From: Chris Jolliffe <chrisjolliffe@trinity.asn.

au> Subject: Date: 23 March 2011 4:52:18 PM ACDT < if you'd rather not receive these emails, hit 'reply' and type 'no more thanks'>

Dear 10am family,

If God is all powerful, he could have stopped the Tsunami and earthquake, and if God was all good, he would have. For an atheist like me, will someone please explain?

That comment appeared in the newspaper soon after the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami, and was the opening line for Paul Harringtons address at the special service last Thursday night. Its an argument often raised whenever an event of large-scale human suffering occurs, and an argument which Christians need to answer sensitively, but compassionately. But still it got me thinking.

I drove home from that service after Id spent a whole day in Isaiah 28 and 29, which spoke of Gods strange work, his alien task in turning against his people so as to re-make them. This passage is got me thinking in two ways.

First, it helpfully reminds us that Gods judgment against his own people is something that runs against the grain of his character in normal circumstances. Just as a parent whos confronted with long-term patterns of destructive behaviour in a child may need to exercise severe discipline for the sake of the long-term re-moulding of that child, so too did God punish his people in Isaiah 28 and 29. The old adage, This will hurt me more than it hurts you applies as much to God as it does to the parent. But the point is this: in this passage, Gods essential goodness as a parent doesnt falter. In fact, his parental goodness is seen precisely in his act of judgment upon Israel, and not apart from it.

Second, it is chilling that the very language of a Tsunami is used to describe the action of God against his people Israel:

Is. 28.18

Your covenant with death will be annulled; your agreement with the grave will not stand. When the overwhelming scourge sweeps by, you will be beaten down by it.

Is. 28.19 As often as it comes it will carry you away; morning after morning, by day and by night, it will sweep through. The understanding of this message will bring sheer terror.

It would be entirely wrong to say from this say that what happened in Japan was God punishing his people there. But it is enough to note that the language of judgment involves Tsunami language.

So what can we say to the atheists challenge? A few points: We cant take issue with either of their presuppositions (that the God of the Bible purports to be sovereign all powerful; and all good). That is what God says about himself, and that is what Christians believe.

However, we can take issue with whats assumed necessarily follows by God being all good. The atheist will assume that goodness and inflicting suffering are contradictory that no good God will ever inflict any human suffering ever. If that is true, the atheist has a knock-down argument every time a disaster strikes. But why must it be true? Why must goodness necessarily mean never causing any hardship? This is certainly not the God of the Bible. In the scriptures, God mentions many reasons for his infliction of judgment:

- It must be said, that some judgments are just plain deserved. When sin is understood relationally - as creatures rejecting their loving and good Creator who created them for relationship with him, then why is their not justice in God sending punishment for punishments sake? Why must this compromise his inherent goodness? And why must we think that God is not himself pained in the very act of judgment? - some of Gods judgments (eg., Isaiah 28-29) take a long-term view about the eventual renewal of his children, but what is corrupted must necessarily be first removed (or destroyed) before something new can be remade or rebuilt or renewed. Again, this need not compromise Gods inherent goodness as a parent committed to a people. - some of Gods judgments bear no correlation to what anyone may or may not deserve. Consider Job. We know that he was blameless and upright. We know of Satans conversation with God in chapters 1 and 2. But Job didnt. Sometimes Gods purposes in inflicting judgment may seem unjust at the time but in the end God is not compromised in his character. Another example is the man born blind in John chapter 9. Jesus was adamant neither this man, nor his parents sinned that he was born blind. In his case, he was born blind so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. Again, this is another purpose of a specific judgment which unless Jesus had revealed we would not have known. But the point is that despite our ignorance, the fact of a specific case of suffering did not compromise Gods goodness towards the man nor his love of him.

So when you hear those arguments, its worthwhile questioning the assumptions on which theyre based. An atheist who assumes that goodness means no suffering ever is not speaking about the God whom Christians worship. If are asking us to explain, we have opportunity to speak about the God who is real, not the product of our minds.

One last word. In answering these questions, the manner in which we answer will carry more weight than the words we say. Our aim is not to win arguments, but to win people. If God is truly good to his children, this is the God whom we want to introduce people to!

In Christ, Chris J