Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Hey, welcome back to Grow Tension, the Father Daughter podcast, where as we grow and learn more about who God is and what scripture says and how we deal with some of the toughest questions of our life, we want to share and learn and grow together with you. Today we have a very special episode. Instead of Father Daughter Podcast, you're getting a Pop's Granddaughter podcast.
My daughter Lex is going to be joining Doc and talking about some of the toughest questions.
Things like does God exist and what arguments are that that help prove that alongside with suffering and pain and just how to understand some of the hardest things that life brings to us.
I'm very excited for you to see this. They have brilliant minds and they speak each other's language in a beautiful way. So I hope you enjoy the first podcast of our series, undoubt.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Hey, Pops.
[00:00:58] Speaker C: Good morning, Lex.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: How are you?
[00:01:00] Speaker C: I'm just fine.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Good.
[00:01:01] Speaker C: How's the baby this morning?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: She's perfect as always.
[00:01:04] Speaker C: Of course she is perfect.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: So we have always had a special connection when it comes to conversations.
We've spent many, many, many hours talking about everything there is to talk about.
[00:01:22] Speaker C: Only smart things.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Only smart things.
I remember from the time I was in high school, you would come to my parents and we'd sit on the back deck and talk till 9:30 at night, till our eyes couldn't stay open anymore.
And so it's a privilege and an honor to be here today. Thanks for asking me.
And it's such a privilege to not only be your granddaughter and for you to be my pastor, but for you also to be my teacher. Reverend.
[00:01:57] Speaker C: Well, thank you.
[00:01:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a really beautiful thing that I hold to the highest regard.
[00:02:03] Speaker C: And we're partners in ministry.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: We are partners in ministry. It's the blessing of my life.
And today we are diving into our Tough series, our Tough Questions series, rather than it's a series that we're doing at our midweek services on struggles in some of the questions we have about our faith, some of the questions we have when we experience hard things in life and how those things can grow us closer to God.
And so we had our first tough question at midweek. If you missed that, you can find it on our Christchurch, Ohio YouTube page.
It is called does God exist? And if he does, which God should I follow?
So we might discuss some of the topics that were there. If you feel a little bit lost, you can go back and listen to that, but hopefully you don't feel that way.
One of the things that I had to skip over in that lesson was one of the proofs for the existence of God.
And we were talking the other night, and you mentioned that it's maybe one of your favorite arguments.
And it's the moral argument.
[00:03:29] Speaker C: Yeah. The rational arguments for the existence of God.
They have a long history in Christian theology.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:44] Speaker C: Mostly, in my opinion, they don't convince an unbeliever.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:50] Speaker C: They're really more.
They're really more representations of the way Christians normally think. But the moral argument is, in my opinion, very, very different.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:08] Speaker C: Not everybody in the world believes in the ontological argument.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:15] Speaker C: Okay. But everybody in the world has a moral code.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:19] Speaker C: And ironically, a lot of moral codes share a lot in common across the globe and across time.
For example, every culture has some law against murder.
Now, we define murder differently, but there is a universal law written into humanity that the arbitrary killing of another human being is wrong. That's the moral argument.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: So how does that relate to proving God's existence?
The idea that we recognize that there are codes written on our heart, that societies across time, across culture, across countries agree that there are things that are absolute and absolutely bad.
[00:05:26] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: So how does that connect to our understanding of God? How does that relate?
[00:05:35] Speaker C: So I have to ask myself, where does this code come from?
So let's just say that, just for argument, that this code comes from humanity just writing some basic rules, that all civilizations have to have some basic rules.
Well, if we wrote a code, Lexi, we would write a code that we had the possibility of fulfilling.
But the moral code that we all have within us, none of us live up to it.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:14] Speaker C: If I was writing a code for myself to live by, I would write a code that I had a possibility of living up to.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:24] Speaker C: But this moral code that we all carry within us, it's beyond us.
And we all have this universal feeling that I'm not as good as I should be.
So where does that code come from?
It doesn't come from humanity because we would have written a different code.
It's not a biological.
I don't get it from my DNA.
So we believe it has to come from a moral lawgiver. And we believe that's God.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
I often hear that one of the biggest reasons people don't believe in God is because of all the pain that we see in the world, of all the evil that we see in the world. World.
They don't believe that life is fair. They don't believe that life is.
Is, for some things, a good experience at all. Some people have very, very, very hard lives.
And I'VE heard the argument of animal suffering. I've heard the argument of these moral questions.
And so what I find interesting is that I empathize with those thoughts. And I understand.
I understand how it's.
We see such hard things in this life that are really hard to understand.
But when you recognize that there is evil in this world, when you recognize that there is, there's something that could be reached that's greater that the code that we aim for. Like you say, we have this idea of who we want to be in the life that we want to live and it's written on our heart and how we expect other people to live and treat us.
