Some quotes following this weekend’s message on The Disappointed:
“I think that if, in fact, God Almighty appeared to me and gave me an explanation that could make sense even of the torture, dismemberment, and slaughter of innocent children, and the explanation was so overpowering that I actually could understand, then I’d be the first to fall on my knees in humble submission and admiration. On the other hand, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Hoping that it will is probably just wishful thinking, a leap of faith made by those who are desperate both to remain faithful to God and to understand this world, all the while realizing that the two—their views of and the realities of the world—are at odds with each other.” ~Bart Ehrman, God’s Problem, 270.
“If you’ve got an infinite God big enough to be mad at for the suffering in the world, then you also have an infinite God big enough to have reasons for it that you can’t think of.” ~Tim Keller
I find the juxtaposition of those two statements quite enlightening. Clearly, I’m more sympathetic to Tim Keller’s position, but it seems that in just a few words Dr. Keller has brought down the entire logical structure of Dr. Ehrman’s objection.
Dr. Ehrman contends that he must be able to understand the purposes of the deity before he will consent to that deity’s wisdom. But if the Christian claims about God are anywhere close to true, how much greater would be his wisdom than ours? If the Christian claims about God are true, God created the complexities of quantum physics with a word. We cannot even jump 10 feet into the air. If the gap between his wisdom and ours is similar to the gap between his power and ours, is it wise for us to submit his wisdom to the bar of our judgment?
This, of course, does not prove that the Christian claims about God are true, but it does show that such a requiem as Dr. Ehrman proposes is quite illogical.
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