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christian counseling today
Vol. 21 no. 2
77
overemphasis on the future, it seems
that Kushnerians err in the magnifi-
cation of the present. None of these
positions proved helpful to my uncle.
Soon after my cousin’s death, I
became a student in seminary. I found
myself composing personal theodicies
that I hoped to share with my uncle
someday. The best of the lot all started
with the letter “p.”
I would tell him that we don’t yet
have God’s
perspective
… His cosmic
vantage point. If we did, we could see
that evil and pain are like the grass,
while the righteousness and goodness of
God are like a seedling that grows with
time into a towering palm tree.
Or I might tell him about Jesus as
the ultimate tennis
player
who partici-
pated in our suffering. “He is with you
now,” I would say, “and on your side of
the net. With His help, we can return
any shot that is hit. He isn’t the one
hitting the tough shots. He isn’t in the
stands passively watching the action. He
is standing behind you. With His help,
you can return any shot.”
However, in the end I settled on
par-
adox
. Profound religious truth, it seems,
is always found in paradox. The small
vessel that is our intellect cannot contain
the vast truth of God. Divine intelli-
gence always sloshes out on both sides.
We are like children trying to under-
stand the minds of an adult. Just as an
infant cannot understand how an object
can still be present in a room when it is
hidden from vision, we cannot fathom
how God’s love can still exist when it
becomes concealed by tragedy. Evil is
not a problem. Problems have solu-
tions. Evil is a mystery. It defies solution
through human intellect. Only faith can
remove us from the dark dilemma.
In time, I did share some of my
thoughts with my uncle. I wrote him
a long, handwritten letter. He has kept
that letter for three decades now and,
by God’s grace, attributes the words
written on that now-faded paper with
keeping him alive. However, it wasn’t
the reasoning that I scribbled; it was the
emotion, inserted between those written
words. And it was the compassion of
other helpers who simply sat with him,
offering no more than watery eyes. That
is what he needed. That is what kept
him alive.
It is not surprising that so many
attempts have been made to preserve
God’s love in the presence of human
pain and suffering. It is not surpris-
ing that our attempt to explain the
mystery of theodicy has resulted in
contradictory classic models. After three
decades of wrestling with these issues
while trying to come to terms with the
death of my first cousin and wonderful
friend, I have no better personal advice
to offer counselors than to remember
that Job’s counselors were doing a great
job… until they opened their mouths.
Sometimes the best we can offer is our
best—a tearful and empathetic pres-
ence… confident, but mostly silent,
about the present, but temporarily
obscured, love of God.
✠
Gary W. Moon, M.Div.,
Ph.D.,
is the Executive
Director of the Martin Family
Institute for Christianity
and Culture and the Dallas
Willard Center for Christian
Spiritual Formation at Westmont College. He
founded, with David G. Benner and Larry Crabb,
Conversations Journal
; directs the Renovaré
Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation; and has
authored several books. Gary still teaches at
Richmont Graduate University when they let him.
Endnotes
1
See Smedes, L.B.
Forgive and Forget
.
Nashville, TN: HarperCollins, 1984, p. 111.
2
Theodicy is the attempt to solve the riddle
of how God can be all-loving, all-powerful,
and all-knowing, and yet bad things
happen to good people.
3
See Hick, J.
Evil and the God of Love
. New
York: Harper & Row, 1978, p. 236.
4
See Kushner, H.S.
When Bad Things
Happen to Good People
. New York: Avon,
1983, p. 148.
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