When we recognize that there is a recognition of God whether we know it or not.
[00:08:47] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: And so one of the things, the other dilemmas people have, which relates to the moral argument is the problem of suffering.
Why does a good God allow suffering?
It's a question that is ancient, asked many times. Yeah. And so.
And so I was listening to a mathematician and a Christian apologist, his name is John Lennox, and he was talking about the problem of evil and suffering in the world.
And he said he recognizes two types of evils. There's moral evil, things like 9, 11 things like murder and putting children through horrible abus.
There's things like.
And there's also natural evil, which is natural disasters.
The pain that we experience from whole cities being wiped out by a tsunami or a hurricane.
Tornado.
And so there's this apparent problem that we see with evil.
And so my question to you is, why do you believe a good God allows suffering?
[00:10:40] Speaker C: Well, I have to begin by.
I have to begin by trying to define pain because we live in a culture. We can't get this answer right because we live in a culture that misdefines pain.
[00:10:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:57] Speaker C: And basically we believe all pain is bad.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:01] Speaker C: And in fact that is not true.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:05] Speaker C: Pain is in one way, it's a safety net.
If it didn't hurt when I touched the stove, I could hurt. I could damage myself severely.
So the pain I feel when I touch the stove, that is a safety mechanism.
Okay. If I can understand that physically, maybe I can start understanding that emotionally I have emotional pain because I'm doing things or things are happening to me that aren't healthy and are damaging to my psyche.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:50] Speaker C: That emotional pain is. It's.
It's saying, you got to pay attention to this.
This is hurting you.
And then there is inexplicable pain.
The word absurdity means it doesn't yield to reason.
We think there is a reasonable cause for everything.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:19] Speaker C: We've convinced ourselves that if you can just give people a better education, will change.
And history has proven that's not true. So there is a pain that doesn't yield to our reason because we don't. We're not able to comprehend the bigger picture.
So if I can look at pain that way, then I can start saying, okay, what is the relationship of evil to pain?
Well, now I have to define evil, Lexi.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:56] Speaker C: So I believe that evil is not.
Evil is not a substance, it's not an essence.
Evil is the lack of something.
Evil is the emptiness where something good belongs.
Evil is the ignorance where intelligence belongs.
It is the hatred where love belongs.
It is the insensitivity where kindness belongs. All right.
So because evil is the lack of something that is essential to my well being, I experience pain along with that evil.
In the very same way, pain is. Loneliness is painful.
Loneliness is not having someone in your life that you need to have.
So I wouldn't look at a natural disaster and say it is innately evil.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:14:07] Speaker C: I would look at it and say it is innately painful.
And what, what should we learn from natural disasters? Yeah, we have a hard time learning.
I mean, hurricanes blow through the very same place year after year, and people just keep rebuilding and rebuilding and we don't learn from. All right.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:37] Speaker C: So I would say natural disasters are painful, but they are not innately evil.
[00:14:45] Speaker B: And sometimes they actually yield to like, I think I read one time that, like, wildfires create rich soil.
[00:14:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: But sometimes they actually are beneficial.
Some of the pain that it does cause and the hurt that it does cause can be beneficial to the environment.
[00:15:05] Speaker C: Yeah. Makes certain seeds pop open.
Now let's talk about the moral evil.
Moral evil is an emptiness where something divine belongs.
A person does a morally evil thing when they act out of emptiness of the divine.
For example, we say something hateful that hurts somebody. Well, that hateful thing we said is clearly a lack of the love that God expects us to show people.
We somebody physically abuses someone else.
Well, that moral evil is an emptiness of the sympathy you're supposed to have for another human being.
So these moral evils, they're not an essence, they're not a substance.
They are the result of the lack of the divine.
So we have to think about the pain these things create and remember that our Creator has not only written a code in us, but he's gone way out of his way to teach us what these qualities of life are so that it reduces the pain in the world.
If I'm rambling, just tell me.
[00:16:56] Speaker B: No, you're not. But I think there's something interesting to be said there.
And all of this is a result of the Fall?
[00:17:08] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Right?
[00:17:09] Speaker C: Yes.
God created us good.
[00:17:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:15] Speaker C: The creation poem says seven times, God created us good.
And we didn't know pain until we became devoid of that original goodness.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:34] Speaker C: That was innate to us.
And when Adam and Eve abandoned God, they lost where that innate goodness should be. There was emptiness.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:51] Speaker C: So I'd like to. I'd like to bring up the topic of, well, if God is all powerful, why doesn't he do something?
We can't reduce the Almighty to a cosmic babysitter.
If God intervened every time something bad was about to happen, humanity would not feel responsibility for doing what we should be doing.
[00:18:26] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:18:27] Speaker C: And humanity would become infants who are unable to be responsible for themselves because God is always swooping in.
