logos redux

“[Secretary of Transportation Ray] LaHood, however, has been transformed. Indeed, about three bites into lunch, the T word lands with a thump: He says he has joined a ‘transformational’ administration: ‘I think we can change people’s behavior.’ Government ‘promoted driving’ by building the Interstate Highway System—’you talk about changing behavior.’ He says, ‘People are getting out of their cars, they are biking to work.’”

George Will, “Ray Lahood, Transformed“

“For many generations—before automobiles were common, but trolleys ran to the edges of towns—Americans by the scores of millions have been happily trading distance for space, living farther from their jobs in order to enjoy ample backyards and other aspects of low-density living. And long before climate change became another excuse for disparaging America’s ‘automobile culture,’ many liberal intellectuals were bothered by the automobile. It subverted their agenda of expanding government—meaning their—supervision of other people’s lives. Drivers moving around where and when they please? Without government supervision? Depriving themselves and others of communitarian moments on mass transit? No good could come of this.”

George Will, “Ray Lahood, Transformed“

In my meditation on the loss of my daughter I referred to her death as “senseless.” It occurred to me at the time that while no one would likely say anything given the personal nature of what I was writing about, many reformed Christians might take issue with such a statement, thinking that it somehow impinged on the view that God is sovereign. I disagree. There are things in this world that are senseless. That is not to say meaningless (in the ultimate sense), for surely the death of my daughter has profound meaning, but it is nevertheless senseless.

The reason I believe this is the case is because my daughter’s death was evil. In fact death itself is evil. God uses death; it is the curse on mankind for sin and indeed at times it is meted out as judgment. Nevertheless, death, particularly the death of persons (who are made in the image of God) is evil. This is a profound mystery. Somehow God allows death, and even ordains the deaths of His saints while at the same time hating death and vowing to destroy it.

But to return to the point, death, as a manifestation of evil is senseless. My dictionary defines senseless as a) “without discernible meaning or purpose” and b) “lacking common sense; wildly foolish.” Both of these apply in a limited sense to the death of my daughter. There is no discernible purpose for her death. It does little good to point out that God has a reason. I’m sure He does but it is one of the secret things that belong to Him. I am a man and I am called to think as a man. That means that I am not expected to sit back and coolly reflect on my daughter’s death as an event that has a purpose (though indiscernible to me). Rather, I am to experience it in all the fullness of what it means to be human. Jesus did not reflectively quip from the cross, “Father, I know that all things have a purpose in your sovereign plan.” He screamed, “Father, Why have you forsaken me?”

Further, to take up the second definition, “lacking common sense; wildly foolish,” I find that this fits as well. What is more foolish than evil. If we balk at this perhaps it betrays a tacit belief that God is the author of evil, or at least some evil (like natural catastrophes or the death of infants, that are clearly not the fault of a particular person or persons) inasmuch as we view calling these things foolish as an implicit criticism of God. But God agrees that death is wildly foolish. It is the foolish evil that results from foolishness and one day God will expose it for the foolishness that it is when he destroys it along with pain and suffering and wickedness. Further, the death of a newborn saint surely lacks common sense. Common sense, which is part of the image of God–our common ability to judge what is fitting and appropriate in any given situation–tells us that babies are not supposed to die in their mothers’ arms. Common sense tells us that we are meant for life and fellowship and relationship with God. This is why it is the fool who says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’

So this is why the death of my daughter and so many tragedies like it are senseless. First, because we are humans and we are called to assess things from a human standpoint (using the wisdom and insight God has provided in His word to be sure), and from a human standpoint there is no discernible purpose or reason that I watched my daughter die. And second, because it was a result of the foolishness of evil that turns all things on their heads and rejects what is sensible favoring senseless opposition to God and all that is good. Were it not for evil and its intrusion into God’s good creation, my daughter would be with me right now and we would be in the presence of God himself.

Finally, I found some help in thinking through this in Chris Wright’s recent book “The God I Don’t Understand“ which I think is worth quoting at length:

Evil Makes “No Sense”

It is a fundamental human drive to understand things. The creation narrative shows that we have been put into our created environment to master and subdue it, which implies gaining understanding of it. To be human is to be charged with ruling creation, and that demands ever-growing breadth and depth of understanding the created reality that surrounds us. The simple picture in Genesis 2 of the primal human naming of the rest of the animals is an indication of this exercise of rational recognition and classification. Our rationality is in itself a dimension of being made in the image of God. We were created to think! We just have to investigate, understand explain; it is a quintessentially human trait that manifests itself from our earliest months of life.

