The dilemma is stated well by Ivan in Dostoyevsky�s The Brothers Karamazov. In his argument with his saintly brother Alyosha, Ivan makes it clear that he is all too aware of the absurdity of believing in the providence of God in a world of needless suffering, especially the suffering of children. So, in disgust, he returns the ticket of �eternal harmony� to God.

 

Do we dare keep the ticket ourselves today? How can we do that in all honesty? My proposal, building upon Karl Barth�s argument that providence should proceed from Christology, considers the biblical emphasis of what T.F. Torrance has called the vicarious humanity of Christ. This means that Christ in his humanity believes when we find it difficult, if not impossible, to believe, especially when it comes to facing human suffering. Jesus lived a life of perfect faith in, worship of, and service to the Father, even at the cross, yet still believed

in the providence of God. His belief is not simply a model of faith, but it is also vicarious faith. He believed (and believes) for us, as our representative, and in our place, as our substitute. The Son believed in the providence of the Father, as difficult as that is to do in a world of evil and suffering, so that we might believe as well.� ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ��������������

 

Beginning with some introductory remarks on the issue and the proposal, I will then present four theses exploring the implications, promise, and problems of the vicarious humanity of Christ for providence, suffering, and evil.

 

Introductory Remarks with Fear and Trembling: How Do We Discuss the Mystery of Evil?

 

Do I really need to persuade anyone that there is a problem of evil? For those like Ivan, the skeptical brother in Dostoyevsky�s The Brothers Karamazov, the� indictment of a loving and omnipotent God is obvious in the light of dysteleology, needless, gratuitous evil, most obviously seen in the suffering of innocent children.[1] Even if a kind of �eternal harmony� might result in such suffering, Ivan will hand back his �ticket� to such a world. It is not worth it. And in that refusal, he is refusing the morality, if not the existence, of a God who would create such a world.[2]

 

This is our world, too. It is a world of injustice. In Albert Goldbarth�s poem, �Even, Equal,� he describes the �two schoolgirls� found �under half-receded ice, the bruises frozen, into lustrous broaches at their frozen throats.�

 

������������������ Whoever did it is still out there, is free and

������������������ maybe needing more. The word �injustice� doesn�t include

������������������ the choking gall that burns through me - ...[3]

 

In �Meop,� Goldbarth expresses for many what has been lost: the belief that �in some megamatrix substrate (God, or atoms, or Imagination) holds the infinite unalike dots at its body in a parity, and daily life reflects this.� Why? One need to look only at a scenario such as,

 

������������������ ... only yesterday, a girl,

������������������ eleven, was found with the name of a rival gang, Lady Satans,

������������������ carefully cut in her thigh and rubbed with drainpipe acid. Somewhere

������������������ there may be a world where such as these are equally legitimatized, but

������������������ not here in the thick and swirling mists of Planet Albert.[4]

 

�Planet Albert� is my planet, too. Our planet.

 

The doctrine of providence only muddies the water. The question becomes, not just how God can permit or allow evil, but how can we say such a thing if we believe that God controls, let alone, dare we say it, cares, for the universe?[5]

 

Of course, not everyone is an Ivan. For some theologians, providence is the answer to the problem of evil. John Leith claims, �Christians all acknowledge that everything that happens is the will of God.�[6] Maybe not �all Christians,� at least not myself, as strange as that may sound to many. But for some, God is not responsible for evil because, citing the Book of Job, God is not answerable to anyone.[7]

 

Not everyone is an Ivan among the general populace as well, even among those who have suffered incalculable loss. One example is the tragic story of Amy Montgomery, a devout Christian teenager working at a sandwich shop in Wichita, Kansas, who was senselessly slaughtered by a friend of a co-worker attempting to rob the shop. When the murderer was charged with the deed, Amy�s mother appeared to the press outside the courthouse, saying that she had forgiven her daughter�s slayer. Said Mrs. Montgomery,

 

������������������ Everything happens the way it�s supposed to. We have to

������������������ give thanks for this, for this is the will of God. How else

������������������ could she have ever reached the people she was worried

������������������ about, prayed about, but through something like this?

