Six years later in January of 2010, another devastating earthquake hit a small town 16 miles away from the heavily populated city of Port-au-Prince, the capital city of Haiti.  The quake measured 7.0 on the Richter scale, and the death toll according to the Haitian government was 230,000 with 300,000 injured and 1,000,000 left homeless.

No more than a month later, an even more severe earthquake measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale hit off the coast of the Maule region of Chili, devastating coastal towns thought the region. Although the death toll was not as high as the Asian tsunami or the Haitian earthquakes, local news services at the time reported that more than 1.5 million people had been displaced.

This was not the first time such visceral evil and suffering had jarred the minds and hearts of people in this decade.  From an American perspective, the beginning of this century was marred by a horrifying display of terrorism as the infamous events of 9/11 flashed before our eyes on television and computer screens across the world.  People all over the country, unaccustomed to violence so immanent in their lives, sought to find answers and consolation.  How could this kind of evil have happened to our country?  Some people turned to religion to answer questions.  Church attendance grew for a time.

However, the Tsunami of 2004 awoke in men and women of this generation the realization of a different kind of evil – one that could not be blamed on men, but on whimsical natural forces of the earth.  No longer could the senseless violence and the deaths of thousands be blamed on moral agents as we had been culturally accustomed to thinking about evil over the last 3 years, but was instead the fault of an “act of God.”  A discomfort with religion and its attempts to explain such suffering began to emerge.  Both the atheist and the theist could see a common enemy behind the 9/11 attacks, but with the horrors of a natural disaster now in the forefront, the national and international religious communities began to struggle with answers for questions they were not used to addressing.

In some cases, Christians and religious leaders could not digest the events of the Tsunami or other instances of natural evil without readjusting their views of the goodness or power of God.[2] Outspoken atheists seemed to find real proof that the claim of the Christian God being all-powerful and loving was illogical.[3] Outspoken Christians unconcerned with correlating these events with God’s character were quick to see them instead as being a righteous judgment against people who deserved it.  Others saw it as an act of God that was in some way beneficial to the human race or more specifically to enlightened Christians.  As it turned out, there were a lot of bad explanations for the reasons behind these terrible disasters, but there was an absence of any good ones.  Why would God allow such devastation?  Many more thoughtful and rational religious thinkers agreed: there was no answer.[4]

The Need to Discuss the Unanswerable: Towards a Theology of Meaning

Regardless of the final conclusion that an answer to the problem of natural evil is impossible, there is still the need for dialog regarding corollary topics, such as God’s nature and the purpose of a human being.  To many who struggle with the reality of natural evil and believe God is good and all-powerful, this is a desirable and fruitful task, one where definitive clues can be found that will ignite our imagination.

We will first look at the struggles in answering this question by biblical authors and early church leaders.  In modern times beginning during the time of the Enlightenment, there has been an apparently inescapable trend to use discoveries and theories of science in this task.  With the emergence of Darwinism, the face of creation theology drastically changed.  Many within the Christian community up until the current day struggle to adopt the theories of naturalistic evolution at the expense of biblical inerrancy.  Some, however, do not and continue to have a rational perspective within the Christian scientific community.

A starting point for questions regarding natural evil would probably be one that looks to the creation of man and the physical world.  Why is our natural environment deadly or dangerous?  What happened in the history of God and his creation that made things the way they are?  A presupposition seems to lurk behind this question– that things are not what they are supposed to be.  It is one I believe haunts every person regardless of their worldview– a question so rooted in the mind of every man that it has become a common theme across myths in nearly every culture since the beginning of time.  This truth is not so much found within their content, but by the fact that we have myths at all– stories that try to explain deep questions that haunt the human existence.  It seems the primary goal of a good creation theology is to seek an explanation for why evil exists in the world today[5] when it is assumed that it should never have been there in the first place.  This is an important: it is not that our gut instinct tells us that things will be corrected by the universe some day, but that things ought to have been right all along.

But before looking for clues about natural evil from the events following creation, an even more fundamental examination must take place, one that is existential in nature.  It comes in the form of a grasping for meaning by those who face real tragedy and must come to grips with it.  Why does God not reveal apparently important things to us, especially things regarding experiences that have the potential to tax us emotionally and spiritually to the brink?  Why does God remain silent as to its meaning or ultimate purpose with us—with people whom he has a loving relationship? Didn’t he himself suffer on Earth with clear purpose?  Shouldn’t we likewise be knowledgeable of the reasons behind our portion?

Behind these questions lie ones even more primary in nature: why do we seek so strongly to find meaning in our lives, especially in the arena of suffering and pain?[6] Why is the natural inclination of men to seek meaning in their suffering when other valid, albeit less acceptable explanations, exist which we at times are all too eager to offer up when consoling others?  Is a desire to find meaning in suffering a selfish one?  It seems a corollary area of study alongside the study of suffering would be something akin to a theology of meaning.  It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to understand this primary motivation for seeking answers about evil.  If we do not start our inquiry here, we will not solve the problem at its source.  Theodicies constructed in this fashion are like pain killers taken without tracing the source of the pain.  All theodicies and explanations for evil in the world stem from this desire: to find meaning behind why we suffer.

Is it possible the desire for meaning is similar in nature to the desire for God?  It is one that is seduced by a thousand false alternatives: a good job or perfect marriage; to achieve them is to experience disappointment if what we desired in their consummation could not be found in them.[7] As Augustine is so often quoted, “Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.”[8] Maybe similar also is the nature of the multiple dimensions of love.  According to C.S. Lewis[9] who was likely influenced by Platonism[10], the lower levels of love, such as eros, seem to have been designed not as the ultimate fulfillment of relational desire, but as gateways into a selfless realm.  Even more so they are pointers or signposts: that once experienced with an excessive expectation beyond its intended design, leads to disappointment that painfully but thankfully points us to something greater—ultimately culminating in a sincere adoption of a selfless, agape love.  Eros can best be experienced when it is enjoyed within its designed sphere just like a good job can be best experienced if our hearts have found God and so its desire is regulated to something more appropriate than one that only a relationship with God could fulfill.

Does the desire for meaning follow a similar pattern?  In our suffering, we find ourselves in a position to strongly desire meaning to explain it.  Pat answers will not suffice because our pain demands truth, and our selfishness which is normally an enemy in intellectual thought naturally steering us towards self-centered answers becomes instead an ally.  In our desire to find meaning, we may in some circumstances find answers on a factual level that nonetheless remain unsatisfactory: we were robbed because the criminal was a drug addict in desperate need of money and not in his right mind.  Although we may see beneficial outcomes, such as a newfound knowledge in how to add more security to our house and keep our family safe, we will often take the search for meaning to the next level because the first one proved unsatisfactory– to inquire of the governing bodies of the universe as to why such an event was meaningful in our lives.

Maybe we are told that an idea or force, such as karma, is responsible, or that innocent suffering is needed for the benefit of the cosmos in some mystical way.   Another answer is that the ultimate purpose of evil in our lives is for our learning benefit. It seems in my experience however that ideas, no matter how well constructed, objectively true, or strongly believed, seem inadequate to satiate the desire for meaning.  They feel to me to be a secondary product of a more primary source; the explanations of the rational minds of men to explain the indirect workings of a more primary governor of reality.   Ideas and explanations will never satisfy a desire to find meaning; only an audience and a relationship with the Creator of all reality will.[11]

This is an important point: it is an interactive relationship with God, not an idea of God that contains the satiation for our desire for meaning.  The divine relationship satisfies our desire for meaning like food satisfies our hunger, not pictures of food or the concept of food.  The idea that God exists and has all the attributes of classical theism is not the object of meaning’s satisfaction because the idea of an all powerful God is still that—an idea. This is why deistic forms of Christianity fail to provide answers to the problem of evil.  If we encounter God, the Creator of the universe, and we are told categorically that he loves us and that he is in control in convincing ways, is that not the very end result of our desire for meaning? Now the lower levels can be comprehended because they have a satisfactory context or framework with which to extract meaning from.  Returning to our earlier event of theft, the factual evidence of the situation is now more satisfactory because it is understood in its proper context (that it only provides a lesser level of meaning but is missing the ultimate context): The criminal who robbed me was desperate for money, but God loves me (and the thief!) and is ultimately in control of all things, which he often reminds me when I talk with him.

