Photo credit: Freedom House
Daniel stares at his divorce papers. How did it come to this? All those hopes and dreams…and now, just a solicitor’s post-it note: “Sign here”. And it’s over. Where was God when that happened—if there is a God?
Lakshmi looks at her country, once beautiful, now torn by civil war, village after village the scene of unspeakable atrocities. Where was God when that happened—if there is a God?
Keith and Julia weep on the anniversary of their lovely young daughter’s death from a childhood cancer. Memories flood in of sweet beauty spoiled by agony, and now silence. Where was God when that happened—if there is a God?
Angie is exhausted after years of seemingly fruitless relief work for an agency working in the aftermath of a terrible earthquake. Where was God when that happened—if there is a God?
I was once visiting a Christmas party in a nursing home. I was chatting to an older man, and we were surrounded by frail elderly people, many with dementia. We got to talking about Christian faith. “No,” he said to me, “I’m afraid I can’t bring myself to believe in a higher power.” Our conversation was interrupted by the Father Christmas entertainer leading us, as Tom Jones wannabes, in singing “Delilah” (the connection with Christmas was not obvious). But I would like to have been able to follow it up.
Any thoughtful person asks these questions. Is there a God? If so, what is God like? Is God really in control? In history, there have been perhaps six main ways of “answering” these questions.
1. Blind Fate
Che sera sera; what will be will be. There is no personal higher power. There is just blind fate. “That’s just how it had to be.” Stuff happens. Get used to it! Don’t bother yourself with silly questions about God.
And yet—somehow we wonder if that’s all there is.
2. Nature is all there is
We can detect causes and consequences. And that’s all. Don’t imagine some hidden world. Get on with science and technology; try to understand, try to control what we can understand.
And yet—the impulse to wonder if there is more to life than what we can detect goes pretty deep.
3. God within nature
Perhaps there is something beyond—a world spirit inside the universe in some way, a spirit moving along within time.
Well, perhaps—but we long to understand more about him, her, or it. And how do we know?
4. God the Referee
God is like a referee or umpire. The game is a bit chaotic at times. But every now and then God blows the whistle, intervenes with a prophecy or a miracle. We just need more interventions.
Well, maybe, but that’s a pretty feeble god; and if God can intervene, why doesn’t he blow the whistle a bit more often? And who knows if there is such a god at all?
5. Two gods, or even lots of gods
Perhaps it’s easiest to suppose that there are invisible supernatural powers above the world, but to reject the idea that there is one sovereign one. No, there are many such powers, call them spirits, demons, gods and goddesses if you will. Perhaps trees, mountains, and rivers have spirits associated with them. Maybe the sun, the moon, the planets and the stars each has a god or goddess, such as Mars the god of war, Venus the goddess of love. No one god or goddess is Almighty. What we get on earth are the overflow of the soap opera of the divinities on Mount Olympus, or wherever they live.
Well, again, maybe; but what a chaotic world!
6. God the puppet-master
The simplest and, at the same time, perhaps the most problematical solution is to suppose that there is just one real and sovereign God, who rules the whole universe directly by his almighty power. He pulls all the strings.
Well, if that’s so, what a strange God! And what implications does that have for our human decisions? Because it really seems that we do make genuine choices.
What do you think? One of these, or some variation, or something different altogether? When we’re confronted with tragedy, we need to come up with some explanation, if we are not to despair. Yet none of these options seem to satisfy.
A final alternative: The God of the Bible
Perhaps, then, it’s worth listening to what the Bible says, which is none of these six!
Instead it tells us that Jesus of Nazareth—a real, historical person who lived and walked in the Middle East 2000 years ago—is God’s Son. Jesus makes known the God who is sovereign Maker of everything, who is good, who is all-powerful, and who is Father, who governs all things and weaves together even evil dark things into his good purposes. God deliberately chose that Jesus should be falsely-accused, mocked, stripped, and executed, by wicked people with evil motives, in order to achieve the biggest and best good thing human history has ever seen.
Perhaps you recognise these words of Jesus from the Lord’s prayer: “May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6 v 1). That shows us that God’s will is done on earth in one way now, with all the puzzles that brings; one day it will be done in a different way, a wonderfully perfect way.
There are no easy answers to the question of , “If God is real, where was God when that happened?” No simple ones either. But perhaps there is more to the Bible’s teaching than you thought. And surely that’s worth investigating.
Find out more about the Bible’s answer in Where was God when that happened? And other questions about God’s goodness, power and the way he works in the world.
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Christopher Ash has been a pastor, and is now an author and writer-in-residence at Tyndale House, Cambridge. He was Director of the Proclamation Trust’s Cornhill Training Course from 2004-2015. He is married to Carolyn and they have four children and ten grandchildren.
