Where was God on 9-11?

Stoic philosophy, biblical providence, and the divine regulation of evil

The problem of evil is one of the most significant and commonly raised objections to the concept of a personal God who not only created the universe and our world in that universe, but also governs it, and has concern for the individual inhabitants thereof.

The dilemma is obvious. If God is good, why does he not put an end to all of these evils? And why did he create or allow them to come into being in the first place?

If, on the other hand he is not good, then the biblical account of him is not true. Moreover, how could a God who creates or allows all of these problems be worthy of worship?

Much has been written about these questions, and I think there are reasonable answers which many have presented more effectively than I could. However, instead of repeating some of the same old arguments it might be helpful at this point to step back for a moment and look at some of the beliefs about divine providence that were held by the Stoic philosophers of the Roman Empire.

The philosopher Seneca, who lived in the New Testament era - his brother Gallio is mentioned in the book of Acts as the deputy of Achaia - presented the Stoic concept of providence very concisely. In so doing, he distinguished between (a) the providential ordering of the physical universe and (b) a different sort of providence over the affairs of human beings.

Concerning the former, the regularities of natural law were considered as proof of some sort of mind behind the physical universe. This could be seen not only in the regular motions of the planets and the abiding constellations of stars in the heavens, but also by the consistent alternations of seasons and times on the earth, as well as the processes of reproduction and growth. It was argued – and not only by the Stoic philosophers of course – that such profound order and consistency could not possibly be due to chance. Matter moving at random, such as was posited by Atomists like Democritus and Leucippus, could not possibly explain the artistry and the perfection so plainly visible at all levels of nature. Parenthetically, the question of how blind chance could produce the wonders of mathematics and science, and the intricacies of creation, is still a valid one today.

Human affairs are not, obviously, as well-ordered and predictable as those of nature. Hence, the question of some sort of mind presiding over the affairs of human life on earth had to be handled differently. To Seneca, it seemed unreasonable that the vast cosmic theater in which our lives were played out should have been so meticulously organized, while our own affairs were left to chance. It did not seem reasonable to him (and to many others who were not necessarily Stoics) that the human race should have been created to no purpose.

This did not mean that such a higher purpose for us had to be blatantly obvious. Seneca argued that with so many ordinary things of earth beyond our comprehension, we could not reasonably expect to understand things on a much higher level – yet, he felt it was possible to make some arguments for the existence of a higher rule over human affairs in spite of some obvious difficulties.   

For one thing, Seneca argued that the good of life outweighs the bad. In spite of all the injustices, evils and sufferings, we still want to live. Most people do not want to kill themselves, and find the overall experience of life to be worth whatever difficulties we might encounter. Thus, in spite of the pains and trials of life, there is a great deal of goodness in it.

Secondly, discussing the question of why the good might have to suffer, he made a number of insightful observations that still merit consideration even in the technologically advanced 21st century.

[1] Who is really good? They are not all good who seem to be, and if they suffer, there may be some justice in it. Some suffering may be deserved.

[2] Even those who are truly good can benefit from and may even need the chastisements of fortune. Difficulties test and exercise our virtues, and it is by confronting and overcoming whatever life throws at us that we can develop our souls on a much deeper level.

[3] Ordinary human happiness and ease of life are not our final goal. Our goal is the spiritual development referred to in the preceding point, and this is not possible without hardship, danger, difficulties, and even death, as well as the constant possibility of death.

[4] This earthly situation is only temporary. In the end, there will be final justice (this was not elaborated on in detail). In his On Consolation to Marcia (chapter 25), Seneca does say that those with cleansed and purified souls will have some sort of higher existence in another life after this one, but this was not a main feature of Stoic philosophy and he does not elaborate on it.

Seneca also had the idea that the human soul had a divine origin, which was what distinguished it from inert, lifeless matter and the remarkable yet still far less developed instincts of beasts. He could also see that our minds and spirits were often defective, the remedy for which was found in the proper exercise and training of mind through philosophy and right actions. Thus there was an ascent towards the divine through human effort and human virtue. Dealing with trials and tribulations was essential to this.

This is not just a question of a certain school of Roman philosophy. The belief in some sort of mind behind the universe, a mind that concerns itself not only with the heavens but also with human affairs, was not merely an invention of Christians and Jews either. These beliefs are deeply rooted in human nature. It has seemed self-evident to myriads of people in all periods of human history that not only is there some sort of a reason behind the phenomena of nature, but there were also higher powers that concerned themselves with human affairs.