The deeper hearts of men are not fooled: a driving force or an idea can never be other than a secondary product of a more primary source. Do not the ideals of love, charity, and selflessness become more comprehensible and livable once we are in a relationship with the Creator?  Instead of a wooden application of them, a deeper, more enjoyable adherence to them is possible because their importance and meaning to our lives is understood in the context of their Creator.  This perspective may give some insight into explaining the rationality of Christian theism in light of criticism based on the Platonic Euthyphro dilemma.[12]

And so it was with Job.  Job received what he needed most: an audience with God himself.  Without the divine relationship, the ultimate consummation of our desire for meaning, how could the lesser levels of meaning be understood with satisfaction?  If, theoretically, Job was told about the heavenly meetings between God and Satan by one of the bene Eloheim, the Sons of God of the heavenly court observing the story from both realms, he might not have been satisfied.  He might have been even more confused and possibly more angry or in greater despair.  If he were told possible ideas behind God’s reasons, such as God wanting to make an example of his life to tell the world a new truth, he would not have been satisfied either.  Truth and ideas, no matter how good, would seem sour in the faces of his dead children.

We are never told about God and Job’s later interactions.  If our model is somewhat correct, we could tentatively say that with their relationship intact, God could reveal the lower levels of meaning regarding Job’s plight.  Maybe God only revealed those details to a glorified Job, whose mind and heart could only then comprehend its purposes.  In the end, it seems ideals are mapped to a relational person who embodies them, and it is that Person who gives them intrinsic meaning in a waterfall-like process.  This can be seen in a lesser degree by the person of King David, who represented God’s ideals, and who men respected a great deal and would die for, and who in some way inspired those ideals to be upheld by his people with more force than if David never were.  This may be another facet of the way we were intended to be as made in the image of God.

Unlike the similar model of the dimensions of love which seems to follow an upward experiential path from eros to agape, it seems the path of meaning must ideally take a top-down experiential path even though its arrival at the top came from questions from below.  A relationship with God is required for adequate satisfaction to be found at lower levels.  However, like love, agape transcends all lower forms, and similarly, a relationship with God transcends the need to comprehend meaning at lower levels.  Even though Job may never have understood why such suffering occurred in his life during his time on earth, his relationship with God satisfied him.

Perhaps this theory of meaning has links to other theological thought.  Anselm of Canterbury proposed that all Christian doctrine and by extension, all knowledge and meaning about our experiences in our life, require a relationship with God as a starting point:  “Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this, too, I believe, that, unless I first believe, I shall not understand.[13]”

So returning to our current discussion on natural evil, we can say that a desire to find meaning in suffering was intended to lead the suffering person ultimately to a relationship with God to find satisfaction in our desire for meaning in the events of our lives now understood in their proper context.  It is not the purpose of suffering that leads us to God, but the outcome of a desire to find meaning behind it, of which suffering is only one manifestation among an infinite number we find in our earthly experiences.  As was mentioned before, according to C.S. Lewis observations of joy in our lives may lead us down a similar path.  Pain does have the advantage– of being the impetuous for a search for meaning not idly undertaken in one’s spare time, but rather pursued with great desperation and awareness of potential damage to our spirits if unsuccessful.

Again, this is not unlike a man’s sexual desire leading him to fall in love, marry, and ultimately selflessly care for the well being of other human being (his wife).  In the context of the higher agape (selfless) love, eros (romantic love) is more enjoyed because it is relieved of the burden of excessive importance attached to it that only a participation in agape could satisfy.

The remainder of this paper will seek to wade through these lower levels of meaning for clues and glimpses of answers behind why we suffer though the hands of the natural world.  Clues are however all we will receive in this lifetime as to the ultimate meaning behind why we suffer.  Until then, we have what we most desperately need in full measure– a relationship with our Creator.

The Early Church Response and Modern Revisions

During the first centuries of the Christian church, there emerged two prevailing models for creation and the fall that dealt with theodicies regarding natural evil – Irenean and Augustianian.[14]

The Ireanean Model

The Ireanean model, championed and revised in modern times by John Hick[15], and Richard Swineburne[16] sees the fall as part of an overall process of unfinished creation that ultimately leads to salvation and fulfillment at the end of time.  The fall of man and the ushering in of a dangerous world rife with suffering because of its chaotic incompleteness has always been an integral part of this overall rocky but creative process.  Natural evil is not really “evil,” and the fall never really was a true “fall,” and creation has not yet been completed.  God declaring his creation good really meant ‘good’ in a potential sense and in no way a literal one.  From suffering in the natural world we learn to become more mature in our spiritual walk with God and learn to distinguish between right and wrong because of the pain that occurs (natural evil) when a wrong choice is made.

To myself and many others, to be told that the deaths and suffering of untold thousands due to earthquakes is not really tragic and must be thought of instead as a stepping stone towards helping spiritual people become more spiritual seems outrageous and wrong.[17] It doesn’t work well on the micro-scale of physical suffering in the life of an individual either.  Is this a realistic avenue to take– to tell a person who lives with severe pain or suffers from a ravaging disease such as cancer that their perception of this is misguided and should really not be seen as suffering or evil at all, but simply the remnants of an unfinished creation that’s really for our benefit?  Such a theodicy is ripe for attack, one that happened quite scathingly during the post-Christian time and culture of the Enlightenment by Voltaire[18] and later completely decimated by Dostoevsky in his nearly canonized literary work on the topic of suffering in The Brothers Karamazov[19].

I think C.S. Lewis’ theory on desire mentioned earlier can be once again called upon to critique this view.  In a chapter entitled “Hope” in Mere Christianity[20], Lewis puts forth a theory that our desire for something points to the existence of an object of its satiation.  He uses this concept to induce that because we are left wanting in our experiences on earth, it can be logically induced that our hearts long for a place that cannot be found in this world: our hearts long for heaven.  He seems to be using an inductive ontological argument, one similarly set forth by Anselm of Canterbury (although it was more deductive in nature) that our thoughts about God prove his existence.[21] In regards to our current purposes, it seem logical to believe that our intuition telling us that something is wrong with the physical world arises from some innate and a priori concept that we as humans were supposed to live in harmony with our creation which in turn leads one to induce an existence of a primordial reality that was somehow lost.[22]

The world as we see it is not as it should be, nor is it in the process of becoming something greater in some grand process where evil is necessary to create more chances for good to do its balancing magic.  Even naturalistic evolutionists in the early parts of the 20^th century involved in direct observations of nature saw that they were wrong in the concept of beneficial progress in the natural world, a popular scientific perspective originating during the Enlightenment known as evolutionary idealism.[23] Since popular natural theology at the time had become wedded to the evolutionary principles of natural law, it found itself outdated as well.[24] Even worse for theologians was a distancing from this concept by churches throughout Britain– one that the sinfulness and alienation of man was incompatible with the idea of progress on any level, natural or spiritual.[25]

If mankind shows no spiritual progress and science observes no naturalistic progress in creation, we are left to wonder why a theology of progressive creation is any longer a rational one.  Nonetheless, evangelical attempts have been made recently to use it as a middle ground between the scientifically untenable theology of recent creationism and a biblically incoherent theology of theistic evolution and seem to have met with some limited success.[26]

Neo-orthodox[27] attempts have been made more recently that find scientific trends and theories useful in understanding the “un-created” elements in nature that are progressing towards order.  The most notable of these attempts has been made by Sjoerd L. Bonting in Creation and Double Chaos.  Bonting appears to revive the paganistic notions of a primordial material substance that is unordered or “chaotic” that existed before God created the universe that he used as raw material, but decided to leave creation half-complete: the source of evil in the natural world today is the result of unordered primordial material co-existing with God’s ordered material that results in disease, earthquakes, and other natural defective phenomena.  He further sees God’s progressive creative involvement occurring within the workings of chaos theory, where God is able to move the direction of the natural world in progressive steps by nudging the natural outcome of cause and effect processes found in the natural world at the point where they become chaotic (or unpredictable) so as not to be detected as interfering.  This is possible because according to chaos theory, at the point where the direction a natural processes can take can be no longer be predicted, a decision to go in either of two or more directions (such as in weather prediction) cannot be differentiated from each other because they all share the same level of energy spent to take any choice, and thus not interfering with the natural laws of thermodynamics.[28]

This seems to hold some substantial value in explaining how God might work undetected in nature and in human enterprise to the unspiritual eye to guide history and events without spoiling ability of men to retain their free will.  However, his thoughts on primordial matter and a refutation of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing) to explain natural and moral evil and appease the naturalistic mind comes at a too great a cost: polytheistic primordial material must be adopted with all the problems that come along with it that world view as well as a departure from biblical inerrancy, a common aspect and lethal weakness of Neo-orthodoxy.

The Augustinian Model

We now move to a model of early church creation theology and its treatment of natural evil as a direct result of the sin of Adam and Eve, one that was shared in various ways by four notable church fathers: Theophilus of Antioch (115-185), Origen Adamantius (185–254), Augustine of Hippo (354 –430), and Maximus the Confessor (580-662).

