|
Home \ Contents \ Site Search \ Contact |
|
Bart Ehrman's Problem With God
by Greg Williamson (c) 2008
UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL SCRIPTURE QUOTATIONS
This article is offered in response to the most recent book by Bart D. Ehrman, God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question -- Why We Suffer (New York: Harper One, 2008).While it certainly presents a thoughtful treatment of the biblical response(s) to suffering, like Ehrman's other writings it is at heart a repudiation of traditional, orthodox Christianity.
Too much suffering. According to Ehrman's own testimony, it was God's seeming inattention to and/or inability to end all the suffering in the world that led Ehrman to trade in his evangelical Christian faith for agnosticism (and liberal theology). As he expresses it: "Eventually, though, I felt compelled to leave Christianity altogether. ... In particular, I could no longer explain how there can be a good and all-powerful God actively involved with this world, given the state of things. For many people who inhabit this planet, life is a cesspool of misery and suffering. I came to a point where I simply could not believe that there is a good and kindly disposed Ruler who is in charge of it. The problem of suffering became for me the problem of faith" (page 3).
While Ehrman's point of view is not without merit, and his concern for suffering people admirable, here and throughout his book he reflects the common but badly mistaken practice of blaming God for the bad in this world while simultaneously refusing to credit God for the good.
The Bible's answers. The title of the book is a bit of a misnomer since, as Ehrman himself aptly demonstrates, the Bible provides many answers to the question of why people suffer, including:
However, in his apparent desire for a single, all-encompassing answer to suffering, Ehrman dismisses the Bible's sundry responses as contradictory theories rather than complimentary truths. The one possible exception is the "all is vanity" approach advocated by the writer of Ecclesiastes (Ehrman's favorite Bible book). Because he automatically dismisses many of the Bible's foundational truth claims, no doubt Ehrman would likewise dismiss the deceptively simple truth that we suffer because we are fallen people living in a fallen world.
Liberal scholarship. Ehrman's heavy reliance on liberal scholarship has led him to reject supernatural miracles; deny the Bible's historical trustworthiness; and malign the element of future fulfillment contained within the Bible's prophetic writings.
Liberal theology is a philosophical system which sprang directly from 18th century Enlightenment rationalism, and which often draws severely critical conclusions for which solid evidence is lacking. While we can certainly learn from its emphasis on "open-mindedness, freedom from tradition, tolerance and humane respect for the individual," [REF] the same cannot be said for its overly "optimistic view of human beings, emphasis on immanence, on the goodness of creation and on progress, and a view of Jesus as [no more than] the perfect moral example." [REF]
A major misstep. In part, Ehrman's book represents his attempt to address/correct the mistaken notion that "the Bible has one simple answer to every issue," as well as the popular buffet approach to Scripture:
Quite frankly, it is more than a little bewildering how someone so familiar with the Bible can make such a fallacious argument. Ehrman totally ignores the New Testament's clear and repeated condemnation of homosexuality (see God's Cure for Homosexuality). Here Ehrman is guilty of the very thing he (rightly) condemns: "people choosing to accept the parts of the Bible they want to accept and ignoring everything else." (Note: This material is included here not out of some sense of homophobia, but because Ehrman himself saw fit to address this topic in a less than completely honest way.)
Innocent people and free will. Throughout his book Ehrman repeatedly refers to the suffering of "innocent" people, in the process failing to reckon with the biblical teaching that there is no such thing as a completely innocent person. Thanks to the actions of our first parents, Adam and Eve, everyone comes into this world a sinner, separated from and in rebellion against God. It is incredible that God chooses to have anything at all to do with us, and it is unfathomable that he offers a full pardon -- including eternal life -- to us his sworn enemies.
The vast majority of the suffering of which Ehrman writes is man-made: sinful human beings exercise their free will to sin against their fellow human beings, producing much suffering in the process. This type of suffering is man's doing, not God's. Conversely, imagine if every person on this planet were a serious, committed Christian (not a nominal believer or cultural Christian). Although the world would still not be perfect, can there be the slightest doubt there would be tons less suffering?
