The Big Sticking Point

Thanks to Jeff for your post-election reflections, and I’m very much looking forward to our “posts of the week.”  I think I’ll learn a lot and have a lot of fresh things to reflect upon.

A little update: As I get a few more opportunities to speak to folks in fresh circles about the things we discuss here, the most controversial thing that comes up always hits me as a surprise.  It’s the pitch—made a few times here—that God is only good.  Secularists want to hear more.  But some evangelicals push back that that’s a naïve statement.  This always blindsides me, because in the history of people pursuing faith in Jesus, God’s goodness is pretty much the bedrock of everything, so I’m not making up some newfangled statement.

So what’s the sticking point with these evangelicals?  The first is that God, on this line of thought, is not good for people who don’t know him.  They’re headed to hell—a place we’ll all agree is not good.  And even in this life, were they to decide to give God a go, they’d have to give up lots of things they don’t want to give up, so they wouldn’t find the experience to be anything we’d commonly call “good.”  The second sticking point is that a statement like “God is only good” doesn’t account for horrors and suffering in the world.  Try saying that God is only good to sufferers in the Holocaust, for instance.  So, all to say, clearly God is not “only good.”

My working title for Not the Religious Type was Good God!, so evidently this issue is near and dear to me.  The faith we’re talking about here is absolutely dependent on God’s 100%, good-to-the-last-drop goodness, that “there is no shadow in him” that he “is good and does only good” (actual statements from the actual Bible!).  This is why we can encourage anyone from any culture to cast their lot God’s direction—because they won’t find any bad news in God.  (A friend I mentioned this to yesterday said, “Well, one very crude take on all of theology would be to say: ‘God is only good.  The Devil is only bad.’”)

 So how do we reconcile this with the surprisingly persistent objections that come my way?  Maybe one way would be to say that the “good God” argument only works in a world in which our first instinct is towards experience.  And the “that’s a naïve statement” objection, perhaps, comes from a perspective that leans towards thoughts and arguments.  So folks drawn this thoughts-oriented way immediately imagine all the prospective objections to such a statement.  And they realize that those are serious objections and so, as a serious thinker, they have to concede a few points here.  But I find myself responding back with guileless, non-polemical points of view like, “But, God forbid anyone would ever again have to go through something as unthinkable as the Holocaust, would such a person be advised to go through that (a) with God or (b) without God?”  And for those secular friends considering God who would perhaps feel the need to give a few things up in their lives if they pursued God—I’d think the only reason they’d give anything up would be for something better.  Actually following God, in the classic way of thinking about it, only involves trading up, never getting swindled in the transaction.

All to say, this is THE BIG STICKING POINT for many Christians (if not for pretty much any enduring theologian).  What’s your take on why this is such a biggie?