Think about it: The Nihilistic system says that since nothing truly has objective, true existence, nothing has purpose. Everything is meaningless, absurd, and unimportant. Few philosophers have been able to admiringly employ a nihilistic way of life (most are inconsistent; others, like Nietzsche, become invalids), but most of us find a way to work nihilism into every day life.

The central tenet of nihilism is really a question: “who cares?” How many times have you heard someone say that? How many times have you said it, just this week? The truth is that question is a very nihilist question. It is often used rhetorically to indicate something about which no one has a rational reason to care. But if an reasonable, infinite, personal-Creator God truly is there, and truly is sovereign, and has truly made us in His image, then everyone should care about everything, because everything has purpose. Only in a random, absurd world would something be completely devoid of purpose. To view something as without purpose is to disregard its unique creation, and thus its Creator.

That the tree outside my house is wet with rain is significant, because it has a significant Creator with significant sovereignty over what happens to the tree. There are examples in Scripture of God giving significance to seemingly unimportant natural events; perhaps one of the most striking is Proverbs 6:6: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.” This verse introduces a small section in which Solomon shows great observation of ant life, particuarly as it relates to dilligence and work. But that might be all well and good, if Solomon were interested in insects. But the most striking thing about what he says is that the way of the ants provide a picture of how humans should live. He commands the sluggard to consider the ways of the ant. The ant works and stores food. “Who cares” might be a question the sluggard would ask. Solomon answers, “God cares, and you should too.”

If ants carry significance, surely many things and people we disregard do too. Observe a tree, a cloud, an ant, or a stranger. Look at them, and marvel at your Creator God who invents and sustains and cares and watches and never sleeps (Pslam 121:3). Nihilism will threaten to shrink the earth from an image of the glory of God to mere absurdity, and a means to an ultimately self-saturated end. Everything is significant, it is always put there by a significant Someone.

First, it should be emphasized that a world filled with pain and evil and suffering is the only world in which the Gospel seems anything but irrelevant. When Christ said that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19:24), he wasn’t talking about the extent of the atonement. He stated a universal truth that riches, in a very large majority of cases, inherit the trust and confidence and love that God demands of a person. Middle-class Americans number among the wealthiest people in the world, and a life of pain and hardship seems so reprehensible and far off that their existence challenges our shallow beliefs in God. By contrast, when Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” He was specifically contrasting against the rich and self-satisfied. Granted, He was not talking exclusively of those in physical poverty, but his choice of the word “poor” rather than something like “humble” or “lowly” indicates He thought very particularly about those who have no rational basis to trust in anything but God.

Christ shines more intensely against the colors of pain and poverty and suffering than against pelf and wealth and fame. Therefore, Christians should use our pain-soaked world as a cause to see and savor and hold up the Gospel as the beautiful good news it really is, to rich and poor.

So then, pain is not irrelevant. But we are still asked to account for a God who would allow something like the cyclones (or tsunamis, or Katrina, or the Holocaust, or persecution of Christians) to happen. I see at least three possible answers that can be given:

1) God didn’t stop the cyclones because He could not.

2) God didn’t stop the cyclones because He was punishing the people of Myanmar for their sins.

3) God didn’t stop the cyclones because He has a purpose in them, and that purpose is ultimately good.

The first answer is appealing because it seems to resolve all the tension immediately and simply, without impugning God’s character. The problem with it though is that, held up against Scripture, it’s simply bogus. God tells us in the book of Job that He laid the foundations of the earth and closed up the doors of the sea (Job 38:4,8). This does not sound like a God who has no control over His creation. Likewise, we marvel with the disciples over the Son of Man’s ability to stop the wind and waves with a simple authoritative rebuke (Mark 4:41). So the first option simply does not square with a biblical view of God.

The second answer is not particularly popular but it is biblical, as God does threaten nationwide catastrophe on peoples who do not repent (Jonah). The problem with using this answer, however, is demonstrated by Jesus’ response to those who asked him about a recent tragedy.

1Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” ~Luke 13:1-5

Jesus answers very clearly that it was not because of sin that God allowed Pilate to massacre these people. The answer just wasn’t that simple, but God’s message to the survivors was indeed simple: Repent, or perish along with the Galileans.

Which brings us to the third option, which I think is the best. Christ’s words to the people did not try to excuse God or explain why He did what He did; instead, Jesus gave the relevant message: Repent. Life is not guaranteed, and neither is more time to get right with God. Perhaps in not answering the question, Christ actually did give the answer. God’s ways are higher than our ways. To understand the ultimate purpose of God is beyond us, but we do know this much

1) Christ calls us to repent and be saved

2) Christ calls us to love the Lord our God with all our heart (Mark 12:29-30)

3) Christ promises that whatever happens cannot separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39), and for those who love HIm, are always good (Romans 8:28).

What can we make of the cyclones? We can make the Gospel out of it. We can feed the starving, water the thirsting, and clothe the naked in Jesus’ name. Then we can proclaim the great truths of the love of God in Christ. The purpose of the storm is the same as the purpose of the sun: the Gospel.

The Emergent church movement places great emphasis on uncertainty. Authors like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren are very quick to insist that the only authentic way to communicate to others is to admit one’s own lack of certainity regarding the world.

…when we talk about faith, the word “faith” and the word “certainty,” we’ve got a whole lot of problems there. What do we mean by “certainty”? If I could substitute the word “confidence,” I’d say, yes, I think there are things we can be confident about, and those are the things we have to really work with.

-Brian McLaren, The Emerging Church (Part II), Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly

McLaren believes “certainty” is something human beings, even Christians, do not possess. It should be noted that the word “confidence” typically connotates something which may or may not have a rational basis for belief. It simply refers to the amount or condition of the attitude of the confident person towards the object. To say that something is certain, however, does not refer to the individual but to the thing proper. A certain event is a quality of the thing independent of other people’s confidence.

Understanding the difference between confidence and certainty gives great insight into Emergent theology. This is precisely the same Kierkegaardian theology of “faith” that is so prevalent in modern evangelicalism. To Kierkegaard, the true essence of spirituality was an existential condition that disregarded reason and logic. In other words, a person’s certainty is in fact the object which is certain to happen. A person’s faith, in the supreme existential condition, does not describe an attitude towards the object of the faith, but in fact defines the object. The object is the faith, and the faith is the object.

Thus, Kierkegaard opened the door to the value of epistemological attitudes regardless of their object. Traditional philosophy (as well as common sense) has dictated that the value of a particular faith is directly proportional to the reasonable certainty of the object. If the object was unworthy of the faith, the faith was useless. If it was worthy, the faith was warranted and useful. This is not the attitude of Kierkegaard and McLaren; they believe inherent value lies in the irrationality of the certainty (which has no object to describe but itself).

The great irony of this is that Emergent theology falls exactly into the same epistemological trap as the fundamentalism it abhors. Fundamentalism treats zeal as virtuous in most cases, regardless of the rationality or the warrant for it. Emergent theology goes 180 degrees in the opposite direction but on the same vehicle. Reasonable faith is warranted based on the quality of the object. Therefore, if the object’s certainty warrants confidence (as Christians have historically held their beliefs do), it would be completely irrational to not have the confidence.

Mr. McLaren needs to examine whether he believes Christianity because he has confidence in its truth, or for some other reason. As C.S. Lewis pointed out, if Christianity is actually false, no honest man would believe it, no matter how much it might help him.

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