But the devastating natural disasters of which Ehrman makes repeated mention cannot be explained by the exercise of free will -- can they? While Ehrman believes they cannot, the Bible indicates otherwise. When God created Adam and Eve he gave them dominion over the entire earth (Genesis 1:26-28). When they used their free will to rebel against God, the end result was the corruption of every facet of humanity, including the physical world in which we reside. "Natural disaster is a direct result of the curse on creation because of the fall of humankind (Genesis 3; Romans 8). It will not be removed until Christ returns (Revelation 21–22)." [REF] What's more, prior to Adam and Eve, Satan had rebelled against God, and today he and his host of demon angels inflict enormous pain and suffering on human beings, in some cases using the destructive forces of nature to do so. (For more info, please see Overcoming Evil.) But of course Ehrman does not believe in the historical reality of Adam and Eve, nor does he believe in supernatural spiritual forces. In order for God to wipe out all pain and suffering, he would need to wipe out all sinful people. And since every human being is sinful, the painfully obvious conclusion is that God could instantly eliminate all pain and suffering in the world only by removing all people from it. But of course since the world itself is corrupt, and since supernatural evil forces would still be here, God would have to go further still and both wipe out the world and permanently lock away Satan and his minions. Which is precisely what the Bible says he will do -- one day (Revelation 20:10; 20:15; 21:1). But that is not the end of the story, as God has "a new heaven and a new earth" in store for all those who have been declared righteous through personal, saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. God's love. While Ehrman devotes quite a bit of space to the topic of God's wrath, particularly within the context of suffering as punishment from God, he makes scant mention of God's love and then only very near the end of his book (on page 272 of 278 pages).
Love is, of course, an absolutely indispensable part of Scripture. God's loving-kindness "is one of the most important [concepts] in the OT and lies at the center of the Lord’s self-revelation of his attitude toward his people," encompassing "the ideas of love, commitment, duty, and care." [REF] In the New Testament, love describes the very nature of God himself (1 John 4:8, 16). It is the greatest Christian virtue (1 Corinthians 13:13), and love for God and for one's neighbor are seen as the two greatest commandments (Matthew 22:37-40). Love for fellow believers is an identifying mark of true Christianity (John 13:34-35). And love's ultimate meaning and expression are to be found in God's giving of his Son as an atoning sacrifice (John 3:16; 1 John 4:10). [REF]
Concern for others. Not only is Ehrman very concerned about the suffering of others, he assumes everyone else is -- or should be -- when he writes of our need to intervene "and do what we can to stop the oppression, torture, and murder" of people both in America and around the world (page 123). If there is no transcendent moral law, then Ehrman is doing nothing more than attempting to impose his personal values on others. If, however, people really should be concerned about the suffering of others, then what we have is indirect evidence for the existence of God. How so? Because the existence of a transcendent moral law -- including the fact that certain behaviors are wrong regardless of who does them or where they occur in the world -- very strongly implies the existence of a moral law giver, i.e., God.
Ehrman begins his book with a review of the atrocities committed against the Jews and others under Hitler's regime (= the Holocaust), which he describes as nothing less than "the most heinous crime against humanity in the known history of the human race" (page 21). However, as one Christian apologist points out: "Such statements as 'Hitler was wrong' have no force if this is merely an opinion or Hitler’s moral judgments are right or wrong depending on the cultural norms. If he was objectively wrong, then there must be a moral law beyond all of us by which we are all bound. But if there is such a universal, objective moral law, then there must be a universal Moral Law Giver (God)." [REF]
If there were no transcendent moral law, then no one would even care that people living on the other side of the world are suffering, much less desire to do anything about it. What's more, if there were no God and all we had is what we can extract from this life, then there would be no afterlife and no ultimate, final judgment, and hence each person would be justified in doing whatever he/she can -- including exploiting and oppressing other people -- in order to achieve as much personal happiness as possible.
The desire for God. A similar point can be made regarding Ehrman's profound sense of gratitude for his "fantastic life," the only problem being that he has no one to express his gratitude to. In his own words: "This is a void deep inside me, a void of wanting someone to thank, and I don't see any plausible way of filling it" (page 128). Again, Ehrman offers inadvertent testimony, this time in regards to our inherent religious need. Our common religious need is yet another indirect proof for God's existence since it is irrational to believe that a genuine, universal need is unfulfillable. [REF] Even atheists and secularists yearn to believe in God, and like everyone else they have an inherent need to worship, which finds expression in devotion to either a person or a cause. Ehrman's cause is to make life as good as possible, first for himself and then for others: "By all means, and most emphatically, I think we should work hard to make the world -- the one we live in -- the most pleasing place it can be for ourselves. ... But we should also work hard to make our world the most pleasing place it can be for others ... " (pages 277-78, italics in original).