������������������ This is the master plan.

 

Mrs. Montgomery must be respected. She had experienced a kind of loss different from most of the losses you and I will ever face. One could easily psychologize her response as a defense mechanism (but what theodicy isn�t?). Her pain and the way she dealt with the pain must not be cheapened. But for some of us, for the Ivans and potential Ivans among us, like myself, a different response is needed.

 

From David Hume to Annie Dillard, many have spoken cries of anguish against who God is, in a traditional sense, and the nature of such a God�s creation. Given such a world, Hume concludes, God must be either an infant, who does not know better, or decrepit, who cannot do what needs to be done.[8] �God is an underachiever,� cracks Woody Allen. Perhaps a malevolent God is also likely, although not as popular, setting us up for disappointments by giving blessings along with the curses, dreams along with the reality. Annie Dillard echoes Nelly Sachs� exasperation, �Who is like You, O Lord, among the silent, remaining silent through the suffering of His children?�[9]

 

When God does act, it often doesn�t satisfy. Rabbi Akiba may say that God rewards the virtuous and punishes the evil, but this is, for Annie Dillard, like so many theodicies, �harsh all around.�[10] So also the ophthalmologist in Woody Allen�s film Crimes and Misdemeanors was taught by his pious Jewish father that �the eyes of God are all around us,� but finds it easy to murder a blackmailing mistress, getting away with the crime both literally and in his disappearing conscience.[11] The irregularities of God�s creation often are bizarre and seem cruel. �WHAT�S with the bird-headed dwarfs?� cries Dillard.[12] Where is the evidence that God�s �acts� have made any difference? Dillard again:

 

������������������ That is touching, that Allah, God, and their ilk care

������������������ when one ant dismembers another, or note when a sparrow

������������������ falls, but I strain to see the use of it.[13]

 

The preacher prays to God, �All your actions show your wisdom and love.� Dillard wants to scream back, �That�s a lie!�[14] Where has God �cast down the mighty,� working �all things for the good of those who love him�? �When was that?� Annie Dillard asks. �I missed it.�[15]

 

For some persons in pain, being counseled on behalf of a God who causes everything to happen, and therefore is in control, can be cold comfort. �Why are they teaching me to hate God?� Harold Kushner asks.[16] There is a certain �folk theology� in the churches. John Stackhouse observes one such belief, which is so dominant that it has taken on the character of an ecclesiastical �urban myth�:

 

������������������ Someday, in heaven, God will tell us why. God will

������������������ explain it all to us, and we�ll see it all clearly. We may

������������������ not know now, but just be patient: someday all will be

������������������ made known.[17]

 

Stackhouse fails to find this theology in Scripture.

 

 

All Christians acknowledge there is mystery in the relationship between providence and evil. The crucial question may be, How does one approach the mystery? From Luther to Barth, some have lamented that the Church rarely sees providence in a Christological light.[18] For Barth, faith in Christ means that

 

������������������ there is for it no obscurity concerning the nature and

������������������ will and work of the Lord of history, no ambiguity

������������������ concerning His character and purpose, and no doubt

������������������ as to His ability to see to His own glory in this history.[19]

 

Barth is fond of citing John 5:17: �My Father is still working and I also am working.�

 

The Christological implications for providence, though, still remain to be unpacked, it seems to me. One implication that does not seem to have been explored is suggested by T.F. Torrance�s doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ.[20] The implications of Jesus Christ for providence, evil, and suffering are usually seen in one of two ways: One, in terms of Jesus Christ as the revelation of God, a God who is close to us, a God who loves us, as seen in the life and ministry of Jesus. As John Stackhouse says, in Jesus

 

������������������ we see what we desperately need to see: God close to us,

������������������ God active among us, God loving us, God forgiving our

������������������ sin, God opening up a way to a new life of everlasting

������������������ love.[21]

