“If God is supernaturally working for my good every minute of every day, if His Love for me takes no rest, if His attention toward me does not waver… then how come my life is so hard when compared with that other person’s life?” This is the challenge of human inequality.
In Part 1 of this Interlude, I addressed the stereotypical challenge levelled against the existence of God, namely, the suffering of the innocent; and I showed how it is impossible to use it to indict God.
It may be the stereotypical argument… but I don’t think it is serious. I don’t think that when we live our lives ignoring God, we do so in order to spite Him just because we think He is an unfair God when he lets innocent children die.
I don’t think those children caught in war-ravaged countries even come to the mind of the typical American… No. We are too busy with all our other concerns: like, maybe, how we are going to be able to pay the rent this month, or afford the dental treatment my child needs, or replace the car I need to take me to work before it suddenly and finally breaks down on the freeway.
Life is hard.
I think most of us would agree. But I also think most of us are guilty of expanding on it this way: “How come it is so hard for me, and, yet, for other people, it is a breeze? How come I struggle to figure out if I can put together $100 for a sudden need, $1000 for a sudden emergency, and there are people out there that blow $90,000 on a Corvette without a second thought?”
That is the real question that most of us deal with sub-consciously, if not consciously, every day… the question that truly challenges, for us, the fairness of God.
If we are all human, if we are all His children, how come some of us have to fight tooth and nail for every crumb we get, and He lets others live in luxury? That is not fair.
Is that a fair question? Does God not really care about our human situation?
We should address that first. Is it true that God does not care if I am poor and someone else is rich? Is it true that God doesn’t care if I struggle with my health and someone else is perfectly fit?
To answer that question I am going to turn to Scripture, to the Gospels in particular.
You see, this is not a new question; it has been around as long as human beings have been around to ask it. The people of Israel in the time of Jesus adopted one of the most common answers that we find throughout ancient cultures: This simplistic answer goes like this: If you are in the throes of misfortune, sick or broke, whatever it may be, it is because you have sinned against the gods. But if you are wealthy and healthy, it is because the gods favor you. Let’s turn to the gospel of John:
John 9:1-2 And as he (Jesus) passed on, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this [man] or his parents, that he should be born blind?
In the disciples’ question, the simplistic answer has been taken to its extreme: In Jesus’ day it was a misfortune to be born blind. Not only could you not work to support yourself, but you were also a lifelong burden on your parents and, worse, would not be able to take care of them when they got old. The disciples therefore feel justified in assuming that that blindman’s fate was a punishment on the parents. But they even go beyond that and say that maybe it was a punishment on the blindman himself… Now, given that he was born blind, that would imply that God punished him in the womb in advance, before he was ever born and had a chance to commit the sin that would deserve that punishment.
Surely, a transcendent God could do that, knowing the future as He does… But would He? Is that in the character of the God of the Bible?
Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ question begins one of my favorite stories in the Bible: John 9:3 Jesus answered, Neither has this [man] sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God should be manifested in him.
Alas, today is not the day to go into that story. But Jesus’ answer is clear. There was a reason that man was born blind, but it had nothing to do with anyone’s sin. Instead, it was all part of a plan God had for that very moment.
And having said that, you would be right to retort: “Ah, so indeed God made that man be born blind!” And from the story as it develops, based on the fact that the man was there alone and based on comments made later by his parents, we can assume the man was probably in his 20s or 30s. So that you could add to your retort: “Meaning that God made that family suffer, making them deal with a blind son for 30 years… worried over what their future and his would be like for all that time… just so Jesus could do a miracle?”
And if you feel that that would be a fair challenge to raise, I am not going to object. You may be missing the point of the story, but you certainly got all the facts straight.
Is God then proven unfair by the fact that He let that man be blind while Jesus and his disciples and most of the people around him can see?
I’m not going to come up with an excuse for Jesus. Instead let me make it worse: Do you think that that was the only blind man in those parts? Of course not. The gospel has several stories about people bringing blind relatives or friends to Jesus to be healed, and He does. But the real question is: If their friends and relatives had not brought them to Jesus, would He have healed them? Or would He have just walked on by?
I mean, the way that chapter 9 of John begins, it looks like Jesus and His disciples were just passing by. It looks like He would not have stopped and done anything except for the fact that the disciples stopped and asked that question.
Am I reading too much into two lines?
Consider the story near the end of Jesus’ ministry where He is headed toward Jerusalem, and this huge crowd is gathering around Him. On the way, as they approach Jericho, there is at least one blind man by the north gates of the city. If you combine the gospel narratives, it appears Jesus went into the city; giving that blind man enough time to hear and understand that Jesus was in that crowd. Then on the way out of the city, the gospel tells us there were two blind men outside those gates, strategically sitting by the wayside, waiting for the crowd. And as soon as they hear it, one of them, Bartimaeus, starts crying out “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us.”