So then to understand things means to integrate them into their proper place in the universe, to provide a justified, legitimate, and truthful place within creation for everthing we encounter. We instinctively seek to establish order, to make sense, to find reasons and purposes, to validate things and thus explain them. As human beings made in God’s image for this very purpose, we have an innate drive, an insatiable desire, and an almost infinite ability to organize and order the world in the process of understanding it.

Thus, true to form, when we encounter this phenomenon of evil, we struggle to apply to it all the rational skill– philosophical, practical, and problem-solving–that we so profusely and successfully deploy on everything else. We are driven to try to understand and explain evil. But it doesn’t work. Why not?

God with his infinite perspective, and for reasons known only to himself, knows that we finite human beings cannot, indeed must not, “make sense” of evil. For the final truth is that evil does not make sense. “Sense” is part of our rationality that in itself is part of God’s good creation and God’s image in us. So evil can have no sense, since sense itself is a good thing.

Evil has no proper place within creation. It has no validity, no truth, no integrity. It does not intrinsically belong to the creation as God originally made it nor will it belong to creation as God will ultimately redeem it. It cannot and must not be integrated into the universe as a rational, legitimated, justified part of reality. Evil is not there to be understood, but to be resisted and ultimately expelled. Evil was and remains an intruder, an alien presence that has made itself almost (but not finally) inextricably “at home.” Evil is beyond our understanding because it is not part of the ultimate reality that God in his perfect wisdom and utter truthfulness intends us to understand. So God has withheld its secrets from his own revelation and our research.

Personally, I have come to accept this as a providentially good thing. Indeed, as I have wrestled with this thought about evil, it brings a certain degree of relief. And I think it carries the implication that whenever we are confronted with something utterly and dreadfully evil, appallingly wicked, or just plain tragic, we should resist the temptation that is wrapped up in the cry, “Where’s the sense in that?” It’s not that we getno answer. We get silence. And that silence is the answer to our question. There is no sense. And that is a good thing too.

Can I understand that ?

No.

Do I want to understand that?

Probably not, if God has decided it is better that I don’t.

So I am willing to live with the understanding that the God I don’t understand has chosen not to explain the origin of evil, but rather wants to concentrate my attention on what he has done to defeat and destroy it.

Now this may seem a lame response to evil. Are we merely to gag our desperate questions, accept that it’s a mystery, and shut up? Surely we do far more than that? Yes indeed.

We grieve.

We weep.

We lament.

We protest.

We scream in pain and anger.

We cry out, “How long must this kind of thing go on?”

And that brings us to our second major biblical response. For when we do such things, the Bible says to us, “That’s OK. Go right ahead. And here are some words that you may like to use when you feel that way.” But for that, we must turn to our next chapter.

“The appeal to justice as a way of cutting the ethical knot in favour of including active homosexuals in Christian ministry simply begs the question. Nobody has a right to be ordained: it is always a gift of sheer and unmerited grace. The appeal also seriously misrepresents the notion of justice itself, not just in the Christian tradition of Augustine, Aquinas and others, but in the wider philosophical discussion from Aristotle to John Rawls. Justice never means ‘treating everybody the same way’, but ‘treating people appropriately’, which involves making distinctions between different people and situations. Justice has never meant ‘the right to give active expression to any and every sexual desire’.”

N.T. Wright, “The Americans Know This Will End in Schism“

Q: How can a loving, omnipotent God permit—much less create—encephalitis, cerebral palsy, brain cancer, leprosy, Alzheimer’s, and other incurable illnesses to afflict millions of men, women, and children, most of whom are decent people? (From Charles Templeton’s Farewell to God).

A: The first answer to this question can be found under the previous two articles (addressing natural disasters), found here and here. God has the prerogative to take life. He does not owe us an explanation of why He does it. But His reasons are completely consistent with His goodness, love, and justice.

But there is another layer to this question. In some cases, we are told, partially, why God allows some things…

Read more

Our beautiful baby girl, Esther Elise Donathan: Born July 9, 2009 - Died July 11, 2009.

Although this is just a blog, and thus a seemingly odd place to talk about the most painful experience of my wife and I’s lives, it is also impossible to think of continuing on sharing the less significant tidbits we find interesting, outrageous or hilarious with those of you who read without mentioning it.

Three weeks ago my wife went into the hospital with suspected preeclampsia. Within a few hours she was being taken by ambulance to another hospital because we were told that the hospital she was at could not care for babies born at under 30 weeks.

