means do my quite reviews come close to workgin through the details of the work. There are dozens of observations and arguments which I simply pass over: such as an answer to the question of Why did God allow me to be born to such wicked people?

[2] One of the greatest strawmen of all literary history.  In Candide, Voltaire has Pangloss spout the most monstrous ethical nonsense one could voice. Voltaire has great fun with Pangloss.  However, the question for Voltaire remains: How can he sensibly state that anything is morally wrong – when he can have no fixed standard of morality beyond his preference? It is in such things that Post-Modernism merely drags Modernism to its logical (ironically so) conclusions.

[3] As a related matter, human beings are in no position to be able to rightly judge the best of all possible worlds due to the complexity of the matter. Morely will provide numerous examples of how making the world “better” would actually make it “worse”.