As you would expect, Jesus stops and when the blind man asks that He make them see, He does, telling him, “Your faith has healed you.”
It is a great story… but what if Bartimeus had never cried out? Would Jesus have let him stay blind? And if we try to say that the answer is that Bartimeus had to demonstrate his faith (to deserve his healing), then we are stuck with wondering how come the man born blind had no such requirement placed on him? How is that fair?
But blindness is not the only quandary here. We know Jesus could heal every sickness. And sickness is not a good thing… Yet we can be sure that plenty of people in Israel got sick and died while Jesus was there, even though the story of Lazarus and the stories of the centurion’s servant, the noble man’s servant, the daughter of the Canaanite woman, all make it clear that Jesus could have healed all those people from afar with just one word. (In fact, with just His words, Jesus healed a paralytic man by the pool of Bethesda: a man who did not even ask Him to do it, and who at the end of that story turned against Jesus and reported Him to the Pharisees. How did he rate being healed?)
So, did Jesus play favorites or did He basically not care whether people were sick or not?
We can ask the same thing about our human economic situation:
Is it fair that some people are rich while others struggle to put food on their table? What does Jesus say?
In the Sermon on the mount, Jesus begins with: “Blessed are the poor.” Not a great beginning if we are looking for help there. Sure, He told a rich young ruler that what he needed to do to get his life right with God was to sell everything, give it to the poor, and follow Him. But He placed no such requirement on Zaccheus the tax collector. In fact, the latter volunteered to give half of all he had to the poor (presumably keeping the other half.)
I know Jesus gave stern warnings about the dangers that rich people face when they let their riches become their “god”. And I know that in the Sermon He exhorted all of us to be generous with the poor…
Luke 12:32-34 Fear not, little flock, for it has been the good pleasure of your Father to give you the kingdom. Sell what ye possess and give alms; make to yourselves purses which do not grow old, a treasure which does not fail in the heavens, where thief does not draw near nor moth destroy. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.
But this is immediately after telling us not to worry about having food to eat or clothes to wear!
Luke 12:29-31 And *ye*, seek not what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, and be not in anxiety; for all these things do the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that ye have need of these things; but seek his kingdom, and [all] these things shall be added to you.
His answer is, don’t worry about it: God will provide. Doesn’t sound very humanly practical, does it?
And then, when He is in the presence of a person He knows is practically destitute, He doesn’t do anything about it:
Mark 12:41-44 And Jesus, having sat down opposite the treasury, saw how the crowd was casting money into the treasury; and many rich cast in much. And a poor widow came and cast in two mites, which is a farthing. And having called his disciples to [him] he said to them, Verily I say unto you, This poor widow has cast in more than all who have cast into the treasury: for all have cast in of that which they had in abundance, but she of her destitution has cast in all that she had, the whole of her living.
Of course, “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” We do not know if after that, Jesus or His disciples helped her financially. (In fact, from a comment made in the gospels we can deduce that Jesus and His disciples kept their money together and, from it, regularly gave to the poor, according to the custom of their society.) But that is not the point. The point is that what is recorded, what is there for the purpose of teaching us, certainly makes it appear that our human condition is at best incidental in the eyes of Jesus.
And we can make it worse. From the gospels and the letters of Paul we know that slavery was a fact of life in their time. Today, most of us would agree that slavery is an evil. If it is truly an evil today, it should have been an evil in Jesus’ day. Yet, Jesus did nothing to abolish slavery back then. The best Paul can do is tell us that if a slave can buy their freedom, they should. But if not, then go on living as a Christian slave… Not a very humanly satisfying answer.
I hope that the examples I have cited above are enough to make the case that, if your charge against God (and Jesus) is that they wilfully allow human inequality, then the evidence is in your favor. You are absolutely right.
Does that mean God is unfair?
The reality of human inequality would prove God is humanly unfair if the following two premises are true: (a) all there is to life is this material reality and therefore (b) the definition of “what is good” is based on human values attached to this reality. Then all that it takes to prove the unfairness of God is to start with the axiom that all human beings have exactly the same value. If this is true, then, for life to be fair, they all should receive the same amount of humanly good things in this reality. Since the latter is not true in our world – we have inequality everywhere we look – a god who allows this is indeed humanly unfair.
But to indict Jesus on this account fails because Jesus explicitly told us He did not believe in either of our premises (a) or (b). We see that in the Sermon on the mount.
The most general human definition of good in this material reality (our premise (b) above) – as we stated last time – is the satisfaction of the top tier of Maslow’s Pyramid of Needs: the Physiological Needs: Basic survival necessities: food, water, shelter, sleep, warmth.
Yet…
Matthew 6:25 (NASB) For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing?
For someone so wise, Jesus here certainly appears to be thoroughly ignorant of human nature. Aren’t we tempted to reply: “Of course we have to worry about such things! What other choice do we have? What world are you living in?”