 

A second alternative is prominent in the Fathers. In Christ we see God providing

a model of vicarious suffering.[22] A form of the imitatio Christi, this shows us the benefit of suffering for others, in order to achieve the �greater good.� Stackhouse, while rightly emphasizing the relevance of a �God-manward� movement in the deity of Christ, does not mention the significance of his humanity. The latter model includes the element of Christ�s vicarious work, even that it involves Christ�s suffering, but Torrance�s doctrine of the vicarious humanity of Christ emphasizes that it is the entirety of Christ�s life that was lived for us and on our behalf, not just limited to his death on the cross, or even including the suffering throughout his life. What implications might this have for understanding the relationship between providence and evil? Four theses will suggest some possible directions:

 

 

Thesis One: The vicarious humanity of Christ is based on the incarnation, the revelation of what it means for God to be Father as well as the revelation of what� knowledge of the Father means to an obedient and faithful human being.

 

 

The incarnation must not be taken lightly. The logical conundrum of how the eternal, infinite God can become finite, temporal human being has long been a stumbling block to those considering Christian faith. Whatever may be the result of those deliberations, one thing may be said: The incarnation is an exhibition of the freedom of God. The doctrines of the impassibility and immutability of God have had rough times in recent years, and perhaps rightly so. But they are never to be understood as undermining the fantastic event of �something new� for God, as Torrance puts it, the nature of the incarnation to exert power, not just over our logic, but over our very lives.[23] God is neither incapable of being moved with compassion; nor is God incapable of action: the incarnation powerfully demonstrates both.

 

Indeed, in recent years some theologians such as Clark Pinnock and John Sanders have suggested God�s interaction with created being in the incarnation involves not only the movement of his compassion and his ability to act, but also a kind of vulnerability, a �risk� which is a necessity of genuine love in God and freedom for the creature.[24] As my college professor Jerry Irish once asked, �Can you genuinely love a person without being changed by them?� He was speaking of process theology, but the concerns of what is called the �risk� or �openness� view are the same. John Sanders, in his provocative and engaging book, The God Who Risks: A Theology of Providence, argues that God�s work and words are �open to be discussed,� �open to question, then open to being accepted and rejected.�[25] Genesis 22, in the test of Abraham, reflects God�s desire for genuine �human input,� of faith, of trust.[26]

 

I believe Sanders is right. For too long the Church has behaved as if it believed in grace as some kind of sheer, unyielding power, like that of Green Lantern�s power ring in the old Green Lantern comic books, a coercive power which challenges whether God really is, in his essence, love.

 

But are we ready for this kind of faith, this kind of trust? Certainly the story of Israel is the story of you and me, of humanity,� of our inability and unwillingness to obey our creator. But is not the incarnation the story of God becoming human, in order himself to take up the response for us? God himself provides the �human input�! Even those at the foot of the cross exclaimed, albeit mockingly, �He trusts in God!� (Mt. 27:43). Dostoyevsky�s Ivan will not allow anyone to believe in the morality of God in such a world of needless suffering. But the incarnation is God�s act, not only to provide the revelation of God, but also the genuine human response, especially in the light of the difficulty of belief. Sanders emphasizes the importance of the trust of Jesus: �Who will trust in God? Jesus will! Jesus shows us that we can trust the Father even unto death.�[27] But notice that, for Sanders, this is restricted to the faith of Jesus as only a model, not as a vicarious act. Ivan needs more than a model. A virtuous model may at first inspire, but ultimately will frustrate. The hurts are too deep, the reality is too stark.

 

Ivan�s question is a question of God�s character. Is God loving? Is God caring? In light of the ambiguity of creation, is love and care really that evident? For some, such as Paul Helm, the traditional distinction between the two wills of God is helpful: the will which is expressed in creation, the revealed will (what is, empirically known), in which good and evil co-exist, and the �secret� will (what ought to be, according to God�s ultimate desire).[28] The �problem of evil� arises because of these two wills.

