The Everyday Club

1/24/12           Sam, about 23

Which is more important, a world without suffering or man's free will?

A young man at a Burger King agreed to answer some questions about his spiritual beliefs, and I soon found that he - Sam - has rejected any sort of organized religion or faith in favor of science and reason. His main reason for rejecting God, though, was that he can't understand how a loving God would allow the poverty, injustice, and cruelty he sees in the world.

We talked about this a while and one point I made seemed to get him thinking - that ultimately God must have decided in His infinite wisdom that somehow giving man free will is worth all the trouble.

Being the rebel and free thinker that he sees himself to be, Sam could hardly disagree that we shouldn't have free will. But he also found it hard to believe that we humans would have enough wickedness in our hearts that we would turn against each other and create such problems the way we do.

I explained how the original temptation of Adam and Eve was not just the forbidden fruit but to "be like God" (Gen 3:5) At first Sam disagreed that it would be a problem for everyone to be their own god - but as we talked he could see where that would lead - selfishness, greed, poverty, famine, war - the very things he had blamed God for in the first place.

"So you see, there's only room for one God" I concluded. We talked quite a while, and I could see he was really thinking it all through. On the one hand, most would agree like Sam that having our free will is important, but on the other hand ultimately there must be One who has the final say.

So, a world without suffering or man's free will? Is it true we can't have both?

A future world without suffering or evil is described in the Bible as the Kingdom of Heaven. It says in Rev. 21 that "There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

But the passage continues as it talks about who will be in charge, and it isn't us - "...He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"

God will be on His throne - after all a Kingdom must have a King - so now we must face the question of free will. Will those in God's Kingdom be all people regardless of whom we call King, or those who bow before the King of Kings?

We can find some clues in Phil. 2 - "...at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

So, at the name of Jesus, every knee SHOULD bow, but will they?

The passage continues to explain how we must make our peace with God, to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" now, during this lifetime, before it's too late and we face eternity in all its power.

C.S.Lewis describes the coming of God's Kingdom and the urgency of our standing with God so well:

"When the author walks on to the stage the play is over. God is going to invade, all right: but what is the good of saying you are on His side then, when you see the whole natural universe melting away like a dream and something else—something it never entered your head to conceive—comes crashing in; something so beautiful to some of us and so terrible to others that none of us will have any choice left?"

Lewis continues - "For this time it will be God without disguise; something so overwhelming that it will strike either irresistible love or irresistible horror into every creature. It will be too late then to choose your side. There is no use saying you choose to lie down when it has become impossible to stand up.

That will not be the time for choosing: it will be the time when we discover which side we really have chosen, whether we realized it before or not. Now, today, this moment, is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It will not last for ever. We must take it or leave it." (from Mere Christianity)

It looks like we do have free will in the matter, until we read the rest of that passage in Philippians - "for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." And part of that larger purpose is the coming of a Kingdom free from the evil, poverty, injustice, and cruelty of this present world.

Exactly how God remains sovereign, while also giving us the free will to make the tremendous choices to which we will be held accountable, is a mystery to me - and to many Christians. But, however we look at it, we are called to tremendous decisions that matter to the sovereign King.