Theophilus argued that God made creation perfect at the beginning, but evil entered the natural world when Adam fell.  “For when man transgressed, they also transgressed with him” because as a corrupt master tends to corrupt his servants, ‘He [man] being master, all that was subject with him sinned with him.’[29] Fallen spiritual authority corrupts the morality and harmony of all under its supervision.  A modern interpretation of this approach by Peter Kreeft speaks of a power to bring divine harmony to the physical world (both our physical bodies and the whole of nature) is a delegated one: only available if God’s authority is acknowledged within the context of a relationship. If it is rejected, humanity can no longer bring harmony into the world: “If you rebel against the king, the ministers are no longer able to server you.”[30]

Origen diverged significantly from Theophilus—he believed that the physical world was created as a kind of purgatory to mitigate the effects of sin on a spiritually fallen humanity.  A world full of difficulties and pain was intentionally designed to create in men moral and spiritual character through suffering.  Besides this deliberate design, creation’s evil state was also meant to communicate to the human race in a symbolic fashion the spiritual reality of the fall– disharmony with God and man’s choice to descend into sin.[31] It is easy to see that this perspective does not jive well with God declaring his creation “good” before the fall, and also runs the risk being understood as a salvific system where Christ’s redemptive death seems to be delegated to a less important or even unnecessary role.

The Augustinian approach follows Theophilus’ belief in an original good creation that somehow fell as a result of Adam’s sin.  However, as pointed out by H. Paul Santmire of his creation theology, nature in general is beautiful and did not fall in the same sense that either Origen or Theophilus seemed to hold.[32] The connection between nature falling to some degree and man’s initial sinning is seen as being a punishment, derived from the Genesis account of God making childbirth painful and cursing the ground to make growing food a difficult experience.  If this idyllic view of creation was indeed held by Augustine as Santmire suggests, Augustine would see people who perceive nature as destructive and evil because of personal experience and pain as suffering from a bad perspective or insensitivity to spiritual realities, and this seems problematic.[33] If Augustine were put in the shoes of Voltaire or a resident of Haiti in recent times, he might have struggled to make sense of things in light of his overly idealistic view of nature.  While on one hand nature is undoubtedly beautiful and majestic, a balanced perspective would admit it is presently in some kind of chaotic and degenerate state.[34]

While the Augustinian model seems more plausible because it doesn’t ignore an essential part of the Genesis account that something went wrong which wasn’t supposed to, its uniquely Augustianian inclusion of the punishment aspect presents troubling difficulties.  The main difficulty it faces is the glaring inconstancy of an ongoing punishment against both man and beast for a sin they never committed with God’s revealed sense of justice:  “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin.” (Deut. 24:16).  Can we truly say that the death of thousands of young children in the Asian Tsunami is really because of Adam’s sin of disobeying God and eating from the forbidden tree?  It also seems odd to see a natural world filled with predation, waste, and wonton self-destruction, one that is in some ways independent of man’s involvement at all, a strange punishment indeed.  If mankind is being punished for something they didn’t do, how much more strange is it that all of nature suffers separate from man to its own hurt?  There logically must be more going on than mere punishment.

The alternative to a punishment aspect of natural evil and the fallen state of man is offered up by Pelagius (c. 360 to 435)[35] and in more refined discussions in the writings of Justin Martyr and Taitian.[36] Men die because they follow Adam’s example in that they share the same selfish nature that Adam had with its propensity for sin.  This is not to be understood at all that humanity can attain perfection, God’s grace is required to counteract man’s inevitable descent into their sinful nature. The fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil held no spiritual poison, but was a fruit whose consumption made the eater aware of their disobedience of God and their desire to become free from him.  To eat it brought the realization of separation and independence.

Maximus the Confessor introduced the idea of man being a mediator between the natural world and the spiritual one because in his nature their existed both dimensions.  When man fell, the physical world was made subject to death and chaos because he was no longer able to carry out his ability to create or sustain divine harmony within it.[37]

S.E. Alsford seems to build off of an Augustinian understanding of creation but with a twist that seems Maximusian– that the curse was somehow created by a harmonious break-down between man and creation in a mystical/spiritual sense because of man’s embracing of evil.  How spiritual evil leads to degeneration in nature could be similar to how our spiritual and emotional tenor has significant bearing on our physical well being.  If the human body can be taken as a microcosm of this reality, it can be used as a model in our world in a macrocosmic sense between a fallen spiritual and emotional mankind in a corporate sense and an affective natural world.[38] Although the workings of this interchange are unknown and mystical, we have full proof that it does in fact exist: ulcers, headaches and all–the spiritual world has an observable effect on the physical one, and vice-versa.

The Christian Scientific Answer

Most 21^st century extensions of the Augustinian model of creation and the existence of natural evil have been initiated by Christian scientists who believe that Creation has not fallen at all.  Either it is orderly and beautiful, its negative aspects are only in the eye of the beholder (read that as to the un-scientific observer), or had already fallen and was intended to be redeemed by man before his creation.  In most instances, man is no more than the product of millions of years of evolution to a point where God imbues a spirit into a randomly chosen primate (homo sapian to homo divinus).  Nearly all surveyed, which includes John Polkinghorne[39], R.J. Berry[40], Holmes Rolston, III[41], John J. Bimpson[42], Gavin McGrath[43] or John C. Mundy Jr.[44] fall into this category.  P.G. Nelson stands in the minority from the Christian-scientific world in thinking that a rosy picture of the nature should not be our final answer to the non-Christian world.[45] R.J. Berry seems also to allude to this in some of his writings.[46] Are we really going to tell the world “It’s not as bad as you think” when questioned about the Asian Tsunami or the Hatian Earthquake?  Is naturalistic evolution really going to sooth the pain of a spouse lost to cancer?  Do people go to science to find meaning in their lives?  When the question comes into the Christian court, are we really just going to throw the ball back to naturalistic evolution and biology?  Thankfully, a few scientist theologians (namely R.J. Berry) still hold to a fallen natural world not caused by the fall, but possibly caused by demons wreaking havoc on the animal and plant world before the fall or creation of man ever occurred.

Overall, it seems Nelson is correct– in our efforts to reconcile scientific theories de jour with our theology, we seem to fall terribly short in our ability to answer the existential personal problems that arise from natural suffering. We are left with a diminished view of scripture, are still unable to answer the criticisms of Voltaire and Dostoevsky, and have not smoothed the way at all for the atheist scientific community to venture into the realms of Christianity who see this ‘groping for science’ as a way to legitimize a long-failed belief system.  What is desperately needed, but what science-based theologians are reluctant to promote, is a relationship with Christ, in whom and through whom we can ultimately find meaning in the suffering our lives.

The Christian who wades too deeply in evolutionary science to explain the problem of evil will find solutions that mimic naturalistic evolution, absent of clues of meaning to the problem of suffering.  The scientific age has not proven kind to those who thirst for meaning in their world, and it seems the average Christian scientist has inadvertently hurt their own cause to uphold their beliefs in a modern age.

Modern Theology & Natural Evil

After our quick survey of Early Christian thought in the areas of creation theology and natural evil, it seems we have uncovered some positive clues towards reasons for nature’s fall into the state we see it in today. It isn’t surprising however, to see the trend in modern times to sacrifice scriptural inerrancy to fit into the mold of the latest scientific theories or to stop believing in one or more of the qualities of God of classical theism (All-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good) to help explain why evil exists.  Our quick look at modern theology will not include secular or neo-orthodox perspectives that espouse this kind of thinking. What is left appears to be scattered clues remaining from the aftermath of continuous battles between Reformed and Evangelical perspectives.

Divine Providence Regarding Natural Evil

In nearly all debates we find the definition and scope of the sovereignty of God and its implication in evil in the world.  The Reformed position blames all evil events on God, and a more evangelical one sees God as permitting evil to occur against his desired will within the natural word.  His sovereignty and providence transcend nature, unaffected by the cause and effect events of the natural world: that all people who freely want to find him will be drawn to him and saved.  According to David Bently Hart, understanding providence makes a huge difference in the character of God:

“Whether one says that God has eternally willed the history of sin and death, and all that comes to pass therein, as the proper or necessary means of achieving his ends, or whether one says instead that God has willed his good in creatures from eternity and will bring it to pass, despite their rebellion, by so ordering all things towards his goodness that even evil (which he does not cause) becomes an occasion of the operations of grace.  And it is only the latter view that can be called a doctrine of “providence” in the properly theological sense; the former view is mere determinism.”[47]

According to Hart, the entire history of sin and death is ultimately a contingency operation; one that is not desired by God, but nonetheless is constrained by his transcendent purposes to draw men and women who truly and freely desire him to himself for all eternity.  Even suffering and death are subjected to that ultimate providential purpose.  Ronald L. Hall also notes that there is a distinct difference between immanent intention and ultimate responsibility that is helpful at this point.[48]

The Purpose of Suffering

The determinist Reformed position, as well as that of classical theodicies, believe that God needs and approves of evil and suffering as being integral parts of bringing about his Kingdom and renewing the world at the end of time.  This is often concluded by observing the beneficial effects of suffering: evil men are killed in natural disasters, good men gain character and maturity though it, good and evil men alike are humbled by it.  To all observers, it can be a warning and a wake-up call.  The emotional shock of seeing others suffer so horribly leads us to consider our own mortality and our relationship with a higher power or reality.  Even Jesus makes this point when asked about the Tower of Siloam incident:

“…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?   I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (Luke 13:4-5).

