Is God Unjust?
I love God, but there are things that my fallen, fallible and finite human nature dislikes about him. The number one thing that troubles me about God is that he allows hell to exist and that he allows any sentient creature to go there.
Our family has one dog and two cats: a Rat terrier named Hamilton who suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, a Siamese cat named Edgar and a huge, neurotic Polydactyl named Emilio—our sixteen year old, arthritic, totally deaf, partially blind, Boston terrier named Ralphie died in early December of 2004. We really like these three animals and have spent a fair amount of money with the veterinarian keeping them healthy. If they are in pain, we do our best to relieve them.
We care about most animals that way. If an animal were to be seriously injured, I would make a prima facie judgment. Could this animal make it to the veterinarian? What would be the quality of his life, were he to survive? If I determine that there is reasonable evidence that he can be saved, I will drop what I am doing and take him into town. If I conclude that he is hopelessly gone, I will fetch my .357 revolver and shoot the poor creature through the skull, thus putting him out of his misery. It would cause me psychological pain to do it—I know that because I’ve done it before—but I would relieve the suffering because I care about the feelings of an animal: “A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal, but the kindest acts of the wicked are cruel” (Proverbs 12:10).
If one of my animals persistently wandered off into traffic, and I knew about it and did nothing, I believe that I would be responsible for his suffering were he to get hit. Now if I feel that way about dogs, cats, raccoons and squirrels, what about other sentient creatures—what about the one species that was directly created by God and made in his image? Surely I must feel some compassion for the whole of humankind, from Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin to Ted Bundy and the neighborhood exhibitionist. That compassion has been tested, as, for example, some years ago when a man confessed in my office that he had raped a child. But even there, in spite of all that he had done, I felt compassion for him, for he was both victimizer and victim himself, having been gang raped as a new recruit in the United States Army by some of his fellow soldiers.
One of the things that troubles me most about God is that he has allowed this world with its endless cycles of sin and death to go on and on, human beings not only reproducing themselves biologically, but reproducing their patterns of sin generationally. And worse than anything that ever has taken place on our planet is what awaits people after life—eternal separation from God in a place of unending, conscious agony. God could prevent all this. Why doesn’t he?
Modern man has mastered the art of manipulating the wills of the masses so that they truly desire the ever changing images of beauty, success and fulfillment that are pitched at them through magazines, newspapers, television and the cinema. Free will is not destroyed, simply massaged, not unlike the way that a man wins the love of a woman—one of the things that caused Solomon to wonder (Proverbs 20:19). Do not successful parents benevolently manipulate the wills of their children so that their little ones desire to do that which pleases the parents? Can God not do the same? Can he not woo the whole human race to Christ without violating our wills? Is he less competent than Hollywood and Madison Avenue?
If God can prevent any sentient being from ending up in hell, why doesn’t he do it? “The eternal fire (was) prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). But what about even Satan himself and his poor minions, the pathetic fallen spirits that were primordially duped by him? I don’t even want the demons to burn in the unrelenting, eternal fires of Gehenna, in that place where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched, where the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever, once the inexorable sentence is passed (Mark 9:48; Revelation 14:11).
Even if one rejects classical theism and denies God’s complete omniscience, this still does not get God off at the bar of human justice. At any point, seeing that his creation had gotten into such a mess with masses of people raping, murdering and enslaving others, he could have stopped it in some fashion or other. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t I? Would you allow one soul to go to hell? Would you not do everything in your power to manipulate a person so that he would freely choose to comply with whatever conditions were consistent with your own moral character? The Arminian and the Pelagian have no easier task than the Calvinist or the Hyper-Calvinist defending such a being before the court of human justice.
Soon every man will join hands with Satan and all the demons in hell to damn such a God to the very hell he has allowed to exist. But I won’t, nor will any who have come to know his sweet grace. I will not sit in judgment of this high God. He is wholly beyond me. He is the dreadful Sovereign, God the All Terrible, the one from whom heaven and earth must flee away. I will bow my knees and worship him because it is my bounden duty. Nor will I question him. He is Yahweh God of Armies. “My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me” (Psalm 131:1-2).
I do not question this God, because he is the God who is and there is no other. He can cast me into hell. He creates weal and woe (Isaiah 45:1ff.). It isn’t that I don’t have all these feelings, but I choose not to indulge them, remembering that I am dust—fallen, fallible and finite in the totality of my being, in the totality of my capacity to reason.