From that point on all was a whirlwind. Family began descending from around the country as we waited for days in hopes that the doctors could keep Alicia healthy enough to let our daughter stay within her womb and grow just a little longer. Esther was only 25 weeks along. We went through ultrasounds and visits with pediatricians that were gut wrenching. It is their job to save babies, but it is also their job to talk to parents about what might be. Alicia experienced blood draws that seemed constant and bed-rest that was absolute. Finally one morning they told us that it couldn’t wait any longer. The baby had to be delivered. We cried and prayed alone, together, and with our families.

However, later that day Esther was delivered and all signs were good. She weighed only a little over a pound but nothing the doctors had warned might go wrong in delivery or resuscitation did. For a day and a half our baby girl seemed to be defying all odds. One of the nurses in the NICU even told me they were calling her their miracle baby. The pediatrician who delivered her had confided to me that she was the smallest baby she had ever successfully resuscitated. However, shortly before midnight Friday night, just hours after I had wheeled Alicia over to see her healthy and odds-defying daughter for the first time, the pediatrician who had resuscitated her called me and told me that we needed to come to the NICU quickly. We did, and I cannot begin to describe, nor would I want to, most of the events of the next few moments or hours or whatever it was.

However, I will say that we got to spend our daughter’s last few moments with her, singing and praying with her, and that because there was no minister available I baptized my baby girl shortly before she died.

We have grieved and cried and been numb multiple times and in various orders. We have been surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses from our church, our families and from those all around the country who have lent their encouragement, their prayers and their shoulders. We laid Esther’s body to rest on Tuesday July 14th. The funeral was difficult but cathartic in many ways. My friend and pastor, Reverend Joshua Anderson preached a sermon that I desperately needed to hear. He affirmed that we do not make peace with death but join Christ in warring against it, even as he pointed us toward the sure hope of Resurrection and the possibility of peace in this life again.

I have nothing profound to say. I am angry at times- angry at the senselessness of the death of my beautiful baby girl. I am thankful at times. Thankful that I was able to spend moments with my daughter and see her marked with the seal of God’s children and that Alicia and I had been reading the book of Job together for the past few weeks - seemingly (in hindsight) in preparation for what was ordained to befall us. Often I’m confused, not knowing what to think or if I can really feel. I imagine that I will feel and think these and many more emotions and thoughts, sometimes knotted together in something indiscernible, for a long time. In all this I have found myself forced to a defiant insistence on hope- hope in the Resurrection, hope in the goodness and wisdom of God, hope that all things will someday be put to rights, even though for me that seems a much more distant goal right now than it ever has before.

“There is no limit to the amount of work to be done as long as any human need or wish that work could fill remains unsatisfied.”

Henry Hazlitt

“[The idea of making judicial rulings on the basis of life experiences is] absurd because it flies in the face of the facts. It was a fellow Puerto Rican judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals– Jose Cabranes– who rebuked his judicial colleagues for the cavalier way they dismissed the white firefighters’ case. On the Supreme Court, the justice whose life story is most like that of Sonia Sotomayor– Clarence Thomas– has a very different judicial philosophy from hers. The clever people in the media and elsewhere are saying that ‘inevitably’ one’s background influences how one feels about issues. Even if that were true, judges are not supposed to decide cases based on their personal feelings. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said that he ‘loathed’ many of the people in whose favor he voted on the Supreme Court. Obviously, he had feelings. But he also had the good sense and integrity to rule on the basis of the law, not his feelings.”

Thomas Sowell, “Out of Context“

“There are more than four times as many Magnetic Resonance Imaging units (MRIs) per capita in the United States as in Britain or Canada, where there are government-run medical systems. There are more than twice as many CT scanners per capita in the United States as in Canada and more than four times as many per capita as in Britain. Is it surprising that such things cost money? The cost of developing a new pharmaceutical drug is now about a billion dollars. Neither political rhetoric nor government bureaucracies will make those costs go away. We can, of course, refuse to pay these and other medical costs, just as we can refuse to buy air-conditioned homes with built-in microwave ovens. But that just means we pay attention only to prices and not to the value of what we get for those prices. We can even refuse to pay for so many doctors. But that just means that we will have to wait longer to see a doctor– as people do in countries with government-run medical systems. In Canada, 27 percent of the people who have surgery wait four months or more. In Britain, 38 percent wait that long. But only 5 percent of Americans wait that long for surgery. Surgery may well cost less in countries with government-run medical systems– if you count only the money cost, and not the time the patients have to endure the ailments that require surgery, or the fact that some conditions become worse, or even fatal, while waiting. A recent report from the Fraser Institute in Canada shows that patients there wait an average of ten weeks to get an MRI, just to find out what is wrong with them. A lot of bad things can happen in 10 weeks, ranging from suffering to death.”

Thomas Sowell, “Alice in Medical Care“