 

Helm has raised the issue of what is ultimately the nature of God as �Father.� The vicarious humanity of Christ speaks, however, of a different revelation of God as Father than a distinction between God as he appears to be and a �God behind God�s back.�[29] The one will of God is seen in Jesus Christ, in his becoming human, and doing for us what we have been unable to do for ourselves. As Barth puts it, God �wills and works what He has revealed as His will and work in Jesus Christ, His Son.�[30] Sanders has rightly seen this distinction between the two wills as a part of the double-mindedness of the tradition: trying to hold together both the God of biblical history and the God of Greek metaphysics.[31] Such a monistic Being is in stark contrast with the richness of the biblical God who reveals himself in history as in an eternal relationship of love between the Father and the Son through the Spirit.[32]

 

However, Sanders seems to create his own problem when he weds language about God to that which is �embedded within the conditions in which God has placed us.�[33] This is part of his plea to view scriptural language concerning God�s actions, such as �God repenting� as univocal, not analogical. Granted, we must speak of God with human language.� But has not God taken upon our �condition� not just to reflect our thoughts about God as Father, based on our experiences (simply as representative), but also to take our place (as substitute), because we do not know God, because we cannot fathom the ways of God? We need Christ�s vicarious knowledge of God in a world which sends us mixed signals. The qualitative distinction between God and humanity does not condemn us to silence, as Sanders would suggest, but rather stresses our need for the Son�s vicarious knowledge of the Father (Mt. 11:27; Jn. 14, 17). So also, the wonders of God�s providence do not point to a coercive God who causes everything to happen in minute detail. As Davies and Allison suggest, the fact that �the hairs of your head are all counted� (Mt. 10:30) is not instruction in meticulous providence, but a reminder of our ignorance, we do not know.[34] But the Son does, for us. What the Son knows is the heart of the Father. We made manifest our ignorance in our betrayal of the Son.� So he prays, �Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.� (Lk. 23:34).

 

Sanders cites Moses� ministry as intercessor (Ex. 32-34) as an example of how God is influenced through �a forceful presentation by one who is in a special relationship with God.�[35] So one would assume that the Father heard the Son because of the �forceful presentation� of his life and sacrifice. But that creates an unfortunate chasm between the Father and the Son, which others have expressed in a doctrine of the atonement in which the Father�s wrath and justice are satisfied by the sacrifice of the innocent Son, a particularly Nestorian temptation in the kind of extreme Calvinism which John McLeod Campbell, the great nineteenth century Scottish theologian had to counter in his book, The Nature of the Atonement.[36] No, the homoousios between the Father and the Son will not permit such a chasm.

 

Sanders is right to emphasize that the love of the Father is not coercive. Love cannot be forced. A genuine relationship of love involves reciprocation.[37] Love does not insist on its own way, he cites from I Cor. 13:4.[38] But the vicarious humanity of Christ has already provided the �reciprocation,� a reciprocation which comes out of a relationship in God himself.[39] The humanity of the Son is that of �the one true Israelite,� in Barth�s words, who perfectly acknowledges that King Yahweh has come among his people.[40] He confesses that Yahweh is Lord, he is different from his creation, but he is no tyrant.[41]

 

Not only does the Son supply the knowledge we lack, but he also fulfills the faith and obedience which the Father deserves and which we need in order to believe in a good and omnipotent God. As Barth reminds us, providence is to be believed, based on a hearing of the word of God.[42] We should not be surprised at Ivan�s difficulty. Langdon Gilkey once commented that the doctrine of providence has declined in the modern world because it seems by definition to go beyond that which religion may speak, �the faith relation.�[43] But perhaps it is faith which is the strongest element in terms of reclaiming providence; not primarily our faith, but the faith of Christ, the one who has heard the word of God. Traditional theology has distinguished between the fides qua creditur (the faith which believes) and the fides quae creditur (the faith which is believed).[44] The knowledge of the Father�s providence for the Son consists of both.