But God does have a plan. And that plan is for you and I, good people, all good people, to start looking at the world around us and saying, what can I do to make the world immediately around me better?
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:19:07] Speaker C: How do I make my home better?
How do I make the place I work better?
How do I make my friendships better?
We become the partners of God.
[00:19:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
Yeah. I think the idea that.
Well, couldn't God just make evil disappear? Make us all do the thing that would make us holy right now?
But I think what that would be wishing is for us to just be little robots.
We would be really just wishing ourselves out of existence.
To have no relationship with him, to have no autonomy at all in any decision making.
[00:20:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: And.
And I think that I understand that argument, but I also think about it in relation to my own relationship with my husband. Like, if someone said, if Jared told me today, your dad has been paying me $1,000 a day to love you, well, that would be not a relationship that I want. No, it's not even a choice at that. No, it's not. Out of love and respect and genuine, deep relationship and connection by choice.
And I don't want that to be my relationship with God either.
[00:20:54] Speaker C: No.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: I want what he has given me, which is the mind to think about him, to love him, to accept him as my Lord and savior.
And so, yeah, I think that when people make that claim, they're actually wishing something that I don't think they really, really want.
[00:21:20] Speaker C: Yeah, of course.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:24] Speaker C: Lexi, I'm thinking that.
I'm thinking that every time someone says to God, why don't you do something?
God whispers back to us, why don't you do something?
If we want a better world, we have been empowered by God to make a better world.
We can't overcome all evil, but we can overcome a whole lot more evil than we do.
And every time we say to God, why don't you do something?
If you loved me, you would do something.
Perhaps I should be saying, what does my love of God compel me to do?
If I really love God in this situation, what should I do?
If I really want to have a healthy relationship with God in this situation, what can I do to be God's partner in overcoming this evil or in alleviating this pain?
And the Bible's full of tools about how to do that.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: Yeah. I think, too, there could be someone listening that they maybe can't do much and they've endured deep abuse.
But what I think is so amazing about our God, that no other religion has, is that we do have a sympathetic God.
[00:23:11] Speaker C: Yes, we do.
[00:23:12] Speaker B: And I think when we look at the problem of pain and suffering, and it has been talked about and argued about and thought about for millennia, and maybe sometimes no answer feels sufficient.
But what we do find, and this is something that I've been thinking about and listening to a lot of conversations about, is why is God hanging on a cross?
Why does he step down into our world and become a part of the pain and suffering?
[00:23:57] Speaker C: Yes.
No other religion worships a God who knew no sin and became sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God.
No other religion offers a deity who says, I will accept the penalty for your failure and I will give you the rewards of my righteousness.
In Christianity, God sympathizes with the sorrow, the suffering, and the inability of humanity.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:59] Speaker C: He enters into our pain. We do not have a chief priest who's unable to sympathize with us Hebrews. Yeah, yeah.
The direct opposite. We have one who has been tempted in every way that we are and without sin.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
So I think it's so beautiful that we find as hard as a question of a question that it is.
We find our God stepping into it.
[00:25:33] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:25:34] Speaker B: And the most beautiful, gracious, merciful outcome from it that death and resurrection on the cross.
[00:25:47] Speaker C: Right. When we were at our ugliest and we were at our most brutal and we crucified the Lord of Glory and he suffered in pain. Listen what he prayed.
Father, forgive them.
They know not what they do.
That is a divine model for confronting evil.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
[00:26:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
And so the problem of evil and suffering, it is tough.
It's a really hard question.
[00:26:27] Speaker C: Yes, it is.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: But I believe that our God is big enough that even where we don't understand, there is an answer.
[00:26:41] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: And there is a day where there will be no more suffering and no more pain.
[00:26:49] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: And that's promised in our Lord Jesus.
And so what encourages me is that when I go through the hardest things in my life or I see people go through things that I can't even imagine, I know that I have a God who also suffered, who also experienced much worse than I ever will.
And he promises me eternal life with him.
[00:27:27] Speaker C: Yes.
And, Lex, he promises us to be with us in those moments of suffering.
I will never leave you or forsake you. He doesn't abandon me when I'm sorrowing and I'm suffering.
He draws near to me.
He is the God of all comfort.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: Beautiful.
Well, thank you.
[00:27:52] Speaker C: Thank you. I enjoyed our conversation.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Me too. Thanks for answering.
Probably one of the toughest questions we can answer.
[00:27:59] Speaker C: We thought about it.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: We thought about it.
[00:28:01] Speaker C: I'm not sure we answered it.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you. I love you.
[00:28:05] Speaker C: I love you, Lex.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: And it's such a joy to learn from you. So I look forward to much more learning in the future.
[00:28:12] Speaker C: Good.
