A Response to the man with a Tumor ...

“What would you say to the man with a tumor?”


Note: This post came out of a conversation I had with someone I know about God’s role, if any, in causing or allowing sickness and suffering. The occasion for the original conversation had nothing to do with a newspaper report I later read and to which I refer below. This post contains parts of a letter I wrote to this person in answer to her question, “What would you say to the man with the tumor?” So … if this sounds like a letter … it is. I should also add that a friend of the church leader who was the subject of the article wrote me in response to say, in essence, that the newspaper piece did not fairly express the views of his friend AND that his friend was doing well in his treatment.

I am in conversations often with people about what the Christian response to suffering is and what it ought to be. I don’t agree (as you know) with the dominant view in the church. Until recently I have not spoken out against this view in anything but private conversations but it has become necessary to do so. I have only had brief conversations with a few in our faith community about these doctrinal positions. This (see below) newspaper article is an example of why we think it is so important to be prepared with answers from the scripture that make sense and inform our actions.

The article begins, “The leader of one of Canada’s largest churches is sick with cancer and fighting for his life, and detailing the whole experience in public – in sometimes graphic detail – on the internet.” The man suffering is the moderator of the United Church of Canada. He had a tumor removed and is now waiting for radiation therapy. He is asking questions that trouble Christians in times of suffering. He is quoted from his blog: “I don’t believe in a God who protects one while millions of others suffer and die. Sure, I’d like God to give his or her head a shake and say, ‘Wow, all these people are praying for David. What was I thinking when I gave him that tumor! Abracadabra-shazam!’ [But] that doesn’t seem to be happening.” This man is suffering and, as a leader in the religious community, is publicly suggesting that God is responsible. This view is held by many in the church and is one of the reasons why so many on the outside of faith … stay outside.

(Note: As I understand it, the moderator, may have a more ‘open view’ of God than is communicated in the news article and be arguing ( though it is not explicit) that what he is quoted as saying about God is in fact a view with which he does not agree. I hope this is the case. In either case, the issue of whether or not God has a direct and active role and presence in any suffering doesn’t seem to go away. My response to the question asked by my friend I will leave below in so far as it addresses the central questions.)

Before I answer the man I need to make a necessary detour. I feel compassion for him in his suffering. I feel more compassion for him as one who is confused about the nature and character of God than as one suffering in his body. I say this because this man’s beliefs about God exempt him from a faith in the One who loves, heals, delivers and saves. Herein lies the tragedy. If God is responsible (as he seems to believe) he will die angry, bitter at God, and without faith that any petition for healing would be heard much less answered. If God is not responsible, as I believe, the man will still die angry and bitter at God but (and this is surely the maddening futility of the whole affair) the bible does not present God in this way. This man is wrong. The dominant theological teaching in this area of suffering is misguided. I also feel something like ‘dread’ for the man because, as one recognized as a religious leader in the Christian church he is making an indictment against God... publicly.

The man quoted (or misquoted) in the article is putting language to an indictment on God that many make. This is very serious. We are not to be stumbling blocks. We are to handle the words and ideas rightly. James, the brother of Jesus once warned the church about the importance of teaching when he wrote, “My brethren, let not many teachers be among you; but know that we are under a greater judgment. For in many things we all stumble. Anyone who does not offend in word, this one is a perfect man and able also to subdue his whole body. In my opinion too many who have an audience or a pulpit are not as cautious as they should be; words and ideas matter and can profoundly impact the hearers. Having said that, I hasten to add that much of what I find objectionable theologically is the ‘current orthodoxy’ and many people have come to these views by virtue of the inertia of tradition rather careful and reflective reading of the biblical texts.

(To my conversation partner I wrote the following.) Without discussing how I might engage the man in conversation the substance of my answer to him would be as follows: (1) God did not give him the tumor and there is no biblical evidence that God does this kind of thing. In fact there is ample biblical evidence to the contrary. (2) His beliefs about God may stem from erroneous thinking about the nature of God as it relates to His character. (3) His beliefs about God may stem from having adopted ideas about sovereignty, infinity, omnipotence or omniscience that, though widely held in the church, are not biblical. (4) Jesus is the interpretative lens through which/whom one should read the bible relative to God’s character and intentions for His creation AND Jesus lived (and died, and rose, and ascended) with a view to reclaiming what had been lost as a result of humankind giving authority to the Adversary. (5) The many ways we talk about God’s actions in the cosmos are at best, unfortunate euphemisms and at worst, outright misrepresentations of who He really is. For instance, to say that God ‘allowed’ this man’s tumor in any other sense than is congruent with living in a fallen world where free moral beings have chosen to live in unimaginable rebellion is simply wrong. Others say such things as: “Everything happens for a reason,” or “God has everything under control” or “God’s thoughts are not our thoughts”, none of which are carefully thought through. (6) In brief, God loves this man with the tumor too much to intend to hurt him and then cause his suffering. Any belief to the contrary is a lie. (7) His convictions about God could be different and need to be different for any hope for the healing of his body.

