Questions My Kids Ask

Article for Green Lake Church Gazette

August 2014

Occasionally I have the honor of conversation with people young enough to be my children. I meet these young people inside and outside the church. They ask hard questions, good questions.

Why would a good God—who knew the future and was perfectly free—create a world in which most people would be lost? Did God deliberately decide that the loss of most humanity was an acceptable price to pay to acquire the kind of world he wanted for himself?

Did God create rainbows to encourage our faith and fossils to test our faith?

How can a good God (who is omnipotent, omniscient, and ubiquitous) be reconciled with suffering which is visible, palpable and randomly distributed?

Since most religions claim we are right and all those others are wrong, why should the claims of any religion be taken seriously? How can we prove the Bible is true? How can we prove the Bible is the best (or only) source of information about God?

Would a good God really condemn to eternal hell fire people whose primary “crime” was an incomplete or incorrect opinion about Jesus?

Why should I reject science, which has demonstrably increased longevity, in favor of religion which promises eternal life (but offers no proof)?

Some of the young people asking these questions call themselves atheists. Others call themselves Christian. Whatever label they apply to themselves, the questions are significant. All these questions evince a deep regard for justice and truth. Young people ask these questions because of they care about goodness. Their questions are an expression of their active moral compasses, their lively sense of conscience. So, they deserve our respect.

Why would a good God—who knew the future and was perfectly free—create a world in which most people would be lost? Did God deliberately decide that the loss of most humanity was an acceptable price to pay to acquire the kind of world he wanted for himself?

I grew up hearing preachers quote three statements by Ellen White, the Adventist prophet, that implied more than ninety-five percent of humanity would burn in the lake of fire. Similarly gloomy opinions can be found across Christianity. When I googled “How many will go to hell?” The first piece I pulled up was titled, “Billions of People Are Going to Hell.” The author figured that at least ninety-nine percent of humanity would be burned in hell. Other sites offered similarly depressing assessments. This is not the universal conclusion of Christian preachers, but it is not rare.

As a teenager, I unhesitatingly believed what I heard about the difficulty of being saved. Getting into heaven was certainly harder than getting into Harvard (current acceptance rate >5%). I resolved to be part of that tiny remnant of good-enough people. I cultivated a devotional life. I rigorously observed Adventist rules regarding snacking, movies, caffeine, slang, flesh foods, mustard, fiction, smoking, alcohol and drugs. I am happy for the discipline and structure of that childhood religion. However, I emphatically reject its gloomy picture of God and humanity. Is it really possible that God created a system which he knew would be a disastrous failure for most of humanity? No! Not if God is good.

If I knew I carried a gene for a severe disorder that would doom ninety-five percent of my progeny, I would not have had children. You would probably make the same decision. And we are not more tenderhearted than God. When our children ask, “Would a good God accept the damnation of most of his children as an acceptable price for acquiring the world he wanted?” we know the answer is NO! We don't have to do fancy exegesis. We don't have to know Hebrew and Greek. We don't have to argue the merits of varying translations. The answer to that question is NO! When our children ask this question, we should commend them for seeing clearly.

Did God create rainbows to encourage our faith and fossils to test our faith?

Nature is not a book of tricks. Rainbows really are caused by the interplay of raindrops and sunlight. We can remember the words of Genesis and find reassurance of God's beneficence in the splendor of the rainbow, but we don't imagine that rainbows are a magic show. Fossils really the result of natural processes. They are not a tricky test given by the great teacher in the sky to see who is willing to ignore the evidence available to their senses. The God who created rainbows and inspired the Bible prophets is the same God who was present at the creation of the fossils. Physics and chemistry may seem to be more accessible to our understanding, and less controversial than geology, but the rocks don't lie. We cannot expect our kids to believe in God and God's Book and disbelieve God's rocks.

How can a good God (who is omnipotent, omniscient, and ubiquitous) be reconciled with suffering which is visible, palpable and randomly distributed?

Across the centuries Christians have offered various explanations of suffering. Adventists have given special attention to a narrative explanation called “The Great Controversy.” These explanations can be helpful, but every explanation asks us to skip lightly over huge imponderables. How do we calculate the weight of pain? Until we have lived long in that gray space where praying for the release of death is easier than asking for healing we ought to speak very humbly and quietly in our attempts to make good sense of suffering. I think our children will have greater respect for what we do say if we acknowledge there are some questions beyond any possibility of answer in this life.

Since most religions claim we are right and all those others are wrong, why should the claims of any religion be taken seriously? How can we prove the Bible is true? How can we prove the Bible is the best (or only) source of information about God?

Many Christians devote a lot of energy to insisting that our way is the only right way to speak of God. We would do better to invite people to do taste tests. Come and experience God with us. Experience for yourself the value of our religion. If someone tries our religion and finds it useless, why would we keep insisting it is the perfect religion for them. On the other hand, if we persuaded a person intellectually that our religion was the best and they never actually lived it, what would be the value of our persuasive effort? Winning arguments is difficult. In the realm of spirituality, winning is probably pointless. Instead, let's invite people into the sweetness of our life with God. Encourage them to experience God for themselves. Let's offer our testimony about what we believe and how religion works for us. If this is not attractive, there is little to be gained from argument.

The New Testament offers many anecdotes illustrating the power of direct experience: Jesus' first disciples (John 1:46), Pentecost (Acts 2), Cornelius' household (Acts 10), the Blind Man of John 9. When we invite people to make direct experiments in spirituality we are in line with the New Testament. Trying to establish a theoretical basis for the superiority and uniqueness of Christianity is misplaced effort. Rather, let's exhibit its attractiveness and invite people to test its effectiveness. If the Bible is the living Word of God, we don't need to argue the point, we can simply invite people to read it for themselves. Their experience will be far more persuasive than any words we can offer.

Would a good God really condemn to eternal hell fire people whose primary “crime” was an incomplete or incorrect opinion about Jesus?

No. God is concerned with justice more than with ritual or linguistic precision. Certainly there are texts in the Bible that could be cited in support of a very narrow view. People can be saved only if they meet certain criteria—faith, works, compassionate care for the needy, keeping the commandments. Fortunately, there are also passages that speak of the openness of God to all humanity. There are formulas for salvation in the Bible. Yes, of course. These Bible formulas are not to be construed as constraining God—as though God himself could not operate outside a simple formula he gave for our edification. Rather these Bible formula are best understood as aids to humans for cultivating spiritual and moral life.

Why should I reject science, which has demonstrably increased longevity, in favor of religion which promises eternal life (but offers no proof)?

This question offers an open door for exploring the complementary value of both religion and science. It appropriately presumes the value of life. But how do we know life is better than non-life? Science cannot even speak to that question. Scientists are humans, of course. They have human values and valuing life is a fundamental human value. Science provides tools for furthering life and for ending life, for easing pain and causing pain. But science itself offers no language or taxonomic categories for valuing life over non-life. When we talk of the value of life we have moved into the realm of religion and spirituality or at least into esthetics. When we ask how can we extend life and ease suffering, most of the time we will find our answers in the tools and insights of science, but when we ask why should we extend life and ease suffering, our answers will have the ring of religion. Appreciation of life will lead us to respect both science and religion. Neither on its own is sufficient for responding to the wonder of life.

When we give proper respect to the questions asked by our children, we are likely to gain for ourselves clearer insights into God. Together with our children we may discover better ways of speaking of God and better ways of honoring the incredible gift of life. We will learn to work together not only to extend life, but to enrich it.