creation

Death Row Letters: The Hiddenness of God

Rick TryonLeave a comment

Howdy, I trust all is well with you as you sit here on death row with the rest of us.

Someone recently asked me why an all-loving and all-powerful God would hide and allow for so many folks to doubt His existence.

The so called ‘hiddenness of God’, which has been debated in philosophical/theological discussions for a long time, raises the question of why God doesn’t just make His presence undeniably clear to everyone.

Do we ask why the clockmaker doesn’t show himself every time we look at a big, beautiful grandfather clock? Nope. Because the clock is proof of the clockmaker.

God isn’t hidden, you can see Him everywhere you look.

Psalm 19:1-2 – The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. (KJV)

How can any intelligent person look at the creation and not see the Creator? So, no, God is not hidden – people who claim He is are in denial.

Romans 1:19-21 – Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

Not only has God revealed Himself through the Book of Creation, He has also shown Himself perfectly through the written Word of God, the Bible, and in complete fullness by the Word made flesh, Jeshua our Messiah, the only begotten son of God.

Even so, I understand the argument: Why doesn’t God just do a bunch of magic tricks for everyone all the time so that they will see Him and love Him?

Well, part of the answer to that question is imbedded in the question itself. See if you can figure it out before our next little chat when we’ll dig a little deeper into the hiddenness of God.

Until then,
Your fellow death row occupant

Death Row Letters: Two Kinds Of Evil

Rick TryonLeave a comment

Greetings, fellow death rowers.

Let’s pick up where we left off last time where we were discussing one of the main arguments atheists have against the existence of God, which is the problem of evil.

We’ll probably spend a lot of time talking about this in our correspondence here, so let’s start off with defining the two kinds of evil.

Moral Evil

First, there is moral evil, or human evil. Simply put, moral evil is defined as the willful acts of human beings – like murder, rape, thievery, destruction etc.

Lots of that going on in the world, right? Always has been.

Human nature is, by default, depraved and desperately wicked. It’s the natural state as a result of the primeval and continuing disobedience to and hatred for God.

Jeremiah 17:9 – The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

You can’t blame God for moral evil, we’re not robots or puppets. God does provide grace and protection for those who claim it in faith, but murder, genocide, and all manner of horribleness is not on God, it’s on the freewill ickiness of people.

Natural Evil

Second, you’ve got your natural evil, which is stuff like earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, pestilence and disease etc. You can’t really blame a human being for an earthquake that kills thousands of people.

But can you blame God for causing those awful things to happen, or at least for allowing them to happen? Well, ‘blame’ is a pretty harsh word, but yes I think we can say God does allow natural evil to happen.

The question is ‘for what purposes’ and ‘under what circumstances’ does He allow earthquakes and tsunamis and cancer to have their way with human beings?

I’ll leave you with this to chew on for now and we’ll dig deeper in my next letter.

Romans 8:22-23 – For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

Ciao for now,
Your fellow death row occupant