What he does not say is that the deaths of those involved had purpose or meaning.  He explicitly denies it being a punishment.  As observers we ought to take stock of our own lives and our relationship with God rather than finding justification for our escape because we are somehow more righteous.  But this object lesson is not to be confused as being the purpose of the accident.[49] Hart is right that Jesus’ reply forever denies a causal link between tragedy and the sinfulness of those who suffer as a result.[50]

Innocent men who love God suffer, are tortured, and die.  If the purpose of suffering is neither for punishment nor a wake-up call to seek God, are any other purposes left that are legitimate?  It seems more likely that suffering has no ultimate purpose or meaning at all.[51] It is instead a contingent fixture of a chaotic natural world out of harmony with God and man and is now under the governance of malevolent or impersonal uncaring forces.

One final word about suffering from the hands of nature must be mentioned.  In the Old Testament, quite often we are told by the prophets that natural evils in Israel’s history (plagues, famines, droughts) are the result of restorative justice measures meted out according to the stipulations of God’s covenant as mentioned in Deut. 31.  This theocracy-based government was dissolved after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. and will never be reinstated anywhere on Earth ever again.  We live in an age where the kingdom of God in its terrestrial manifestation has no land or country associated with it.  It would be wrong to associate God’s relationship with the nation of Israel with any nation or people group today.  A theocracy with divine supernatural rewards and punishments died with Israel.[52]

However, the world-wide flood of Genesis 6 stands outside the covenant with God and Israel and begs to be understood within the confines of the overall proposed argument.  The flood seems to me a readjustment step that marked a completion in creation.  The strange world of fallen man and bene Eloheim was spiraling out of control: the environment where a human being was supposed to be able to respond to God towards a love relationship was deteriorating to place where his (God’s) transcended purposes of good for all mankind were in jeopardy if left alone and required a single act of immanent re-adjustment, one which God said he would not repeat.

The Reality of Supernatural Evil

The reality of supernatural evil in the world is uncomfortable to Christians today.  This is probably a result of our coziness with a culturally pervasive atheistic scientism that denies the supernatural, but seems especially disgusted with what it perceives as the juvenile fear of a ‘boogeyman’ haunting humanity.  However, the biblical picture is strongly against such a perspective.   Hart brings up the oft-mentioned reality in the New Testament of the authority and activity of supernatural evil in all spheres of activity in the fallen world (Col. 1:16, 1^st Cor. 2:8, Eph 1:21, 3:10) and specifically of the devil as being the “prince” or even “god” of this world (Eph. 6:12, John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11, 2^nd Cor 4:4 and 1^st John 5:19)[53] C.S. Lewis points to the possibility of a fallen angelic order corrupting nature before the introduction of man in The Problem of Pain.[54] Alvin Plantigua also postulates demons as possible (although unprovable) causes for natural disasters and other evils in nature.[55] Erwin Lutzer also gives this view credibility based on the events in Job, but is quick to assign ultimate immanent culpability to God.[56]

It is tempting and possibly legitimate in light of these insights to indulge in C.S. Lewis’ perspective of angelic stewardship over planets (in our analysis however, the physical world in general seems more appropriate) and their inhabitants in his fantasy Space Trilogy series.[57] It seems possible that a contingent of bene Elohiem (sons of God), an angelic class of intelligent and sentient created beings mentioned in both the pre-flood era and in the courts of heaven in Job, could have been assigned as stewards over the natural world.  Like mankind they were endowed with free will and fell away, thus enslaving and corrupting the created world entrusted to them; one that had initially been a harmonious system devoid of earthquakes, disease, or any of a myriad of disorders evident today.[58]

Conclusion

It was helpful for me to realize that in our search for answers to why we suffer at the hands of nature, a personal and interactive relationship with God is the only ultimate source and context for meaningful explanations at lower levels of facts and ideals.  With this orientation, theories on why we suffer or why nature fell can become reasonable and meaningful to ponder.

Our survey of Early Church thought on the subject of natural evil turned up a few possibilities of how and why creation fell, namely that there could exist links between the spiritual collective of mankind and the totality of nature as manifested in the microcosm of the human body—that there is a detectable link between consciousness and physiology, the spiritual and the physical dimensions of being.

Modern attempts by well-meaning Christian scientists trying to be theologians to answer the problem of natural evil seem to have taken a bad turn.  Too much emphasis has been made to shoehorn macro-evolution theory into creation theology to a point where biblical authenticity is called into question and exegesis of certain passages is stretched beyond its breaking point.   Polkinghorne’s smug insistence that scientists champion future attempts at natural theology[59] rather than theologians on the basis of constantly getting their science wrong is likewise guilty of getting his theological methodology wrong.  Nevertheless, some areas of interest, such as work done in chaos theory, may be helpful in understanding how God works undetected to the unspiritual eye in guiding creation and human enterprise in ways that suit his transcendent purposes without harm to the free will of mankind.

In modern theology that respects the inerrancy of the Bible, we find the tragic proliferation of Reformed theological perspectives occurring which continue to do excessive damage to the character of God in attempting to explain evil in the natural world on one hand, and makes the formulation of a sensitive answer to a suffering person impossible on the other.[60]

Thankfully more moderate evangelical approaches in recent years.  C.S. Lewis’ proposal of an angelic dominion on Earth that went awry before or after fall of man seems to hold the most promise in explaining why natural evil exists.  This allows suffering in nature to really be the effect of a morally evil agent, which can then be explained by more successful arguments found in the free will defense upheld in modernized versions by Alvin Plantagua and David Bently Hart.  I feel more comfortable with the concept of natural evil being the direct result of demonic manipulation or indirect result of their mismanagement, neglect, or corruption of the natural processes than a view of a mystical transference of the corrupted spiritual collective of mankind into the physical realities of nature.  Although still problematic, both views seem more rational than a total denial of any problem in nature that Augustine and the modern Christian scientific community seem to have.

To conclude on the subject of natural evil, it seems fitting to use Hart’s excellent summation:

“As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child, I do not see the face of God but of the enemy.”…  “God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history as false and damnable; he will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but strike off the fetters in which creations languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, he instead will raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes” and will say “Behold, I make all things new.”[61]

[2] One notable scholar is Bart Ehrman, who treats this subject extensively in his book Gods Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question–Why We Suffer (New York: HarperCollins, 2009) and how it lead to his eventual agnostic worldview.  Tom Honey, a pastor of the Exeter Cathedral in Britain, shares of his struggle with his concept of God in the aftermath of the Tsunami that led him to take a panenthestic and limited view of God in a sermon he later preached.  “Tom Honey on God and the Tsunami,” n.p. [cited 5 May 2010]. Online: http://www.ted.com/talks/tom_honey_on_god_and_the_tsunami.html.  Many more notable Christians began exploring panentheism as a sensible direction in creation theology only years earlier.  A summary of thinking in these directions is captured by a book of essays edited by John Polkinghorne: The Work of Love: Creation as Kenosis (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001).

[3] Gary Stern relates this perspective though interviews about natural disasters with notable atheist thinkers in Can God Intervene? How Religion Explains Natural Disasters (Westport, CT: Prager, 2007), 206-214.

[4] N.T. Wright in his book Evil and the Justice of God (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2006) admits that the Bible contains no clear ultimate answers for the problem of evil, an instead he seeks a view of modeling God’s behavior in response to it – to eliminate its effects in our lives and in the world around us.  Stern in Can God Intervene, 86-105, interviews some Christians who do not attempt to answer the question at all, but instead focus on how to help.  Practical thinking without answering the question of what natural evil exists is explored by Diogenes Allen in “Suffering at the Hands of Nature” Theology Today 2 (1980): 183-191.

