In-Justice for All
Theodicy is the study of how we reconcile evil and injustice and suffering in the world with a good and all-powerful God.
The argument is if He's good, He would do something about evil and if He could He would do something about evil. Therefore, if God is all-good and all-powerful why doesn't He?
More people have stepped away from faith (maybe not all the way into atheism, but away from faith) because they are unable to reconcile a good and loving God with evil and pain and suffering in the world. Fair enough, it makes sense.
Here's the deal though, pain and suffering and injustice is not an argument against God's existence. There's no rational argument against the existence or involvement of the God of Jesus based on injustice in the world. It's passionate and emotional and powerful, but it is not a rational argument.
Injustice in the world calls into question the justice of God, not the existence of God. Which means it makes more sense to be angry at God than it does to be an atheist. The existence of God is a different question than your personal experience with God.
Jesus was the one who brought the idea of a God who is good and loving into the world. Jesus is the one who showed us a God who claims that every single person on this earth is of sacred worth. Every single person matters. Every single person has dignity. Every single person is worthy of love and compassion.
Jesus introduced the world to this God in a time when there was neither justice nor dignity for most people. The rich ruled over the poor. The powerful ruled over the non-powerful. If you had the gold, you made the rules. Might made right. In a world where there was no dignity, women had not rights, children were not named until a certain age because the infant mortality rate was so high. Jesus comes along into that world and claims that God is good and loving.
Jesus' first century followers embraced a God who was good and just within a culture that was characterized by injustice.
If the Christian God had been so fragile as to be argued out of existence based on injustice, the Christian God would have never made it out of the first three centuries. Because the Christian God's followers were persecuted consistently for the first 300 years of the churches existence.
If there is no objective standard for justice, injustice ceases to exist as well as justice. And if there is no objective justice or injustice, do you know what we are left with?
My Justice
You Justice
Nazi Justice
Majority Justice
Isis Justice
Klan Justice
Nature's Justice
Street Justice
Power Justice
Rich Justice
When we reject God because of injustice in the world, we don't solve injustice, we lose the definition of justice.
We love the idea of a God of love, but we are uncomfortable with a God of judgment. Here's the catch though: You can't have justice without judgment. If there is not judgment of what is evil, then there is not justice.
I think the reason we are uncomfortable with judgment is because we want God to do something about evil in the world, but it's usually someone else's evil and not our own. We don't want our contribution to evil to be pointed out. We don't want to be judged, we just want to be loved.
So what does the God of Jesus and the God of justice have to say about all of this.
When God saw the stay of humanity, when God saw that we all fall short and deserve judgment. God didn't send a judge, he sent a savior.
Jesus says: I did not come to judge the world, I came to save the world.
-John 12:47
Before God ever judges anyone in the world, He offers salvation. The God of justice saves us before He judges us and is perfect in His judgment.
For the complete video messages from this series click here.
These messages are adapted from Andy Stanley's series Who Needs God
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