 

The Son is the agent who believes (fides qua creditur) who has the ability to truly believe, �faith as trust,� in Barth�s words, which believes �in spite of all that contradicts it.�[45] Thus, genuine Christian faith is a participation in the prior hearing of the Word of God by Jesus Christ, his faith, obedience, and prayer.[46] The content of what Jesus believes is also of essential importance (fides quae creditur): Jesus believes in God himself, not in creation.[47]

 

The faith of Jesus is the kind of faith which is able to live with the ambiguities of our world, rather than to bow to the now outdated gods of modernity which demand certainty. Todd Speidell observes this contrast between the Son who cries from the cross, �My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?� (Mt. 27:46) (but nonetheless still cries to God!), and themes in the films of Woody Allen, such as in Hannah and Her Sisters.[48] In Hannah, the hypochondriac demands absolute certainty in order to believe in God. I might as well. But Jesus, Speidell contends, does not. His faith on the cross is a genuine faith, because of the cry of abandonment. But I am not one to claim that I could ever have such faith, even with the comparatively little sufferings I have lived through. We need the faith of Jesus, fides qua and quae.

 

Fear of Nestorianism should not keep us, however, from recognizing the importance of the distinctly human will of Jesus, the obedience of the Son to the Father which is part and parcel of his faith. Pannenberg notes that the refusal of Jesus to �be like God� but nonetheless to be �obedient to the point of death - even death on a cross� (Phil. 2:6-8) is a vital reality of God�s trinitarian life, as well as an indication of the distinction between the Creator and the creature.[49] Therefore, Richard Rice, of the �risk� school,� is right to emphasize the genuine struggles which Jesus went through.� He was �one who in every respect has been tested as we are� (Heb. 4:15), �he learned obedience through what he suffered� (Heb. 5:8).[50] Gethsemane was a reality for the Son. Nonetheless, despite this suffering, by Jesus� very life of obedience to the Father, he testifies that God is opposed to evil, he is not the source of evil and everything that happens.[51] But the �risk� view still presents a problem. For example, Sanders� view is that in Gethsemane, the petition to �Abba, Father ... remove this cup from me ...� (Mk. 14:36; Mt. 26:39; Lk. 22:42) signifies �he does not believe that everything must have happened according to a predetermined plan.�[52] Sanders take pains to distinguish his position from that of process theology, that the future is wholly indeterminate. God only limits some of his power, some of his knowledge.[53] True enough, not �everything,� but certainly the cross and resurrection (�the Son of Man must suffer many things ... � Mk. 8:31 et al.) is of the essence of what God has planned and has accomplished, for us! How can the prayer in Gethsemane then be separated from the cross and the resurrection? As Barth puts it, the King of Israel is �both the Planner and the Plan, the Orderer and the Order.�[54]� Not everything is done according to a predetermined plan. But everything concerning the Son is. In his vicarious humanity, the Son is that Plan, he is that Order, in the midst of the chaos of Ivan�s world.

 

 

Thesis Two: The vicarious humanity of Christ speaks of a finished work, which continues to be finished, of one who has already believed, and continues to

believe in the restoration of all things, as our representative and as our substitute.

 

 

Ray Anderson, in his classic essay, �A Theology for Ministry,�� writes of a theology of ministry based on Christ�s ministry, not our own agendas, a �ministry which has been accomplished� in the first century, �and which continues to be accomplished through the Holy Spirit, which indwells and actualizes the life of the Church.�[55] The foundation for this ministry is the vicarious humanity of Christ. But is this not a recipe for determinism, that everything has been �finished� and our lives are lived only as charades under a deterministic God? Is this not the unilateral covenant of God, as Paul Helm sees it, in which God never surrenders the �superintendence of an act,� so that his knowledge and power is never �compromised�?[56]

 