And truly—I take an oath—as God is my witness—as I have lived in this world, wandering in the mad labyrinth of the human mind—my own and others—I have concluded that I deserve no less fate than to burn in hell forever. Over the years I have counseled several hundred people with sexual problems—I have heard the damnedest things, the most bizarre things—sadly, I discover in all of this putrefying business that the seeds of the most unspeakable evil are in me, too. I have come to discover the real problem with the Pharisee’s prayer, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men” (Luke 18:11). His real trouble was that he was like other men and didn’t know it.
In one of the imprecatory sections of the Law, Deuteronomy 28:53-57, we discover what is in the most gentle and sensitive man and woman—your mother and mine—you and me—they will kill and eat their own children and not share so much as a piece of afterbirth with the rest of the family. The longer I live, the more I study World History, the more I see the hidden side of human nature, the more I confess that man is evil—that I am evil—yet, paradoxically and by grace, I am a saint, too. Whatever else the Bible teaches about God and hell, it teaches that everyone who ends up in hell is suffering the consequences of his own behavior. The longer I live, the more I see this as true.
Several passages come to one’s mind in thinking about the destiny of those who have never heard the gospel.
The first is Romans 1:18-20: “The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”
Here we learn that every human being has a basic, latent knowledge of the true God. This knowledge exists not only in the glaring, compelling and conclusive evidence of the existence of a Supreme Being, Prime Mover, or First Cause in the very structure of reality outwardly, but is confirmed inwardly according to verse 19: “because that which is known about God is evident within them.” In other words, this knowledge is not only a posteriori, but a priori as well. And it is very comprehensive knowledge according to verse 20, including the true nature of God’s character, which according to Romans 2:14-15, includes a basic sense of right and wrong: “Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.”
This knowledge is part of the very nature of a human being; it is contained within the broken and twisted remains of the image of God. But factual, compelling proof never stops people from doing evil: “Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them” (Romans 1:32).
The problem is not a lack of conclusive evidence, but a deep-seated mental illness that has gripped every human being. Just as a grown woman may push back the memory of her mother’s boyfriend having molested her when she was a little girl, so all humans repress this painful truth out of the conscious mind. But that repressed memory of the true God, guilt and coming judgment is still there, just as all painful childhood memories are, and it haunts people in the dark night: “For God does speak—now one way, now another—though man may not perceive it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men as they slumber in their beds, he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn man from wrongdoing and keep him from pride, to preserve his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword” (Job 33:14-18).
The above truths have profound significance in how we deal with those whom we encounter outside the pale of the Church and means that so much of the proclamation is simply confirmation of truth that outsiders already know. It takes the work of the Holy Spirit to bring up this deeply buried knowledge, but he is pleased to honor the proclamation by doing so. What is not buried within and cannot be deduced from an analysis of the external evidence is God’s loving act of grace in Jesus Christ, even though the proclamation of the good news resonates as truth deeply within fallen man, plagued as he is by guilt and angst.
Such knowledge of God leaves people without excuse (Romans 1:20), but it cannot save them from hell, however, and most importantly, people are not in hell simply because they did not respond to the gospel. They are in hell justly suffering for their countless acts of rebellion against God and ungratefulness toward his kindness. That someone has heard the gospel and spurned it only adds to his condemnation. There is eternal equity in all God’s dealing with people: “That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows” (Luke 12:47-48).
Someone asked me: “If people are sinful by nature, then they have no choice but to act sinfully (i.e. commit acts of rebellion against God). So the question is: how can you justly punish someone for acting in the only way they can? The ideas of personal responsibility and choice usually work their way into our definitions of justice.”
This is an ancient question, similar to the one with which Christ’s holy apostle dealt in Romans 9.** Paul, while recognizing the difficulties you raise, essentially responds by warning us that we cannot question God. This is not an answer that most of us modern folk, especially those of us in the West, are comfortable with. Our Weltanschauung, the distorting glasses through which we look at the world and whose vision we naively assume conforms to reality, is radically egalitarian and radically individualistic: we think that no one is superior or inferior to another, that no one can be affected by the actions of another. We live in the days of the final outworking of the bastardization of the Democratic Ideal, and we imagine that God himself must conform to our image.
Against such a view, the Scripture holds up a Despot (transliteration of a Greek word used of God and rulers with absolute power over others, e.g. Acts 4:24; Revelation 6:10), who is wholly righteous and all powerful. Sin is so very serious and so very evil, fundamentally, not because of its impact on other human beings, but because it is an offense against his Majesty. This is what David confessed, dripping with bloody murder of a trusting friend and sordid adultery with that friend’s wife: “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment” (Psalm 51:4).