[5] This was a driving desire in Bonting’s formulation of chaos theology as an integral part of creation theology in Creation and Double Chaos: Science and Technology in Discussion (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2005), 136. David Fergusson in The Cosmos and the Creator (London : SPCK, 1998), 78 sees taking evil into account as the most difficult task of in creation theology.

[6] The intersection of evil and a desire to find meaning in our lives is explored by J.G. Stackhouse in Can God Be Trusted?  Faith and the Challenge of Evil (2^nd ed.; Downes Grove, IL: IVP, 2009), 59-61.

[7] In Surprised by Joy (London: Harcourt, 1955), C.S. Lewis sees this desire for God at first found in surprising moments or things that elicit a deep joy that once experienced leaves a person wanting more. They in turn lead to other experiences in life which in turn continues the search until they arrive at a relationship with God.  This is the central idea in Lewis’ autobiography: that pictures of the divine reside in things and experiences of everyday life that ultimately point to him.

[8] The statement comes from Augustine’s opening discussions in Confessions (I,i).

[9] C.S. Lewis gives this subject serious treatment in The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1960).

[10] This Platonic view of love is found in Plato’s dialogue The Symposium where Socrates is discussing the subject with others, and his speech begins in 201d where he quotes the philosophy of Diotima of Mantinea.

[11] This concept seems to be acknowledged by the downfall of the allegorical character of Virtue in C.S. Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress (London: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1933). To be virtuous for the sake of the ideal of virtue ultimately leads to a desire to understand why virtue is to be followed.  If there is no ultimate, conscious Creator who embodies virtue, we are left with no source of meaning for virtue and virtuous living, and thus begins our descent into nihilism.

[12] The Euthyphro dilemma is found in Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro, where Socrates asks Euthyphro: “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” (10a)?  In other words, what comes first, moral goodness and truth that God lives by that are separate from himself, or a God who commands obedience to them because they are real in that they reflect his nature?  It is my proposal that moral truths and ideals ultimately do not contain sustainable weight and meaning without a relationship with the God in whom they are the ultimate embodiment of.

[13] This idea is part of Anselm’s discussion on a logical explanation of the existence of God via the ontological proof, or that the existence of God is implicated by the existence of the ideas we have about him, which would not exist if they had no bearing on reality, Proslogion, ii-iv.  Anselm, like C.S. Lewis, was heavily influenced by Platonic thought.  In Philosophy & The Christian Faith (London: Tyndale Press, 1968), Colin Brown who is taking his cue from Carl Barth’s commentary on Anselm, sees that Anselm is not looking at our ideas of the divine from a purely existential perspective, but rather from the framework of the mind of one who already believes in God and has received divine revelation though that relationship (p.22, notes).

[14] This category of models is introduced by S.E. Alsford in “Evil in the Non-Human World,” S&CB 3 (1991): 122.

[15]John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (London: Macmillian, 1977)  and also “An Irenean Theodicy” in Encountering Evil (New ed.; ed. S. Davis. Louisville: John Knox Press, 2001), 38-52.

[16] R. Swinburne, “The Problem of Evil” in Reason and Religion (ed. S.C. Brown. New York: Cornell University Press, 1977), 81-102.

[17] Hart attacks this perspective constantly throughout The Doors of the Sea.

[18] These sentiments are best captured in Voltaire’s initial work A Poem of the Lisbon Disaster and again in his later novel, Candide.  Voltaire struggled with concepts that this was in some way punititive or that it was somehow a part of a finely tuned universe that was naturally good that perfectly balanced good and evil that resulted in a universal harmony.  In his poem, he encourages those who take this view to come to Lisbon and observed the hundreds of dead babies strewn about the streets.  Suffering like this was not morally intelligible.

[19] Dostoyevsky presents a more nuanced criticism of the progressive optimism of diesm towards evil, but even more so casts doubt about thinking of evil as an integral part of God’s plan where man’s free will must be allowed to reign.  In the character of Ivan, Dostoyevsky spells out a criticism in this question:  Is the torture and death of little children somehow meaningful to bring about God’s great plan?  In the words of Ivan:“Tell me frankly…. Imagine that it is you yourself who are erecting an edifice of human destiny with the aim of making man happy in the end, of giving them peace and contentment at last, but that to do so that it is absolutely necessary, and indeed quite inevitable, to torture to death only one tiny creature, the little girl who beat her breast with her little fist, and to found the edifice on her unavenged tears—would you consent to architect on those conditions?” Not only was suffering not morally intelligible as Voltaire suggested, it would be a much worse world if it were.

[20] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillian, 1943), 120.

[21] Anselm’s ontological argument for God’s existence first appears in Proslogion, ii-iv.

[22] A comparison of Lewis’s theory of desire with his critics is excellently discussed in an online essay by Edward M. Cook, “Does Joy Lead to God? Lewis, Beversluis, and the Argument from Desire,” n.p. [cited 5 May 2010].  Online: http://homepage.mac.com/edcook/lewis-desire.html.

[23] A good discussion about how evolutionary idealism became a part of natural theology can be found in Peter Bowler’s Reconciling Science and Religion: The Debate in the Early Twentieth Century Britain (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2001).

[24] R.J. Berry discusses this point in “Eden and Ecology: Evolution and Eschatology,” S&CB 19 (2007): 18-19.  He rightly concludes that natural law is “a dubious foundation” for any natural theology (p. 21).

[25] Bowler, Reconciling Science and Religion. 417.

[26] Pattle Pun approaches process creationism from a reformed perspective in ‘A Theology of Progressive Creationism.’ Perspectives of Science and Christian Faith 39 (1987) : 9-19.

[27] By Neo-orthodoxy, I am referring to a approach to Christianity that believes in the reality of the Church and God working though it, but have long ago adopted liberal and scientific concepts to replace biblical ones.  The Bible is seen as a human-inspired and mythic work of literature rather than as historic and divinely inspired.  Regardless, God is able to use the Bible to spiritually inspire the Church.

[28] Sjoerd Bonting approaches progressive creationism from a liberal/neo-orthodox perspective in Creation and Double Chaos. Also see ‘Chaos Theology: A New Approach to the Science-Theology Dialogue.’ Zygon 34 (1999): 323-32 by the same author.

[29] Theophilus’ approach is captured in the notes section in an article by John Bimson ‘Reconsidering a Cosmic Fall’ S&CB 18 (2006): 63.

[30] Peter Kreeft and Ronald Taccelli, The Handbook of Christian Apologetics (Madison, WI: Intervarsity Press, 1994), 135.

[31] Origin. De Principiis 1.5.1.  Commentary on Origin’s thinking on the subject is captured well by H. Paul Santmire in The Travil of Nature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian Theology (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1985), 47-51.

[32] Ibid. 65-73.

[33] Others agree, notably G.H. Tavard in “The Mystery of Divine Providence” Theology Today 64 (2003): 709-10

[34] Hart discusses the dual personality of nature at length in The Doors of the Sea, 45-68.

[35] Alexander Souter, “Pelagius’s Expositions of Thirteen Epistles of St. Paul: II Text and Apparatus Criticus” Text and Studies IX (1926): 45, 48.

[36] Justin’s discussions are found in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew. Tiatian relates his views on man’s sinfulness not being an inherited quality in Address to the Greeks. A good discussion on the doctrine of original sin among the early church father can be found by Harold O. Forshey in “The Doctrine of the Fall and Original Sin in the Second Century,” Restoration Quarterly 3 (1959): 119-129.

[37] These views on the mediator nature of mankind are discussed by Dragos Bahrim in his article “The Anthropic Cosmology of St Maximus the Confessor” Journal for Interdisciplinary Research on Religion and Science 3 (2008): 25-31.  The discussion of the fall of man in handled in Maximus’ Ambigua, Patrologia Graecae [PG], vol 91, 1308C.  Hart discusses the fall from Maximus’ perspective of man’s mediatory status and its misuse to the hurt of creation in The Doors of the Sea, 63.

[38] S.E. Alsford, “Evil in the Non-Human World” S&CB 3 (1991): 127.

[39] John Polkinghorne, “Scripture and an Evolving Creation,” S&CB 21 (2009): 163-73.

[40] Several articles and books are available by R.J. Berry on the subject with a specific interest in its ramifications for ecology:  “A Cosmic Fall?” S&CB 19 (2007): 78-80.  “Eden & Ecology,” S&CB 19 (2007): 15-35.  God’s Book of Works: Nature and the Theology of Nature (London: T&T Clark, 2003).

[41] Holmes Rolston III, “Does Nature Need to be Redeemed?” Zygon 29 (1994).

[42] John J. Bimson,  “Reconsidering a ‘Cosmic Fall’’’ S&CB 18 (2006): 63-81.