Through Christ�s vicarious faith, obedience, and prayers, we are not left up to ourselves, even our own desires.[57] But this is not a mechanistic kind of determinism. The question needs to be asked, Has God already loved us? It is hard to find an answer better than that of Karl Barth:

 

������������������ Always and everywhere when the creature works, God is there

������������������ as the One who has already loved it, who has already undertaken

������������������ to save and glorify it, who in this sense and to this end has already

������������������ worked even before the creature itself began to work ...[58]

 

�And, if so, how deep is that love? The depth of that love is that God realizes our desperate need, our total inability to believe in a loving and just God, or to believe in a world of meaning and purpose, so that, in his Son, he believes for us and in our place.

 

But where is this victory of God, as Annie Dillard complains? �Jesus is Victor?� Even Donald Bloesch questions Barth on this point. For Bloesch, the devil has not been defeated, only his power has been curtailed.[59] Given the tragedy of the two schoolgirls found murdered under the ice, it is hard to believe that is even the case.

 

The finished work of Christ should not be viewed apart from the first step, his solidarity, his identification with humanity in the incarnation, the Word who actually became our flesh (Jn. 1:14), not that of a pristine, ideal humanity. In this context, he continues to suffer with us, as contemporary theology from Bonhoeffer to Moltmann has rightly emphasized.[60] This solidarity may take many forms, but it is particularly profound at the cross, with the cry of abandonment, �My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?� (Mt. 27:46). Apart from the questions this naturally poses for the relationship between the Father and the Son, the cry also suggests an identification of the Son with our suffering, with our cries, with our complaints. With the cry, as Torrance puts it, Jesus takes the questions of humanity and makes �those questions his very own by penetrating into the existence of the questioners, even to the point of their ultimate rejection of God ...�[61] Sanders reminds us that the lament tradition in the Scriptures, as expressed in Ps. 22 as quoted by Jesus,� is not to be seen as an example of immature faith.[62] In terms of unspeakable evil, Kenneth Surin suggests, the only response may be that of Elie Wiesel: �Where is God now? ... He is hanging here on the gallows.�[63] At least God is along for the ride, with us.

 

However, like the question of the victory of God, is the solidarity, this representation, enough, Stacy Johnson argues, especially in the light of Auschwitz?[64] In fact, by itself, does solidarity become a pitiful, cruel joke? John Roth asks, Do we really need such a God?[65] We can complain very well, ourselves, thank you. His point is well taken. But what we do need is for someone to believe for us, in order to complain. One cannot lament to a God whom one does not believe in. Why lament to a God of limited power or malevolent will? Jesus� cry from the cross is a lament which we need in order to represent us.

 

But we do need something more than representation. We need a substitute, not just to pay the penalty for our sins, such as in the penal substitutionary theory of the atonement, but in the entirety of our lives, including our ability to believe in the providence of God.[66] Pannenberg observes that in the modern world, in a perverse reverse of the atonement, modern people have substituted themselves for God, expelling God from creation and seeking to take responsibility for the social and natural order of the world.[67] But as Barth suggests, providence is not unrelated to substitutionary atonement, as we see in the substitute of the lamb for Isaac in Gen. 22.[68] God provides something else. In the Apocalypse, no one is worthy to open the seals of the book, until the Lion of Judah appears, the Lion who becomes a Lamb (Rev. 5:1-14).[69] The atonement should not be seen as an act of �naked divine power,� as in some deterministic theologies,� Torrance argues, for II Cor. 5:21 speaks of Christ being made �to be sin� for us, one who �actually substitutes himself the Holy One in our place and takes our sin and judgment upon his own heart, and our death into his own divine life, exchanging the poverty of our existence for the riches of his grace, ...�[70] So, Jesus asked the question of the cry of abandonment from an ontological depth which we cannot reach, from the depth of the one in unique intimacy with the Father, the one who can also say, �Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.� (Lk. 23:46). Substitution is that deep, that radical.��

 