And that is the key… Jesus does not believe in our premise (a). That is the reason He makes the above statement; He says so immediately after…
Matthew 6:26-33 Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather crops into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than they? … And why are you worried about clothing? Notice how the lilies of the field grow; they do not labor nor do they spin thread for cloth, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!
Do not worry then, saying, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you.
“Seek first His Kingdom.” There it is: Premise (a), that this material reality is all there is, is wrong. And because it is wrong, because there is a Kingdom of God, defining the good that humans need (our premise (b)), based on the material reality, is unfounded. With two flawed premises, the argument breaks down.
But what about our unmet human needs? How are we supposed to deal with them?
It could be argued that to ignore them – as one could interpret Matthew 6:25-33 to be telling us to do – cannot make any sense because if God is the One who made us, then it was Him that created us with these needs.
Absolutely!
Therefore, any strategy to deal with the inequalities of human life that calls for us to ignore the reality of pain and suffering is ultimately a “cop out”. We cannot erase pain and suffering by declaring them to be an illusion. At least that is not what Jesus taught. Because if the human pain and suffering around us were all an illusion, He would not have taught us to have compassion on our neighbor and work to alleviate their pain and suffering. (Why work at alleviating an illusion?) That scene at the final Judgment, when the King judges the world, would make no sense.
Think about it:
Matthew 25:31-46 (NASB) “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.
“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You as a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me.’
“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you accursed people, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or as a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for Me, either.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
And this is Jesus’ answer to the question: How are we supposed to deal with the problem of unmet human needs?:
We (human beings) are the ones called to meet those needs in the lives of those people around us who struggle with them.
It is our job, not God’s.
And I know that that promise from Matthew 6 is going to pop up in our minds and we are going to say: “Wait a minute… didn’t God say He would provide? Isn’t He saying it is His job?”
Sure…
But it works this way: If I believe in Him, if I have chosen to love Him with my all of heart, soul, mind, and strength, and therefore chosen to follow Jesus, then I have already accepted the mission to love my neighbor as myself: Their need is my need. Therefore, I can choose to help them with all I can spare in my life… And if in so doing, I cross over the line, and I help them to my own hurt, that is OK because I have someone already “watching my back”: My Heavenly Father is taking care of me.
Human inequality, in this world, is not a curse. It is the definition of our harvest field.
And it is more than that, it is a reminder that our harvest field is completely wide open, that no one, absolutely no one is outside our circle of responsibility.
I have to say this because I know (and you know) that some would be tempted to agree to love their neighbor as long as their neighbor looks like them, believes the same things they believe. In other words, they would be comfortable limiting the reach of love to those who are “equal” to them: my same family, my same country, my same religion…
But that would not be love. That interpretation of “love” completely breaks down when we remember the parable that Jesus used to teach us to love our neighbor. A Samaritan, despised automatically by Jews, chose to have compassion on a wounded Jew that was left to die by the road, chose to risk being attacked by robbers himself by stopping there and binding his wounds; and then he took him and paid for his shelter and care until he was mended.
That Samaritan made the Jew his neighbor by loving him.
Human inequality is not a curse, it is a reminder that this is not our home.
The fact that human inequality exists and that we can see other people, human like us, living in conditions we would not ever wish to be in, automatically raises in our conscience this pang about the unfairness of life in this world. We then have a choice: (1) Blame God for the unfairness of life in this world or (2) accept that life in this world is not what ultimately matters because real life, eternal life in God’s Kingdom, is available to all of us – no matter how different our circumstances are from each other.
Choice number (2) sets us free from the slavery of comparison… and also from the fantasy that it might be possible to make all people equal in this world.
If that were possible, that would mean that we could make Heaven on Earth. Do you really think human beings have it in them to do that, to attain peace and harmony by the power of just our will? I would put to you that the history of humanity has resoundingly proven that that will never happen. We do not get more civilized, kinder, gentler, more loving with every passing century. On the contrary, if anything, we get better and better at finding ways to dehumanize those who are not like us and at coming up with arguments to prove to ourselves that we are justified in our actions.
But if we accept choice number (2), then the inequalities that we live with in this world are unimportant. They are just incidental, foot notes to the story of my life. They have no power to dictate to me the choices that I make, not the choices that really matter. I can love, serve, help, thank, appreciate anyone, absolutely anyone, whether they are richer or poorer than me, regardless of the circles they move in… regardless of where they were born, or what part of town they live in.
Human inequality is not a curse, it is there as a reminder of the greatest inequality of all time.
Think about it: God versus man. There is no greater inequality. Finite humanity is not in the same “class” as the Infinite Creator of time and space. There is no level at which any comparison could ever be made. And yet, the way that Creator chose to teach us what Love is, was by bridging that unfathomable inequality: The Son of God became man. The infinite source of Life became mortal, with the express purpose of giving himself up to die so that we all could live with Him forever.