[43] Gavin B. McGrath, “Soteriology: Adam and the Fall,”Perspective of Science and the Christian Faith 49 (1997): 252-60.

[44] John C. Mundy Jr., “Creature Mortality: From Creation or the Fall?” JETS 35 (1992): 51-68.

[45] P.G. Nelson, “The Curse: Relational or Cosmic?” S&CB 19 (2007): 77-78.

[46] R.J. Berry “Lions Seek their Prey from God: a Commentary on the Boyle Lecture” S&CB 17 (2005): 54-55.

[47] Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 82.

[48] Ronald L. Hall, “Responsibility and Intention: Reflections on the Problem of God’s Will and Human Suffering,” Perspectives in Religious Studies, 6 (1979): 142-151.

[49] Thomas Kazen treats examines these possibilities for suffering and successfully refutes them in, “Standing Helpless at the Roar and Surging of the Sea: Reading Biblical Texts in the Shadow of the Wave” Studia Theologica 60 (2006), 21-41.

[50] Hart, The Doors of the Sea, 31.

[51] Many in the Christian community take this view of evil as being senseless or purposeless: Dan Allendar from a counseling perspective in “The Mark of Evil” in God and the Victim (ed. L. Lampman, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 52-3, and J. Stackhouse in Can God Be Trusted?, p.62, and of course Hart’s The Doors of the Sea, 73-4.

[52] Robert B. Chisholm Jr gives an excellent argument for why Old Testaments instances of God-ordained natural disasters are not to be taken as normative in “How A Hermeutical Virus Can Corrupt Theological Systems,”  Bibliotheca Sacra 166 (2009): 259-70

[53] Ibid, 62.

[54] C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1940): 121-124.

[55] Alvin C. Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), p.62.

[56] Erwin Lutzer, Where Was God?  Answers to Tough Questions About God and Natural Disasters (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2006) 28-30.

[57] This reality is captured in his Space Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet (New York: Scribner, 1996),  Perelandra (New York: Scribner, 1996), and That Hideous Strength(New York: Scribner, 1996).

[58] This view is given the most validity out of a survey of others by Kreeft and Tacelli in The Handbook of Christian Apologetics, 135-6.  The reason it is not more popular, the author theorizes, is because the talk of demonic activity in the world is unfashionable in contemporary scholarship.

[59] J.C. Polkinghorne, Science and Creation (London: SPCK, 1988), 15-16.

[60] Hart describes the difficulty of the Reformed theologian in being able to explain why we suffer from nature without arousing anger and disgust from a suffering person, Christian or otherwise: The Doors of the Sea, pp 99-100.

[61] Ibid, p.104.

I began to see that behind these questions lie ones even more primary in nature: why do we seek so strongly to find meaning in our lives, especially in the arena of suffering and pain?[1] Why is the natural inclination of men to seek meaning in their suffering when other valid, albeit less acceptable explanations exist which we at times are all too eager to offer up when consoling others?  Is a desire to find meaning in suffering a selfish one?  It seems a corollary area of study alongside the study of suffering would be something akin to a theology of meaning.  It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to understand this primary motivation for seeking answers about evil.  If we do not start our inquiry here, we will not solve the problem at its source.  Theodicies constructed in this fashion are like pain killers taken without a concern for understanding the source of the pain.  All theodicies and explanations for evil in the world stem from this desire: to find meaning behind why we suffer.

Is it possible the desire for meaning is similar in nature to the desire for God?  It is one that is seduced by a thousand false alternatives: a good job or perfect marriage; to achieve them is to experience disappointment if what we desired in their consummation could not be found in them.[2] As Augustine is so often quoted, “Thou hast created us for Thyself, and our heart is not quiet until it rests in Thee.”[3] Maybe similar also is the nature of the multiple dimensions of love.  According to C.S. Lewis[4] who was likely influenced by Platonism[5], the lower levels of love, such as eros, seem to have been designed not as the ultimate fulfillment of relational desire, but as gateways into a selfless realm.  Even more so they are pointers or signposts: that once experienced with an excessive expectation beyond its intended design, leads to disappointment that painfully but thankfully points us to something greater—ultimately culminating in a sincere adoption of a selfless, agape love.  Eros can best be experienced when it is enjoyed within its designed sphere just like a good job can be best experienced if our hearts have found God and so its desire is regulated to something more appropriate than one that only a relationship with God could fulfill.

Does the desire for meaning follow a similar pattern?  In our suffering, we find ourselves in a position to strongly desire meaning to explain it.  Pat answers will not suffice because our pain demands truth, and our selfishness which is normally an enemy in intellectual thought naturally steering us towards self-centered answers becomes instead an ally.  In our desire to find meaning, we may in some circumstances find answers on a factual level that nonetheless remain unsatisfactory: we were robbed because the criminal was a drug addict in desperate need of money and not in his right mind.  Although we may see beneficial outcomes, such as a newfound knowledge in how to add more security to our house and keep our family safe, we will often take the search for meaning to the next level because the first one proved unsatisfactory– to inquire of the governing bodies of the universe as to why such an event was meaningful in our lives.

Maybe we are told that an idea or force, such as karma, is responsible, or that innocent suffering is needed for the benefit of the cosmos in some mystical way.   Another answer is that the ultimate purpose of evil in our lives is for our learning benefit. It seems in my experience however that ideas, no matter how well constructed, objectively true, or strongly believed, seem inadequate to satiate the desire for meaning.  They feel to me to be a secondary product of a more primary source; the explanations of the rational minds of men to explain the indirect workings of a more primary governor of reality.   Ideas and explanations will never satisfy a desire to find meaning; only an audience and a relationship with the Creator of all reality will.[6]

This is an important point: it is an interactive relationship with God, not an idea of God that contains the satiation for our desire for meaning.  The divine relationship satisfies our desire for meaning like food satisfies our hunger, not pictures of food or the concept of food.  The idea that God exists and has all the attributes of classical theism is not the object of meaning’s satisfaction because the idea of an all powerful God is still that—an idea. This is why deistic forms of Christianity fail to provide answers to the problem of evil.  If we encounter God, the Creator of the universe, and we are told categorically that he loves us and that he is in control in convincing ways, is that not the very end result of our desire for meaning? Now the lower levels can be comprehended because they have a satisfactory context or framework with which to extract meaning from.  Returning to our earlier event of theft, the factual evidence of the situation is now more satisfactory because it is understood in its proper context (that it only provides a lesser level of meaning but is missing the ultimate context): The criminal who robbed me was desperate for money, but God loves me (and the thief!) and is ultimately in control of all things, which he often reminds me when I talk with him.

The deeper hearts of men are not fooled: a driving force or an idea can never be other than a secondary product of a more primary source. Do not the ideals of love, charity, and selflessness become more comprehensible and livable once we are in a relationship with the Creator?  Instead of a wooden application of them, a deeper, more enjoyable adherence to them is possible because their importance and meaning to our lives is understood in the context of their Creator.  This perspective may give some insight into explaining the rationality of Christian theism in light of criticism based on the Platonic Euthyphro dilemma.[7]

And so it was with Job.  Job received what he needed most: an audience with God himself.  Without the divine relationship, the ultimate consummation of our desire for meaning, how could the lesser levels of meaning be understood with satisfaction?  If, theoretically, Job was told about the heavenly meetings between God and Satan by one of the bene Eloheim, the Sons of God of the heavenly court observing the story from both realms, he might not have been satisfied.  He might have been even more confused and possibly more angry or in greater despair.  If he were told possible ideas behind God’s reasons, such as God wanting to make an example of his life to tell the world a new truth, he would not have been satisfied either.  Truth and ideas, no matter how good, would seem sour in the faces of his dead children.

We are never told about God and Job’s later interactions.  If our model is somewhat correct, we could tentatively say that with their relationship intact, God could reveal the lower levels of meaning regarding Job’s plight.  Maybe God only revealed those details to a glorified Job (when had died and was reborn and lived in God’s presence), whose mind and heart could only then comprehend its purposes.  In the end, it seems ideals are mapped to a relational person who embodies them, and it is that Person who gives them intrinsic meaning in a waterfall-like process.  This can be seen in a lesser degree by the person of King David, who represented God’s ideals, and who men respected a great deal and would die for, and who in some way inspired those ideals to be upheld by his people with more force than if David never were.  This may be another facet of the way we were intended to be as made in the image of God.

Unlike the similar model of the dimensions of love which seems to follow an upward experiential path from eros to agape, it seems the path of meaning must ideally take a top-down experiential path even though its arrival at the top came from questions from below.  A relationship with God is required for adequate satisfaction to be found at lower levels.  However, like love, agape transcends all lower forms, and similarly, a relationship with God transcends the need to comprehend meaning at lower levels.  Even though Job may never have understood why such suffering occurred in his life during his time on earth, his relationship with God satisfied him.