Concerning the biblical God’s providential ordering of worldly affairs, we find repeated teachings of Christ’s to the effect that God is far more intimately involved with the affairs of earth than any would have guessed. We read in Luke chapter 12 that not even a sparrow is forgotten before God (12:6). The following verse says that even the hairs of our head are numbered. Later in the same chapter we read that God feeds the ravens, and in Matthew it says that God feeds the fowls of the air (6:26). Later in this same book we read “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father” (10:29).

Christ extended the reality of divine providence to details, and the Old Testament writers did as well. There the powers of nature are described as being at God’s command. From the highest heavens to the beasts and birds of the earth, the power of God is at work in ways beyond our comprehension. For example we read in Psalm 147 that God is intimately involved in his creation:

He telleth (tells) the number of the stars; he calleth (calls) them all by their names.

Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite . . .

Who covereth the heaven with clouds, who prepareth rain for the earth, who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.

He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry . . .

He sendeth forth his commandment upon earth: his word runneth very swiftly.

He giveth snow like wool: he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes.

He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?

He sendeth out his word, and melteth them: he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.         

Neither is the question of God’s sovereignty over human affairs neglected – it is taught in countless verses from Genesis to Revelation. He is a God active in the world, One who sees, and knows, and does, and judges – but this leads us back to the problem of evil. Where is God when so many bad things happen? How can he in any sense be thought to be good, and at the same time present and active, in the face of so much that is clearly wrong?

This world of ours could have been so created by God as to be an ironclad paradise in which no temptation or fall would ever have been permitted. Adam and Eve and their descendants could have lived with a surpassingly beautiful and fascinating planet to occupy themselves in, but without war, poverty, illness, pain, loneliness, injustice, oppression – just the sort of place for which so many long and strive for in vain.

Instead, God created a world in which evil and sin were possible, the outcome being contingent upon the obedience of our first parents.

Adam and Eve, however, were not robots. They were given a real power of choice with real consequences – and Satan, whom God could have destroyed, or at least kept out of the garden, was allowed to be present to tempt them.

Concerning the talking snake, which is such a source of amusement to those who delight in their imaginary superiority while scoffing at things which are far above them, this is not a matter of a snake only. It involved the devil himself, whom the Bible calls the old dragon, the old serpent, with powers of “signs and lying wonders” (2 Thessalonians 2:9). This spirit of rebellion against God - “The prince of the power of the air; the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2) - currently holds many people bound in spiritual captivity, not excluding those who so lightly deny his existence.

We read in II Corinthians that Satan can disguise himself as an angel of light. This being so, it would be a light thing for him to assume the form of a serpent, or to enter into an existing one. A talking snake might not have seemed strange or foreign to Eve either, she who had only recently been introduced into a new and unexplored world full of wonders which the human eye had never seen before.

Some have asked if God is not to blame for having placed flawed people in a flawed paradise. They reason that if God had created a truly perfect situation, Adam and Eve would not have been tempted at all, or would have been strong enough to withstand the temptation. There is no directly biblical answer to this. God does what he does, his thoughts are far above ours, and we who know so little of ourselves cannot expect to understand everything. However, looking into this more carefully, we can also suggest the following. If it should be God’s will for his children to enter into his kingdom only after the experiences of life in a sinful and troubled earth; if it should be his will that we come to him out of sin by a process of repentance, cleansing, rejuvenation and sanctification, by a process of struggle and overcoming; if hardship, suffering and danger, or at least the real possibility of those things, were necessary for our deeper self-actualization – then what right does the pot have to say to the potter, “Why hast thou (have you) made me thus?” (Romans 9:20) .  

This raises some very serious questions. To begin with, how can we assert the goodness of God and at the same time assert that he sends what we as humans commonly call evil? James teaches that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh (comes) down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). This is a conception of God that is agreeable to most Christians today – but what about the many verses in the Old Testament that say that God himself raised up and sent the Assyrians to destroy the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Babylonians to destroy the Southern Kingdom of Judah?

So intimately involved were these highly destructive events with the will of God that Scripture states that the Assyrians were the rod of God’s anger and the axe in his hand (Isaiah 10:5, 15). The destruction and violence of those two invasions was the direct result of God’s anger. This seems very far removed from the idea of God held by many Christians today – is that because we have invented a God after our own imagination? Is not the God of many contemporary Bible-believing Christians something considerably less than the full God of Scripture?