Furthermore, there is an eschatological substance involved in Jesus�s vicarious faith as well. It is a good thing that Isaac is unable to fulfill the sacrifice. It is a good thing in acknowledging our inability to believe, that someone needs to take our place, in believing that the victory has already been won, that there will be a great judgment in which the wicked will be punished and the righteous rewarded (Mt. 18:23-35).[71] There is a certainty about this in the Gospels which is not found in Sanders� limited foreknowledge of God in which God only �forecasts what he thinks will happen,� although in another place he does look forward �to God�s work in the future, when he will abolish death ...�[72] The eschatological hope, a genuine knowledge which enables us to endure, is the object of faith.

 

 

Thesis Three: The providence of God is neither the blind acceptance that whatever happens is God�s will, nor God surrendering us to our own devices, but God�s intercession in the vicarious humanity of Christ, providing a space for us to live and come to faith, with the assurance that the Son has heard and has answered the word of our Father in heaven.

 

 

There is a temptation concerning the providence of God. And with every temptation, it is the temptation to misuse the good, as in the temptation of Jesus by the devil to be fed, to claim the kingdoms of the world, or to depend on the providence of God if he would cast himself down from the pinnacle of the temple (Mt. 4:1-11; Lk. 4:1-13). But does not Paul Helm represent those theologians who succumb to this temptation when he says that providence is a synonym for �whatever happens�?[73] Or Calvin can speak of providence as God regulating �all things that nothing takes place without his deliberation.�[74] �Fortune� and �chance� are considered by him to be �pagan� concepts.[75] According to Zwingli, �the hairs of our head� as �numbered� in Mt. 10:29-30 means �that even the things which we call fortuitous or accidental are not fortuitous or random happenings, but are all effected by the order and regulation of the Deity.�[76] But Jesus in the desert withstood the temptation of viewing providence in such a mechanistic way, it seems to me. Is a blind acceptance of �fate� necessarily any more Christian than a belief in �fortune� or �chance�? Are Ivan�s children fated to suffer?� But what is the alternative?

 

Is there perhaps even a place from a Christian perspective for, if not �fortune� and �chance,� but at least a kind of independence of creation, despite the beliefs of many in the tradition? Certainly we are deep into the doctrine of creation here. Gordon Kaufman suggests that �the act of God� be understood as signifying only God�s grand design, his �master act� for the whole of creation, not the parts.[77]� Within such a creation exists the natural physical laws we are so aware of since the Enlightenment, as well as the place of human responsibility.[78] Few want to be called a deist, but a practical deism is often an attractive possibility. The absurdity of random evil makes it even more attractive. But what does the vicarious humanity of Christ have to say to this?

 

The essence of the Christian faith is the startling proclamation of, in Barth�s words, �the God who Himself became a creature.�[79] As a creature, he was also a human being, a responsive human being, with all the indications of a free will, even to be able to say to the Father, �not what I want but what you want� (Mt. 26:39). The Son proclaims, again in Barth�s words, that �God is not exalted in the suppression of the creature.�[80] Torrance argues cogently that the doctrine of the contingent creation is not only dependent on God, but has also been given its own rationality, so that it has its own relative independence. This is the basis for scientific investigation.[81] However, the Son is also an example of what it truly means to be human: to be free and obedient to the Father. In fact he shows how absurd it is to consider freedom apart from obedience, as foreign as that is to our experience. But he is more than just an example of God�s providence. He takes our place. In a world of Ted Bundys and schoolgirls drowned under the ice by twisted ghouls, we see one who believes in God when we have no reason to believe. The contingent nature of creation, as much as it depends on divine origin and sustenance, does not cry everywhere, �God!�. It cries more often than not with Hobbes� characterization of humanity in a state of nature: lives lived that are solitary, brutal, poor, nasty, and short. �Fortune� and �chance� may not be Christian concepts, but we have to live in their realities at this moment. That may be the price of human freedom, to live in such a universe. The Son�s independence, though, takes the place of our twisted independence, promising that one day, his kind of independence will be ours. This is a kind of independence that is neither a slave to our short-sighted selfish agendas, nor is it finally determined by the indifference of nature, but by the resurrection from the dead. Jesus was no fool. He knew what would happen to the sparrows. But the nature of faith is not sight (II Cor. 5:7). His faith in the Father said that �not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father� (Mt. 10:29). The Father would have the last word. Just as his own fate was to include a cross, so he saw the cross in all of creation. Yet that cross would not be the last word.