Perhaps this theory of meaning has links to other theological thought.  Anselm of Canterbury proposed that all Christian doctrine and by extension, all knowledge and meaning about our experiences in our life, require a relationship with God as a starting point:

“Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this, too, I believe, that, unless I first believe, I shall not understand.[8]”

So anyway, just some of my thoughts on the subject…

[2] In Surprised by Joy (London: Harcourt, 1955), C.S. Lewis sees this desire for God at first found in surprising moments or things that elicit a deep joy that once experienced leaves a person wanting more. They in turn lead to other experiences in life which in turn continues the search until they arrive at a relationship with God.  This is the central idea in Lewis’ autobiography: that pictures of the divine reside in things and experiences of everyday life that ultimately point to him.

[3] The statement comes from Augustine’s opening discussions in Confessions (I,i).

[4] C.S. Lewis gives this subject serious treatment in The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1960).

[5] This Platonic view of love is found in Plato’s dialogue The Symposium where Socrates is discussing the subject with others, and his speech begins in 201d where he quotes the philosophy of Diotima of Mantinea.

[6] This concept seems to be acknowledged by the downfall of the allegorical character of Virtue in C.S. Lewis’ Pilgrim’s Regress (London: J.M. Dent and Sons Ltd., 1933). To be virtuous for the sake of the ideal of virtue inevitably leads to a desire to understand why virtue is to be followed when life becomes hard and tragic.  If there is no ultimate, conscious Creator who embodies virtue, we are left with no source of meaning for virtue and virtuous living, and thus begins our descent into nihilism and selfishness.

[7] The Euthyphro dilemma is found in Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro, where Socrates asks Euthyphro: “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” (10a)?  In other words, what comes first, moral goodness and truth that God lives by that are separate from himself, or a God who commands obedience to them because they are real in that they reflect his nature?  It is my proposal that moral truths and ideals ultimately do not contain sustainable weight and meaning without a relationship with the God in whom they are the ultimate embodiment of.

[8] This idea is part of Anselm’s discussion on a logical explanation of the existence of God via the ontological proof, or that the existence of God is implicated by the existence of the ideas we have about him, which would not exist if they had no bearing on reality, Proslogion, ii-iv.  Anselm, like C.S. Lewis, was heavily influenced by Platonic thought.  In Philosophy & The Christian Faith (London: Tyndale Press, 1968), Colin Brown who is taking his cue from Carl Barth’s commentary on Anselm, sees that Anselm is not looking at our ideas of the divine from a purely existential perspective, but rather from the framework of the mind of one who already believes in God and has received divine revelation though that relationship (p.22, notes).



There is a time and a place for deep thinking and quiet reflection.  However, I think the power of the spiritual life lies in the difficulties of reality.  Impatient men learn patience, people distant from God draw near to him because of their need.  It is here somewhere that we are fashioned into the nature and character of God and we bring a little light into the world in the process.  We are shaped not so often by our thinking, but by the events in our lives.  Most of my spiritual reflection has been based on reactions to difficult events in my life.  Now it seems the opposite is true.  I have thought a lot about patience, selflessness, and the character of God.  Now its time to live those beliefs and bring light to the world again.  My wife and children need it.

About four years ago, I attended a bad church.  The pastor of this church had a problem – he constantly lied (about anything and everything) and plagiarized.  When my friend confronted him on this problem, he responded with a lot of self-centered dribble, but one comment he made stuck out in my memory:  he simply asked my friend how many people he had personally led to the Lord.  What was he implying?  That his tactics, although unorthodox, lead people to Christ.  This excuses his sermon plagiarizing. This somehow excuses his constant lying.  In other words, the end justifies the means.  I couldn’t believe I was hearing this from a Christian pastor.  My rosy-colored view of the Christian “church” began to slowly fall apart from that point on.  But this wasn’t the first time I saw this.

When I was attended collage, I decided to take a religion course.  I absolutely loved it.  I remember one day our professor introducing us to a feminist bible scholar, and had us read and comment on her take on the Genesis account of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden.  Basically, she blamed the entire thing on Adam and completely vindicated Eve.  I remember at the time liking the fact that at least someone was saying that Adam was at fault, contrary to teaching I had heard prior saying it was all Eve’s fault because women do not possess spiritual discernment (an opinion I completely disagree with, by the way).  Unfortunately, her arguments were terrible (as is characteristic of most bible interpretation) and intellectually dishonest.  I remember telling our professor this, who was probably a feminist herself, and she told me that they were in fact terrible, but logical argument and intellectual honesty were not the main point of the feminist writing on most subjects.  What trumped those things was getting people’s attention through any means necessary, which manifested itself in this case in deliberately misguided logic that lead to a deliberately wrong interpretation of a biblical account.  For what purpose?  According to my professor (and not me), to get people’s attention.  I guess that means to anger men, and make women who are oppressed cheer.  In the end, you are guaranteed an emotional reaction from an audience that cares about the bible.  An emotional reaction, either positive or negative, seeds itself in people’s minds like it did mine – and they will walk away remembering what was said.  I guess the theory is that this kind of tactic used over time causes cultural change that benefits those who employ it.

After I left that bad church I talked about initially, I began to walk down a path similar to this feminist bible scholar.  I was very angry about the corruption of the Christian church, and it was personal because I had first-hand felt the brunt of it.  I went to another church that was in some ways even worse.  After I left that one,  I took a break from church for a while.  My hate and disgust for the church slowly grew stronger.  It was during this time that I  discovered something that was like a drug — reading  and writing about subjects harshly critical of the church.  The harsher the better.  I didn’t notice or care about the logic in the argument.  I began to argue with people in the same manner.  I didn’t care about the means, I cared about the ends.  What I loved about my slanted verbal debates, or the books and weblogs and essays I read, or the stuff I wrote on my own weblog and elsewhere, was that the final conclusion of the matter — that the Christian church was hopelessly and pervasively corrupt.  Non-christian organizations had more hope of moral underpinning than Christian ones.

It was this insatiable anger that drove me to start this weblog.  I needed to write to make sense of this belief system of mine in light of this new perspective I had acquired.  It drove me to seek out atheists and ex-religious people and see why they were angry (in some cases) at Christians, God, Christianity, or religion in general.  Now that I was a bad boy in a church-religious sense, I had no problem relating to others in the same situation, and having a great deal of empathy for them, more so than I would ever extend to a fellow Christian brother or sister.  Ironically, this proved to be a first step towards healing me from my anger.

While writing about my struggle to find truth, I realized one day that I had become what I had all along hated others for doing.  I was deeply employed in living out the mantra of the end justifies the means.  By this time, I had calmed down a little, but the same philosophy still guided my thinking and debating.  It hit me very hard: I was not too different from that pastor.  That piece-of-crap, worthless, stupid, arrogant, lying bastard.  So I thought at the time.  Now I can’t despise him so much for that failing of his anymore.  His failing had became my failing.  I don’t know what caused him to take the moral low road, but for me it was because I was hurt, and was very, very angry.

Intellectual life after this realization became internalized has been interesting.  I have since learned to detect ends justifies the means argument style when I see it.

A couple of years ago, I read an article in Newsweek called the “God Debate” between Sam Harris and Rick Warren.  (The full interview is available at Richard Dawkin’s website) I didn’t really care what Rick Warren though because I don’t like his philosophy or approach to Christianity.  I was interested in what Sam Harris had to say.  Then I caught him saying this in response to the moderator:

MODERATOR: Sam, the one thing that I find really troubling in your arguments is that I am guilty, to quote “The End of Faith,” of a “ludicrous obscenity” when I take my children to church. That is strong language, and it doesn’t exactly encourage dialogue.

HARRIS: To some degree the stridence of my writing is an effort to get people’s attention. But I can honestly defend the stridence because I think our situation is that urgent. I am terrified of what seems to me to be a bottleneck that civilization is passing through. On the one hand we have 21st-century disruptive technology proliferating, and on the other we have first-century superstition. A civilization is going to either pass through this bottleneck more or less intact or it won’t. And perhaps that fear sounds grandiose, but civilizations end. On any number of occasions, some generation has witnessed the ruination of everything they and their ancestors had built. What especially terrifies me about religious thinking is the expectation on the part of many that civilization is bound to end based on prophecy and its ending is going to be glorious.