Jesus Christ. Like most liberal scholars, Ehrman sees Jesus as merely "a first-century apocalyptic Jew," claiming that his divinity was a later invention of the Christian Church. "But the view that Jesus was himself God is not a view shared by most of the writers of the New Testament. It is, in fact, a theological view that developed rather later in the early Christian movement: it is not to be found, for example, in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, or Luke -- let alone in the teachings of the historical man Jesus" (page 273). This, of course, reflects the ultra-liberal treatment of Scripture in which large segments of the New Testament are dismissed as inauthentic later additions to, or modifications of, what Jesus said and did.
In truth, there is a staggering amount of evidence that Jesus both saw himself as, and proclaimed himself to be, the divine Son of God. For more information, please see The Deity of Jesus Christ. And for information about the Bible, including why we can trust it, please see Thirty-Five Things Worth Knowing About the Bible.
Heaven and Hell. According to Ehrman, heaven and hell were concocted by apocalyptic-minded Christians following a delay in the arrival of God's promised kingdom on earth. "When the end did not come as expected, some of Jesus' followers transformed this temporal dualism (this age versus the age to come) into a spatial dualism, between the world below and the world above. ... In other words, out of the ashes of failed apocalyptic expectation there arose the Christian doctrine of heaven and hell" (page 256).
Since it is impossible here to do justice to the Bible's teaching regarding God's kingdom, heaven, and hell, a few words must suffice. The kingdom of God can be defined as "The sovereign rule of God, initiated by Christ’s earthly ministry and consummated when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ (Rv 11:15)." [REF] Today God's kingdom is primarily spiritual in nature as God rules in the hearts of those who have placed their faith in Jesus Christ. As depicted in the arrival of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21), one day the spiritual and material will be fully integrated, and God's kingdom will encompass the entire earth.
The truths regarding heaven and hell were revealed progressively in the Bible, with later revelation (in the New Testament) being built on that which came earlier (in the Old Testament). The most important truth regarding heaven is that it is the place where God lives. Heaven is the hope of all believers and will be their home forever. As the opposite of heaven, hell is a place of everlasting punishment reserved for the Devil and his minions, as well as those human beings who have rejected God's free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. [REF]
In response to the oft heard assertion that a loving God would not send anyone to hell, one theologian insightfully notes: "[S]in consists in the human’s choosing to go his or her own way rather than follow God. Throughout life, a person says to God, in effect, 'Leave me alone.' Hell, the absence of God, is God’s simply giving that person at last what he or she has always asked for. It is not God, but one’s own choice that sends a person to hell." [REF] Judging God. In one respect if, as Ehrman believes, this life is all there is (= no afterlife) and there is no God, then Ehrman's concern over the atrocities suffered by humans is understandable and even commendable. But using the world's atrocities to cast doubt on God's concern, let alone his very existence, is to do nothing less than judge God. Ehrman goes so far as to say that he is open to a personal visit by "God Almighty" in which God offers an explanation Ehrman finds acceptable. Then, says Ehrman, "I'd be the first to fall on my knees in humble submission and admiration. On the other hand, I don't think that's going to happen" (page 270). According to the inspired, authoritative Word of God (= the Bible), along with everyone else, one day Bart Ehrman will indeed be granted an audience with Almighty God. In that scenario, however, it will be Ehrman and not God who will be on the explaining end of things.
It is more than a little ironic that in the end Ehrman is content to settle for a sense of mystery when it comes to life, including why this world is plagued with so many problems (page 278), and yet refuses to extend the same courtesy to God and his ways in regards to human suffering. In a sense Ehrman is almost a modern Job in his demand to know why, if there is a God at all, he allows so much apparently unjust and undeserved suffering. In that respect, it is probably no coincidence that Ehrman's most stinging criticisms of God are to be found in the section of his book that addresses the Bible book of Job (chapter six).
Bart Ehrman would do well to go all the way and imitate Job's final response:
Sources (Click on the title for more information.) Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question -- Why We Suffer Holy Bible, New Living Translation (2nd ed) Nelson's New Christian Dictionary New Dictionary of Christian Ethics and Pastoral Theology The New International Dictionary of the Bible
|
||||||||
|
Home \ Contents \ Site Search \ Contact |