The Great Disqualifier

Was supposed to be short, came out a little longer than expected.  Discussion on pain for the XA blog.


In the dominion of God, in our kingdoms below,
The dross of the earth trumps all beauty and worth.
In the abode of the expanding universe of sights,
each second more startling than the second before
As the cosmos putter on into infinite complexity.
If there is one thing we've learned from the bowels of space
Its that something is happening beyond comprehension, beyond the infinite.
Yet isn't it a curious thing when you stop to see
That so much beauty is trumped by our cries of "foul"?
That our struggles and pain claim sovereignty of knowledge
As the Great Disqualifier for love and for hope.

The question is simple, and I've heard it several times.  "If God is so great, then why is there pain?"  Yet the longer I live, the more I'm seeing how this question is such a small objection to a great concept.  Its the main stumbling block for so many, yet no one seems to point out the inherent paradox in the question; it sets up its own answer with its own rules.  In such a scenario, pain becomes the Great Disqualifier that strikes down the concept of God with a foul swoop.  But I don't understand why so many people ask the question but never question the basis of the question itself: Can the existence of pain defeat God?  Does pain have such power and importance that we ascribe to it?

Of course semantically the question doesn't work, since you are basically supposing that opposite extremes cant coexist, akin to saying that "if cold is so cold, then why is there hot?"  You are striking down the possibility of their coexistence before you even ask the question, and God has been escorted out the courtroom with out a proper hearing.  But of course the question goes way beyond a simple semantic question, because emotions are involved.  The question is such a stumbling block not because its logical, but because its emotional; we see injustice in the world, people dying of starvation and want to ask "why?" because it disturbs us to our very core (some more than others).  The question is seldom rooted in intellectual opposition but almost always emotional hatred of the idea of a God who is all good, yet ignores the cries for help from his creation; a God that shows no pity to a pitiful group of people.

With the risk of getting caught up in more rhetorical gymnastics, I'll get to the point: the real question, in my opinion, that people ask isn't the one so often stated but rather a question about the capacity of God to overcome pain; in the war against God and pain, would he ultimately come out the victor?  Would justice be done in the world and all evil be set right by God in the end?

If this is the question that we are really asking, it has much more to do with our own willingness to believe that God can do justice than his actual capacity.  Like I mentioned at the beginning, I think the thing most astronomers learn from the get-go is that the universe is expansive (and still expanding) and is completely beyond ultimate comprehension.  I remember one of my clearest thinking moments in my past was sitting on a beach at the age of 17, staring at the night sky and having the strangest feeling that despite so much inner struggle with the concept of God, the universe seemed to revolve around something amazing; that all of creation, the wind, the waves, the moon, the stars, were involved in a delicate dance that was both calming and breathtaking at the same time.  Something was going on way past my understanding, and for the first time I was ok with it.

If this God who claims to defeat pain is the creator of the universe, the author of all finite existence, then couldn't he conquer the pain and suffering of his entire creation, and even more so your own personal pain?

Is God deaf to your pain?  On the contrary, He came to earth to carry your iniquities and pains, not to defeat pain, but to show that it is powerless against you.  The ultimate defeat of pain isnt its non-existence, rather the loss of its power over you.

Is God deaf to the pain of the world, unmoved to justice?  He makes rulers rise and fall for that very purpose, protects thousands through trials, and though good and faithful men and women die every day, the righteous "find rest as they lie in death" (Isaiah 57:2) because through His victory, death has no power!  And though evil permeates through the world, He waits not desiring that it continue, but desiring that "all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:4).  Though so many deserve destruction, the God of justice decides to give mercy first.


Where in your life has pain gained more power than it actually has?  Where have you allowed pain to wipe away the majesty of God throughout creation and in your own life?

The Great Disqualifier has its days numbered; though it last through the night, its feeble grasp on the human condition is a fading shadow in the joy of redemption, and cannot hold us down any longer.

And may we live to prove it true.  