 

The freedom of the Son is integrally connected to the freedom of God. God is free to become the creature in order to rescue us from our tragic predicament. Only a free God can create a free creature, in contrast to a panentheism such as represented by Cynthia Rigby that, because it believes in such a connection between God and creation, has to say, �God cannot choose to become human.�[82] Freedom is a tough gig, it�s a tough town to play in, whether it be the freedom of nature or human freedom. But because of God�s freedom, he can take up our debacle, enabling us to participate in the life and destiny of the Son. In Barth�s words, in terms of our cries of despair, �He was human asking,� the One who already did �hallow� the Father�s name, and the One who �is already heard and answered.�[83]

 

 

Thesis Four: Evil and suffering are not to be faced as an inevitable part of� God�s will. We know this from Christ�s stance against evil, which is vicarious because only in him do we see the dynamic of a love to God and others which is both free and obedient. This vicarious existence is a critique of �greater good� theodicies in particular, allowing for our laments because of the faith of Jesus.

 

 

Ivan has returned the ticket, the ticket to a world of �eternal harmony,� because of gratuitous evil, such as the suffering of innocent children.� Can we blame him?

 

Some would say, no, there is a �greater good� which comes out of evil. Paul Helm argues convincingly that whether you have a �risk� or a �no-risk� view of providence, it is hard to relieve God of at least the ultimate responsibility for evil.[84] Even if God has to allow evil for the sake of loving relationships or free will, it is ultimately God�s responsibility for creating such a world. At this point, interestingly enough, Helm and Sanders agree, although Sanders would not like language of God �causing� evil.[85] However, for Helm, God is not �guilty of moral evil� because it is not evident what �law� God would have broken. For there might be a �greater good� which we are not aware of.[86] It is true that life teaches us that wisdom can come from adversity, �the awful paradox,� as Reynolds Price remarks.[87] Of course, the needless suffering of children would not be answered by this (despite Helm�s incredible belief that they will ultimately see the reason for their suffering).[88] The �soul-making� theodicy of John Hick would also be vulnerable at this point.[89] Kenneth Surin�s point is well taken: Ivan does not think that the �greater good,� perhaps including �soul-making,� creating a kind of spiritual musclemen, is worth the untold suffering of the innocents.[90] And, most damning, as many such as James McClendon have pointed out, such theodicies end up attempting to make evil tolerable, and even respectable.[91]

 

What is Jesus� place in all of this? There is no gratuitous evil, Helm claims, because of the cross. It had a purpose, so every evil has a purpose.[92] But against this I contend, nowhere is the vicarious humanity of Christ more relevant. If Christ were only a moral example, Helm would be right. But Christ is more than that. His life, death, and resurrection are unique, and uniquely vicarious, done for us and in our place. As such, the vicarious humanity of Christ is a critique of reading into natural and moral evil all sorts of divine purposes. Yes, suffering may bring some �good,� but only de facto, by fact, by coincidence, but not de jure, by law, for the law of God�s purpose of humanity is found in Jesus Christ. For Christ�s faith, obedience, and prayer for us presents us the true order by which be recognize evil for what is: absurd, opposed to God, and therefore, something we are to fight against.[93] Christ� faith, obedience and prayer for us is trust that God is good and all-powerful and can work his purposes �in spite of� the absurdity of evil and suffering. Only he can take back Ivan�s ticket, for us.[94]

 

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