Sunday, March 30, 2008
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There's Too Much Wax on This Apple: Your Cheap Theology Just Won't Do
Currently Reading
A Grief Observed
By C. S. Lewis
see relatedThere’s too much wax on this apple. As if by loading it up with a smooth, clear, relatively unnoticeable cover, we can pretend we'll not get bruised when falling off this tree – or being picked off more likely. But the wax isn’t natural. It only protects from small scrapes - doing a poor job at that. Nature is in the bruising – it could be no other way. That’s why it’s so hard to believe in a good God. Protection? Eh, it’s farce. Dried, rotten fruit? A dime a dozen.
But we don’t care. We want our fruit blanketed with the false hope a knife couldn’t slice through. And we’ll believe it until proven otherwise. But it’s not hard to prove otherwise. Apples are fragile, the bruising so easy, and the wax washes off without effort. It’s all just made up. The wax cannot provide what it promises. The wax wasn’t designed that way. All it could ever do was promise. The provision must come from the Creator, but alas, He is the one who has bruised us…and for no reason it seems.
I guess maybe there are just too many apples to look after. Who cares if one falls from the tree? I do. Surely He must, right? Is it possible that apple didn’t land in the Creator’s basket? Surely He will pick it up…please tell me He will! “No, no, it’s over there to Your left!” Don’t tell me the apple is in “a better place” when I know the apple was safer here where I could see it and touch it. Down there, for all I know he’s forgotten – lost.
“Well, the apple was rotten!” some will say. But aren’t they all? AREN’T THEY ALL? How cheap your theology is in the face of all this! How laughable and stupid! Whether your theology wants to wax over the bruises or wants to dig his grave deeper, you offer nothing worth hearing. It is better that you do not think to long on such matters – they will hurt your simple brain; it’s too deep a matter for you.
The problem of Evil has come too close to this tree. No doubt a Creator is there, but will all this rotten fruit, with all these apples falling off and missing His basket, with all His picking them off and throwing them away – can I really believe that He is good? I want to. I tearfully want to. I know He is. But I can’t feel Him. I can’t feel how any good can come of this.
Apples are made to be enjoyed. Of all God-created fruits, they’re my favorite. Their rich color, their wonderful taste and variety of possibilities. He must be good to give us such beauty. But can He still be good when He takes it away?
What manner of man was Job to just say, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”? Who could do such a thing and really believe? How is it possible that his religion could provide him with any consolation in the aftermath of God’s offering of his family to Satan’s destruction? Job prayed for his family, man, he prayed so hard. Faithfully he offered sacrifice on their behalf. Faithfully he loved Yahweh. And yet it was that same Yahweh who teased him with the blessings of family only to snatch it away from him to win some cosmic game. And don’t give me that bull crap answer about Job ‘getting it all back.’ No replacement family, no matter how wonderful, could take the place of your loved ones! Keep your cheap theology to yourself.
Do I have hope? I guess. I just wish I could feel it. Man, I’m no Job, though.
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Comments (13)
Very well said. You've summed up so much in this one short post.
watching "jesus of nazareth" yesterday with my kids... i was thinking how the leadership at my church is always preaching some kind of escapism from the human condition, whether that be sickness or death, or sin, or even poverty. they understand God's goodness in terms of a deliverance from humanity. when the reality of the incarnation is that christ indwelled the human condition, every hopeless nook and cranny. God is good because he suffered and suffers with us. i don't know what that says about the problem of evil, but i am comforted by God's presence while evil endures.
can you tell my cold is better?
I refuse to believe that the essence of goodness is determined by the absence of evil.
Then again, I don't have a better definition.I suppose if we must wrestle with the question of "why evil?" we must also ask "what is evil?" And then that begs the question ,"What is good?"
And, I suppose to the apple, whether it be on the tree or in the basket or even on the ground -- all this picking and throwing and falling may seem a cosmic game. I think the husbandman knows what he's doing, and that the end is justified and righteous -- not capricious. Does the apple say to the husbandman, "what do you think you're doing!? who do you think you are?!" Well, it does I guess, and thats ok I guess as well.
Love you brother
@theotica -
Great word. The issue of the God 'who suffers with us' is one I find very comforting as well - I first came across it in feminist literature and have found confirmation in Scripture of its truth. Of course, you can't be a Calvinist and hold to it, though!
@graceisunfair - Agreed. But I must wrestle, nonetheless, with it.
@cheapham -
Hmmm. Thanks for that word, brother. I think I may have to check that book out.
@Tomali79 -
I appreciate your thoughts here - I want you to know that they actually mean a lot more to me than you intended. I agree that the apples does in fact question the actions of the husbandman....I also think those questions are okay (Ps. 73, Abrahams arguments with God, Jeremiah's laments against God having deceived him, etc). In the end, I know that the Husbandman's actions are good - but from my standpoint right now, it really does seem like a cosmic game sometimes - why would an apple be cut short in the midst of other apples praying for its deliverance and salvation? And if the deliverance did in fact occur in some unknown series of events, doesn't that seem like the kind of information One should share with the other apples? Just a bunch of questions I'm asking. I appreciate your thoughts, as I said, more than you probably know. And, of course, I love you too.
@TheFuerstShallBeLast - yeah, i'm heart broken over losing calvinist creds. :D
@TheFuerstShallBeLast - You say: "The issue of the God 'who suffers with us' is one I find very comforting as well - ... Of course, you can't be a Calvinist and hold to it, though!"--Interesting. why not? I'm not a calvinist anymore, but I'd like you to unpack that one.
My thoughts about the discarded and bruised apples are: we don't have the end of the story yet. In every great story, if you dip in anywhere in the middle, things will look very bleak. The very best stories turn hopelessness into victory by the end. We are part of such a story. For instance, I have been bruised, but my story didn't end there. I am sure this is true of every bruised person as well. I believe God loves and cherishes every single apple and will not lose one. The Job-ian kind of trust points to a Great Creator Who can indeed make all things right and ultimately heal every wound.
@SnoozleToo -
In short, suffering requires change - and the Calvinist God is , if anything, a static figure who does not change. I don't mean 'static' in a pejorative sense. I simply mean he is unchanging. But an unchanging God who only 'suffers' in an anthropomorphic sense doesn't really suffer in any real, meaningful sense. Thus, the Calvinistic God does not/ cannot suffer with us. That's the short of it....
Isn't God unchanging in every orthodox theology? I think He is--that's part of His nature. I don't follow the logic of 'suffering implies changeability'. Maybe we need to define 'unchangeability'--which I've always taken to mean that His attributes don't change, nor His character.