~Jared

More than the Facts

If any of you are reading this from my blogger site (and not cross-posted) you will no doubt have seen the quote thats at the very top banner:

"Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother" - Kahlil Gibran

The quote is from a larger work that I would encourage anyone to read, which is "Jesus" by Kahlil Gibran, a famous lebanese poet.  The book is a collection of poems based from the point of view of people featured in the New Testament, including Herod, Pilate, all the disciples, and even Caiphas the high priest.  The poems are from the Gibran's personal view of Jesus, which probably differs from a Biblical understanding, but regardless have some amazing insights into faith and belief.  The above quote is from a poem written from the perspective of "Thomas the Doubter."

The reason I love this quote so much is because I think it really illustrates a facet of spiritual faith that most people prefer to skip over; some call it lukewarmness, others call it the midnight of the soul, and some prefer to call it weakness.  Of course all of these views will agree on one thing, which is that the experience of doubt is crippling.  Doubt can bring the happiest person to tears, the go getter to complacency; doubt shakes the very pillars of our being, and seeing the collapse of all you know to be true can be a fate nearly worse than death itself.  Yet doubt, as the quote illustrates, is connected to faith.

So can doubt be good?

Despite how crippling it is, I think in my own life I've seen just how important doubt is; the way I see it, doubt is not weakness, but rather the natural consequence of living a life of worth.


For those of you who know me, you know that I am an inherently doubtful person, and doubt has played a huge role in my life.  Doubt chased me away from my Christian upbringing into stubborn agnosticism; doubt used to haunt me at night, never allowing me to sleep; doubt hurt my relationships, and had I let it grow unchecked, would have made me complacent; a useless vessel with no purpose in life.  The main way that doubt has torn me apart is that, in many cases, it spurred me to inaction rather than encouraging me to search for the truth.

So is doubt bad?  The answer is not clear cut, but I feel the best way to look at is to ask yourself the all important question: what is the fruit?  Does my doubt fuel me to search out the answers, or does it mire me in self deprecation and depression?  The distinction is very very important because doubt is, despite its pain, important.  Anything that is worth believing should also be worth doubting; and anyone who has ever done anything worthwhile in life had their doubts about what they were doing.  Doubt is proof that whatever you are wrestling over is very important.

For many years, this is where I would have stopped.  I saw doubt as a necessary part of life, and an intellectual exercise, but always ignored the emotional and healing aspect.

As an agnostic, I remember reading several arguments and historical accounts of Jesus, giving some pretty convincing evidence the Gospels were historically accurate and that the claims of Christianity should be considered.Funny enough, this was not the thing that ended up bringing me to follow Christ.

Beyond historical documents and apologetic arguments, I knew that reading Jesus's words had hit me in a place that no one had ever hit me before, and that He was the most amazing thing to happen to human history.  Many philosophers wanted to convince my mind, but Christ wanted my heart.  Despite the many philosophers I had read, Jesus Christ was the only name I heard echoing in my head as a 17-year old agnostic.  Depressed and afflicted with doubt, I was on the edge of taking my own life, and yet I could hear this Jesus in my head, saying I was worth it, beloved.  Nietzsche made me feel powerful, but Christ made me feel loved.

Overcoming intellectual doubt, though important, is only part of the process because doubt is almost always rooted in emotional hurt.  When the father of the demon possessed boy cried out to Jesus for his unbelief, it was not simply "show me proof" but rather "Help me!"  When Thomas doubted, the evidence Christ gave was not "here I am" but rather "come and see!"  Jesus was willing many times to argue people, but He never neglected people's need for more than an intellectual ideal.  I dont find myself as a follower of Christ because he's a cool idea, rather because, in the purest sense of the word, He saved me.  At the end of the day, people in doubt and suffering want more than the facts; they want a Savior.

I still experience times of doubt, because I am a doubter by nature, but I am learning more and more how doubt and the search for truth is a transformation of both heart and mind.  Letting the Truth transform my outlook, but also letting the Truth heal me of all the places I am hurt.  As a closing note, I think Kahlil Gibran put it more succinctly than I will ever be able to:

"For Doubt will not know truth till his wounds are healed and restored"

~Jared