My hope is that as we converse on these questions we start by becoming reacquainted the teaching of Jesus about the nature of the conflict that exists in the cosmos and the nature and extent of His atoning sacrifice as the definitive act of warfare. It is important to emphasize that the tool for a renewing of this man’s mind is the inspired and intelligent re-reading of the biblical texts. It is also important to be mindful of reading the texts carefully and cautiously, aware of the theological horizons of understanding we might be bringing with us as we read and think. We must commit to coming to conclusions about the nature and character of God from a reading of the texts rather than by a reading of the texts as informed by a ‘school of thought’.

On the general question of why suffering exists the answer seems clear; free moral beings (both angelic/demonic and human) chose (and continue to choose) to live their lives outside of what God intended for them. When these choices were made, sin and all of its consequences (both governmental and natural) entered the world and we have been living with the dreadful consequences ever since. God has cooperated with those who love and follow Him and those who understand His ways to battle and win against the Adversary and others who have rebelled. I would add that ALL suffering is directly or indirectly a consequence of the original rebellion in heaven and the later earthly rebellion (which continues to this day) during which humankind relinquished the amazing authority God gave to us over to Satan.

What all of this means for the man with the tumor is that God did not, ‘willy-nilly’ choose to act in afflicting him while others remained in relative good health. This would suggest that God is arbitrary and capricious … unfair in His dealings with some human beings. What this really means is that something has gone terribly wrong in the cosmos as a result of rebellion; the suffering continues while God waits for His reclaimed, renewed and newly authoritative ‘little Christs’ to extend His rule and reign ‘on earth as it is in heaven’.

The man with the tumor ( Note… or those for whom an Augusto-Calvinistic world-view is the horizon of understanding which use to make sense of this for themselves or the suffering man.) is asking the question, ‘Why, if God is all-powerful and all knowing and a God of love, are millions of people suffering and dying? Those who have a reformed theological perspective cannot offer a thoroughgoing and consistent response because they have misunderstood what the texts say about God’s omnipotence and omniscience. They must say that God is love AND because He knows the future as objective realities (that we do not know because we are finite … so the argument goes) there must be a reason for the suffering that exists as a mystery of God’s goodness. This does no good for the sufferer who feels the pain of the tumor and the indignity of being on the receiving end of something so horrible at the hand of God. The other metaphysical issue that enters in has to do with the power of God. If God is powerful enough to stop all sickness and suffering but chooses not to use His power in this way … He is either sadistic or … is there another option?

Here is what, in my opinion, is revealed in the biblical texts. God creates free moral beings capable of choosing to be in an unending love story with Him. This could only be possible if those He created could chose otherwise and … so they did. When God created He took a ‘risk’. This notion of ‘risk’ must be carefully framed, explained, and understood with God’s incomprehensible intelligence, creaturely freedom and cosmic warfare in mind. In brief, freedom to love must have its contradictory. If we cannot choose to accept God’s invitation into love, the eternal love story that the Triune God has experienced, we would not experience what He does nor what He wanted to share. God, by making us free, limited the extent of both, His knowledge and the use of His power. Suffering is caused by free moral agents BUT it can be addressed by God, FAIRLY, only by cooperating with, or working with, those who are living within His intended design and authority. These people are those who have been rescued by Jesus and have undertaken to love God and His creation in acts of restoration.

Implicit in this view is the answer to the question about suffering. Suffering continues in times and places where the rule and reign of God does not exist. On the face of it this means that, His rule and reign do not exist either because the Adversary and its forces have authority (directly or indirectly) and/or because God’s people are not exercising their authority by ignorance, absence of faith, and/or mistaken thinking. Having said this there are instances of ‘abnormality’ and ‘suffering’ that trouble and vex me. For instance, it seems that there are answers in principle for things like genetic defects and the suffering caused by them but it ‘sounds’ presumptuous and ‘clinical’ to offer them.

The implications of this view are staggering and troubling; staggering because it suggests that God is waiting to ‘legally’ intervene in the affairs of men and women, consistent with their freedom on the basis of the faith, actions and character of His people. In other words, and this is the troubling part, there would be far less suffering in the world if God’s people did as they were designed and intended to do. There is also the matter of Jesus’ teaching to his disciples when they asked Him why they couldn’t heal a sick person. Jesus said, “Some things only come out by prayer and fasting,” and then Jesus proceeded to heal the person.

These ideas are more than theological or intellectual titillation. I believe them to be foundational CORE beliefs because they speak of the character of God. There are pastoral, evangelistic, and practical implications of these ideas. Let me give you some instances in the form of questions:

(1) How can one pray for the sick and expect healing when this is incongruent with how they understand God’s character and His ways?

(2) Why would anyone want, or need to prayer, when everything about them and their futures are known by God as a future facts or objective realities?

(3) What do we say to people to whom we are witnessing when they ask the questions the man with the tumor asks?

(4) How can we exonerate the character of God for a world that mocks Him when what they hear from the ‘church’ is the very thing they use as the basis for their claims against Him?

(5) I wonder … do we not see more in the ways of signs and wonders, miracles and healings because our ideas prevent us from really going to a place of deep faith?

(6) Have we become anesthetized to this conversation because we have been round the operating table one too many times?

There are other questions I might ask but the hardest questions are ones I ask of myself.
Praying for the man with the tumor ...Greg