The recent horrors at Virginia Tech have occasioned much political discussion and lots of cultural self-analysis. This is as it should be, because such a terrible hate-filled and desperate act is cause for some deep self reflection as a country.
The question has been asked in several ways — what could have been done to stop or lessen this massacre? Tougher gun laws or should citizens be allowed to carry arms for self-defense against such occasions? Better police security at the university? A more efficient mental health care system in America? The country needs to have all these discussions, and more.
But there is a question that is even more fundamental and profound which Christians must ask ourselves — for our faith and for our witness to others who ask us about our faith — no make that who ask us about our God. The question is as old as the slaughter of Able and as current as Katrina and the violent murder spree at Virginia Tech. Where is God in our world? One might ask it differently, and more precisely. Assuming that there is a God, what kind of relationship does God really have with our world, if violence such as Virginia Tech experienced (and especially the families who lost loved ones who were executed by the young man Cho) can take place in the world that God not only made, but is supposed to be overseeing?
This question is not just a general question about “god.” Rather, because of two fundamental Christian beliefs it is especially pressing on us. The first of these is our belief in the absolute holiness and goodness of God, about whom the New Testament says “God is Love.” In this doctrinal assertion we have the primary Christian claim about God. This claim, however, does not by itself even raise the problem of the existence of evil and horrific violence in the world God has created. Someone could, for instance, believe that God is essentially good, but unable to do anything about evil. When one adds the second fundamental Christian claim into the equation, however, we then have the problem of evil in God’s world before us full force. Our belief that God is sovereign over the world’s affairs presents us with the following dilemma. How can an absolutely good God let His world be the kind of place where innocent people are slaughtered for no other reason than the insanity or evil (you decide) of a malevolent individual? The old philosophical quandary is before us: If God is good, then he cannot be all powerful, or if God is all-powerful then He cannot be good, because a good and all-powerful God would make the world be different.
Some try to lessen the tension of this intellectual puzzle by claiming that such evil is the price we pay to live in a universe where there is freedom of choice. No doubt there could be a very important point in this. If we are going to be free, then all people in the world have to be capable of choosing evil as well as goodness. Otherwise, we do not have real liberty of action. However, it is an awful price to pay in situations such as that carried out by Cho at Virginia Tech. There are many who ask whether or not an all-powerful God, could not allow there to be freedom in the world with some restraints, at least, on the consequences of the evil acts that are carried out? Our belief that God providentially cares for this world compels us to wrestle with this in our minds and our hearts.
Others avoid the tension by defending God’s transcendence holiness and goodness in a different way. They argue some along the following lines: Since we know that God is good and that God is sovereign, then anything that God allows (or causes) to happen is by definition good, because it is God’s will. We may not understand how it is good, but it is, so all we can do is trust in God’s sovereign will and accept it into our lives as a good that he understands, but we cannot. In this response, people often say, “There is a purpose for this that we cannot understand.” Without questioning the idea the God’s ways are beyond our ways or doubting God’s goodness, I must say that this way of thinking seems to ignore the meaning of Jesus. If Jesus spoke the truth when he said to his disciples in John 13, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father,” then one can ask quite simply whether or not we can think of God as sending calamity upon people. If so, then we must say that Jesus does not reveal to us the heart and character of God. However, if we think that Jesus does show us God’s heart, hen we can ask, would Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, act in such a way toward us his creatures? Or is there some inscrutible God behind Jesus?
Without pretending that I can address all the issues raised by violence and evil in God’s world within the confines of this short article, we can say that the only adequate response to the Virginia Tech rampage is found in the Christ of the Cross. In Him and the Cross, we find the mystery of iniquity most fully at work, for there we see what it takes for God to redeem this world of His. The Apostle Paul in his first letter to the Corinthian Church describes the centrality of Christ and His Cross in all our thinking about the world and God. There he describes the fact of the Crucified Christ as the “wisdom and power” of God (I Cor. 1: 23 – 24).
Dying on a cross a sign of God power? Suffering unjustly and being treated mercilessly — wisdom? Here we are at the precipice of the greatest of all mysteries. Greater than the wonder of creation, the violent murder of Jesus allows us to see what God thought was necessary to redeem our fallen world.
In God’s creative design — yes there is freedom in this world. And when that freedom is turned away from God’s will it often results in terrible acts –unthinkable acts. God has established our world and the limits of its potency, but that does not mean we have to call an act of evil ultimately good and from God’s own hand. In the Cross do we discover the true and terrible reality about our world. We live in a world that is not what God wants his creation to be. We live in a world that denies God’s rightful rulership. We live in a world in which God will not force himself to be worshipped. We live in a world where evil is at work. And we live in a world in which the “One through whom all things were made” has Himself been slaughtered by us.
He did this for us, because He is love. In Jesus Christ, God has suffered along with us in the creation that is in rebellion against God. Jesus, therefore, is far more than merely a sacrifice for the sins of the world. He takes into Himself — and in Him God takes into Himself, for Christ is God Incarnate — all the violence of our world. His own personal experience of evil and violence is more than His — He has suffered all of the world’s suffering. And on the other side of it He emerges from the death that evil and violence bring into our world. So, in Him is our ultimate hope and, therefore, our hope as we try to make sense of acts like that which took place at Virginia Tech.
This perspective does not so much answer the questions about “why.” Rather, it reminds us about the questions of “who” and where.” Who is this God we Christians offer to the world? He is the suffering and overcoming God, one who does not leave us alone in this world. Where is this God when evil occurs? God is not off in Heaven watching and wishing he could do something, noris God at a divine distance sending the evil. No! the meaning of the Cross is that God in Jesus Christ is in the midst of our suffering and our pain. But He does not merely suffer with us he offers us the victory that He has won for us all. His presence is not simply comforting, but it is transforming, when we realize it and receive it.
God was, in the most real sense, present at Virginia Tech being suffering at the hands of a mad man, so that in sharing in that suffering the hope of the Resurrection might be present to all who died and suffered. He is still Emmanuel — God with us!
So, as we pray for the grieving and the wounded, let us remind ourselves that we need not ask God to be present with them. Instead we should pray that God will enable them through their fear, anger, pain, and doubt to experience the power of the Crucified Lord. And as we talk with others about this tragedy — especially non-believers — let us not fail to bear witness to the reality of God. As people have questions about where God was (and is) in our violent world, at least we can remind them about the nature of the God to whom they should address their questions. Let us live as people of this God and no other!