Because God is God, we must shut our mouths and await the consummation when we will understand and accept all God’s ways as holy and just. We must recapture the vision of the grandeur and greatness of God, as in the old Russian national anthem.
“God The All Terrible! King, who
ordainest
Thunder Thy clarion, the lightning Thy sword;
Show forth Thy pity on high where Thou reignest:
Give to us peace in our time, O Lord.
“God the All-merciful! earth hath
forsaken
Thy ways all holy, and slighted Thy word;
Bid not Thy wrath in its terrors awaken:
Give to us peace in our time, O Lord.
“God the All-righteous One! man hath
defied Thee;
Yet to eternity standeth Thy word,
Falsehood and wrong shall not tarry beside Thee:
Give to us peace in our time, O Lord.
“God the All-provident! earth by Thy
chastening,
Yet shall to freedom and truth be restored;
Through the thick darkness Thy kingdom is hastening:
Thou wilt give peace in Thy time, O Lord.
Amen.”
Alexis F. Lvov
Justice is an interesting concept, and a key verse for understanding what the Bible means by it is Micah 6:8: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
This passage is very rich, and several Hebrew words stand out, but the word I want to pursue is Mishpat, often translated by “justice.” Two passages throw light on the underlying connotation of this interesting Hebrew word, Exodus 26:30 and 1 Kings 6:38.
“Then you shall erect the tabernacle according to the plan (Mishpat) for it that you were shown on the mountain” (Exodus 26:30).
“And in the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its parts, and according to all its specifications (Mishpat). He was seven years in building it” (1 Kings 6:38).
Here we see that an underlying meaning in Mishpat is conformity to specifications: in these two cases, following the building plans. As we flesh out the meaning of Mishpat inductively by studying the various contexts where it is found, a picture emerges: justice is conformity—in the case of morality, to the model of God’s own holy nature, his character as he has revealed it as the pattern for human conduct. God reveals his own moral nature in two fundamental directives: loving God with the whole of our being and loving others as we love ourselves. These two directives are fleshed out in many commands; indeed, just as a door hangs and swings on its hinges, the entire Old Testament hangs on these two commandments (Matthew 22:34-40).
The Ten Commandments are not independent of God, as if he were bound by some abstract moral principle that is above him and separate from his existence; rather they refract the very character of God himself, his own morality. In effect, they codify, within the ethos and milieu of Israel in the Second Millennium before Christ, God’s own moral character. A beautiful analogy to this is found in how a prism refracts light into its various colors. These commandments are right simply because they are consistent with who God is. In other words, murder, adultery and stealing would not be wrong if they were not contrary to God’s own nature; were there no God, there would be no right and no wrong. As Dostoevsky said, “If God does not exist, then everything is permitted.”
This moral nature of God stamped on the human soul is part of what it means for us to be created in the image of God, an image that was radically marred, gnarled, broken and twisted in the fall, but not completely lost. In the fall man lost more than a gift of super added grace (donum superadditum); rather, the totality of his being, including his intellect, was radically affected by sin. Humankind is totally but not utterly depraved; man is not as bad as he can possibly be. There remains in fallen man the shattered image of God, including moral judgment because humankind is created in the image of God and thereby finitely mirrors God’s own knowledge, righteousness and holiness (Genesis 1:26; Colossians 3:10; Ephesians 4:24). That is to say, even lost people have an innate, intuitive, instinctive sense of right and wrong, based not on experience, nor as an internalized parent—a Freudian superego—but as part of the very essence of what it is to be human.
This knowledge of the true God and of his character exhibits itself imperfectly in the human conscience: “For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them” (Romans 2:14-15). This remnant of the image of God is why even non-Christian people struggle with a sense of indignation at the injustices all around them.
As odd as it may seem, the very reason why human beings recoil at some of the ways of God is because we are all created in his image. It is why humans not only fear hell, but we also experience revulsion by the very idea of the eternal, conscious suffering of sentient beings. Unregenerate humans act in defiance of God, judging him by their own independent, autonomous intellects and emotions. Nevertheless, behind that rebellion is a testimony to the remnant of God’s own moral character stamped on the soul of every human being, a divine sense of right and wrong, Mishpat, justice, conformity to the specifications of the Builder.
The Lord Jesus, as the Second Adam, is
pre-eminently Man in the Image of God, restoring what was lost to us by our
first father (1 Corinthians 15:45-49; Ephesians 4:20-24; Colossians 3:9-11). In
him, in the fullness of time, all believers will be fully restored to the image
of God. Then, and only then, will justice be fully understood. Then, and only
then, will justice truly be rendered: