For those of you who don’t know ‘theology-speak’, the term ‘theodicy’ deals generally with the question, "How can a Good God and an Evil World, co-exist?" This is actually one of the central themes in The Shack - Mack finds himself in a situation that screams that question.
A few weeks ago, I ran across the following. I quote one of my all-time favorite authors, Jacques Ellul, who fell asleep a few years ago, but not before he wrote some of the most profound insights I have ever read. I should warn you though…if you decide to delve into some of his work, it is rather like slogging through wet concrete – very slow going because of the weight of his intellect and the translation issues from French to English – but if you persist, you will find diamonds everywhere.
He writes (and I quote this at length because of the wealth of thought it contains);
"Man is so much the prey of the powers, so closely associated with their work, enjoys himself so thoroughly to their profit, desires so much all that they offer, conceives his life to such a degree separated from God, that every approach of God, every positive work of God, appears to him as an unacceptable disturbance and finally an attack against him. When God comes to deliver him, he does not at all perceive his liberation; he protests against the breaking of those marvelous objects, which are his chains or the doors of his prison: the adoored chains. This is clearly the situation of Man."
"And we must take account of the fact that every work of liberation (the process of freeing us) is in fact destructive of the evil environment. And that which assures his liberty is felt by Man asa frightful personal offense. "How can God who is good permit…?" In uttering this phrase so grequently, Man does not envisage for a minute, first of all, that the evil deed is most often the result of the liberty that God allows to Man and of the independence and autonomy that man has seized over against God. Man is responsible for what is done (and he has wished it), but he protests against God for what is done. In short, he would demand that God mechanize him and take his liberty from him."
"Next, that evil also takes place by the interplay of the spiritual powers who act in the world and in society. Finally, that which does ‘evil’ to him can very well be the act of God who liberates him. But this liberation causes suffering. I don not know anything better to compare this to than to an operation. The surgeon who takes out a cnacer destroys the power of death to the profit of the living body. But he removes something of this body, which had become "flesh of his flesh’; he amputates something which had become the body itself. And the patient who does not know what has been done, from what he has been saved, could perfectly well interpret that as a frightful torture, as an illegitimate extracion, being aware only of the pain that remains after the operation is finished."
If you have already read The Shack, you will understand why this relates so well. In the book, I quote my favorite musician, Bruce Cockburn (pronounced Co-burn – which will probably be a relief to some of you), when he sings:
"Though chains be of gold…they are chain all the same."
In another song, Dweller by a Dark Stream, he sings:
" It could have been me put the thorns in your crown
Rooted as I am in a violent ground
How many times have I turned your promise down
Still you pour out your love…Pour out your love
I was a dweller by a dark stream
A crying heart hooked on a dark dream
In my convict soul I saw your love gleam
And you showed me what you’ve done…Jesus, thank-you joyous Son
You entered a life like ours to give us back our own
You wanted us like you, as choosers not clones
You offered up your flesh and death was overthrown
Now salvation is ours…Salvation is ours
I was a dweller by a dark stream
A crying heart hooked on a dark dream
In my convict soul I saw your love gleam
And you showed me what you’ve done…Jesus, thank-you joyous Son
So I’m walking this prison camp world
I long for a glimpse of the new world unfurled
The chrysalis cracking and moistened wings uncurl
Like in the vision John saw…The vision John saw
I was a dweller by a dark stream
A crying heart hooked on a dark dream
In my convict soul I saw your love gleam
And you showed me what you’ve done…Jesus, thank-you joyous Son"
-willie