Here we need to look at the book of Job - a book which has more relevant to our problems than an infinite number of worldly newspaper articles, internet opinion pieces and TV broadcasts.

We read in that book that raiding parties of Sabeans and Chaldeans killed Job’s servants and plundered his possessions; that fire from heaven came down and destroyed more of Job’s servants and possessions; and that a great wind destroyed the house in which his children were gathered and killed them all. When this did not suffice to break Job’s faith, he was struck with illness.

The Bible teaches that these things were specifically allowed by God, who could have prevented them, but did not. Satan, the force of evil, lies and destruction that is in continual opposition to God, was given certain limits that he was allowed to work in.

There are forces of evil in the world. These forces include not merely all the various forms of wickedness practiced by sinful humanity. They also include unseen spiritual forces of evil, the spiritual principalities and powers of wickedness that lie behind what seem to be merely historical events; that create and drive ideas of wickedness, the false and ugly ideas that compel those taken captive by them to act out designs contrary to the laws of God.

These evil forces, human or otherwise, are not outside of God’s control. He regulates them and limits them, setting the bounds that they cannot pass. God himself is exempt from any taint of any imperfection, let alone evil, but he does allow wickedness to work in the world for a time, until its final destruction. All he needs to do is remove his restraining hand, and the evil that is ever-present in the world and in the human heart can very quickly increase to local, national, or even international tempests of great destructive power and deep spiritual darkness. Thus Job could rightly say that the evils that came upon him were from God (Job 1:21-22; 2:10).

The Bible teaches that God regulates and limits evil, yet still gives it some scope for action before it is finally destroyed in the end – but what is the relevance of these old Bible stories to us in the modern era? Can we say, “That was true in Bible times, but this is the real world we are talking about here”? Let us take a look at a couple of examples from modern history: World War II, and the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York City.

Concerning the first of these, Christians will have no difficulty ascribing the destruction, devastation and human suffering of that war to Satan and the forces of evil – and this supplies the missing factor in so many futile and boring attempts to explain the mystery of the Third Reich. Yes, there are economic, social, political and historical factors to be taken into account, but none of them come close to the powers of darkness and evil behind the conquests and crimes of the Nazis.

God could have prevented that war.  He could have caused Hitler to drop dead of a heart attack at any time, or arranged his death during World War I when people were being killed like flies all around him. Historians will agree that without the sinister and evil drive of an obscure Austrian corporal, the Third Reich would not have materialized as it did. God could have prevented it, but did not. This does not mean, however, that God was out of the picture. We can also say that it was impossible for the Nazis to win the war, as God decreed otherwise. It was not, however, impossible for them to flourish for a time. The Lord sets the limits beyond which evil cannot pass, but he does not set them to our liking.

It has been said that because of the Holocaust we may no longer speak of a beneficent God, or of a covenant between God and the Jewish people – but do not most of us today want to live and to survive in spite of past horrors? The fact that the vast majority of people are not committing suicide proves that for most of us the good of life outweighs the evil.

To approach this from another angle, the destruction of six million Jews must be weighed against the creation of the state of Israel. That so many different factors should have combined together in a very limited window of opportunity to enable the creation of a Jewish state, in spite of all the vast hostile diplomatic and military powers arrayed against it, plainly shows that the criminals of the Third Reich, with all of the vast military and industrial might of a modern European state at their command, were not allowed to have the last word.

Concerning 9-11, here also we may say that a criminal act of monstrous inhumanity was carried out by evil men in the service of Satan. Here again, God could easily have prevented it, but did not. God could have given Bill Clinton and George Bush a more serious concern for national security, leading to closer cooperation between different law enforcement and intelligence agencies and greater attentiveness to the significance of clear signals. God could easily have caused the plot to be discovered in a variety of ways – yet he did not. Why should he? So much of the American people and the American government had long since declared their independence from God – what right do we as a nation now have to expect anything from God, except for further indifference to the troubles assailing us?

God did not create a world without the possibility of evil, a world in which we could enjoy ourselves in effortless and unending ease and pleasure. He has arranged a different kind of place for us, one in which there is a great prize to be won, but only with struggle, self-sacrifice, repentance, humility, faith, denial of self, obedience to God and long and difficult inward transformations. It is a world in which the human spirit must coexist in the face of the realities of evil, sickness, danger, death, and foolishness, mistakes, and accidents – and if God should postpone the final destruction of evil and the manifestation of a new heaven and a new earth until all of his purposes for us should be fully realized, that is his prerogative.