Hey!! It’s the ends justifies the means tactic!!  He saying stuff that isn’t intellectually honest or true, but he’s trying to get people’s attention.  He can defend his tactic,  (to lie and deceive) but not his statements (lies and deception) because his mission is so important. I’m quite familiar with that.  I used it too.  I read the rest of Harris’ book, and it was filled with it.  He employed a lot of stereotyped descriptions of Christians to a degree that I wonder if he actually ever knew one personally.  I used to think stereotypically of atheists the same way until I started to read what they write and talk to them and got to know them personally.  I found out that they are immensely more complicated then my stereotypes.

At this point, I must mention a book that was often checked out in the library of my university.  It was very popular.  It was called “How to Lie with Statistics“.  It was popular then an still is now for a purpose.  It is an important convincing tool when the end justifies the means, to “appear” scientific and objective in our agenda-soaked arguments about our pet truth claims.  I would also like to point to Michael Crichton’s CalTech commencement address on how to lie with science as well.

So where is this all leading?  This is where I piss off everyone.

This leaves the person who is seeking truth with a problem.  If you are angry or have an emotionally-charged agenda because you have been hurt, you are going to have a hard time hearing or communicating anything truthful regardless of your worldview, Christian or Atheist or otherwise.  To a person trying to hear truth from people and organizations like these, I’m going to have to disbelieve most of what they claim to be true.  This is why I do not believe nearly anything that comes out of the gay/lesbian or feminist activist organizations.  I believe that these groups have something true and great to say (such as people who are homosexual or female are awesome people and in every way equal their counterparts and discrimination in any form against them is morally wrong), but besides that basic message, much of what else they say or try to prove is untrue.  Christian end-times organizations and their writings are most often wrong.  Truth claims by Atheist activist organizations (who have similar endeavors as Sam Harris has demonstrated) are untrue.  A lot of truth claims from the interpretation of news events by the media is slanted and untrue.  A lot of ecological /global warming activist initiatives are highly suspect.  In my limited experiences with Christian movements, such as the Charismatic, Emergent church, and Social Gospel movements (just to name a few), some/a lot of what they believe is based on poor logic because they have a greater goal in mind in which they are more passionate about than the foundational truths that underpin it – which could not possibly hold it up to the level of grandeur that they see it as having.  Most of what they say is untrue too.  I’m not trying to point fingers at the liberal/secular organizations. I’m trying to say that all emotionally-charged agenda organizations, no matter what the underlying world-view, have highly suspect truth claims.

So I guess we are left to deal with these people and organizations with a huge grain of salt.  Even though what they have to say is highly suspect, it is possible and really important for a person seeking the truth to read between the lines to hear them.  Behind the misinformation and deliberate lies, there are real people who have real hurts and real concerns that decided one day like me that deception and lying were the ways to make the world hear clearer what they had to say.  In my humble opinion and experience, only when we actually get to know the real people behind these movements personally does the truth of their causes become clear.  Aside from that, there is too much deception and misinformation to find much truth in these places except from small bits and pieces.  Please don’t think I am saying to form friendships solely for philosophic purposes.  I’m saying when the opportunity comes, don’t be shy to be friends with people who think very differently than you do.  Share life with them, cry with them, laugh with them, love them, encourage them.  Christians, atheists have a lot to say and are fascinating people.  Atheists, Christians are amazing people and have a lot to say too.

One might criticize me and say that all religion and Christianity fall into the category of the other movements I’ve mentioned. I would agree with you. Why am I still a Christian then? Because I decided long ago to go to the source, to God himself, and get to know him personally. Just like I did with a feminist friend, just like I did with a gay friend of mine, just like I did with a friend who was crazy about Christian end-times mythology. By knowing God personally, I was able to cut through all the human religious garbage and lies that people invented and instead found the truth from the source – from the Person that started that Movement in the first place.

When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals—one on his right and one on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots. – Luke 23:33-34

At this point, the Roman soldiers who were responsible for performing the gruesome task of crucifixion had finished.  As was the custom, they began sorting though his clothing to decide who would get which item.

This was not the beginning of Jesus’ torture, but final portion of a day filled with it.  He had been beaten by his guards after his trial in the house of the High Priest early that morning. Later he was flogged under orders from Pilate, probably by hardened soldiers because of its intense brutality.  Afterward, he was beaten repeatedly in the head with a staff by a company of Roman soldiers.

So finally, the most painful torture yet had begun: the crucifixion— a gruesome practice that the Romans adopted from the Greeks and Medes and had perfected.  It was indented to be the most painful death possible with a purpose to scare observers into never breaking the same law themselves.

The first reaction to a terrible experience is often one of shock, where a person tries as best they can to make sense of what is happening to them.  But after the shock has worn off, other thoughts and feelings come to the surface—anger, bitterness, hopelessness.  This has been my experience over the years during the most difficult times.  When I am squeezed just so much, ugliness comes out.  Unable to handle the pain in those circumstances, after the shock had worn off, anger and hate dominated my life long afterward.

That was how I handled pain.  But how did Jesus handle it?  By this time, the shock of what was happening to him must have worn off, and the thoughts and feelings that come afterward must have taken its place.  I can guess what a man would be thinking.  But what was God thinking?

But even before his first statement on the cross, we are given a glimpse into Jesus’ heart and mind. Not more than twenty or thirty minutes ago, we see him consoling a group of women mourning for him.  He is worried not for himself, but for them—he tries to warn them of the terrible days ahead and is discouraged for them.

But now on the cross, we see His words once again revealing his heart and its focus on others, even in his excruciating pain.  However, this time not towards those who are weeping for him, but towards the uncaring men who are killing him— “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Jesus was not focused on his physical pain, or his spiritual suffering  soon to occur when he would be forsaken by God and left alone.  His mind was on the people around him.  Even though they are doing something terribly wrong, he understood that they were completely unaware of who he was and what he was doing. They were killing the one who was sent to save them from their brokenness that separated them from a God that so dearly loves them.

In this moment, in this pivotal point in all of history, it was God Himself who had come to pay the price to reconcile all men and women who are willing to Himself.  How could they have known this?

So in these words, we see the heart and mind of God.  It is one not focused on himself and his pain, but on the people he is dying to save—A people who are lost, ignorant, confused, without hope, hurt, and angry.  In reality, the events of this day, even at this very moment, were not hopeless but were the outcome of God’s orchestration—the hardening of men’s resolve to accomplish his will to reconcile a lost world to himself.  While he accomplished that great purpose, his heart and mind were on his people with compassion—both his friends, and his enemies.

This is God’s heart.  I wish very badly that it was mine too.

While my wife reads Twilight, I am currently playing Fallout 3, a video game that is full of fighting and moral choices, a dreamworld for me.  I am also reading Cherryh (science fiction) which involves a war between humans and aliens on other planets – way cool.

I thought a long time ago about being drawn to these things.  Why is this?  In my wife’s case- how is it possible anymore to have a passionate romance with very young children who constantly need your attention?  In my case, how can I get out a gun and go fight the bad guys and be brave when I have a family and a wife that takes top priority?

The answer is that we can’t – neither my wife or I – experience what our hearts desire in reality at the moment.  I can’t be that brave person I read about in my books, and watch in movies, or play-act in video games.  If I had the opportunity to fight or to be brave, I would, but I don’t, so I sit here dreaming, wishing that my life might include these opportunities sometime in the future.

I believe that God creates desires in us, not to torture us, but because they are intended to be one day consummated.  But I don’t understand why my chance has not yet come to step up to what means so much to me.  Why the wait?

After thinking about this a great deal, I think there is something more important then performing a brave act or fighting for a good cause, or experiencing a passionate romance – and that is the refinement of my character.  My character is the raw material and the essential tool for the work of being brave and fighting for what is right, or being in a love relationship.  When the opportunity comes, will my character be ready?  At this point, I would have to say no.   I have far too many character flaws.

It took the Apostle Paul 15+ years to be prepared for God’s commission to be an apostle to the gentile nations.  It took Moses 70 years as a shepherd until he led his people out of Egypt.   The building of character is a time-consuming process, but one that I know that God is intimately involved with. To be honest though, character-building is painful, boring, and at times, exhausting.

But in the meantime, what should I do with these desires and dreams that cannot be fulfilled now?  I imagine that they do – I continually take part in some mythical story by video game or reading or watching a movie.

In this respect, I think imagination is the key to character building.  It provides an exciting scenario of the end results of hard training and boring work – a chance to use my character in the face of some great challenge or obstacle that I was intended to do from the beginning.  One day I will have a chance to be brave, until then, I will learn, day by day, to not loose my temper, not to be selfish, and to not do the other actions that originate from a myriad of other character flaws that I suffer from.

I see in many video games today complex moral dilemmas in the actions you take.  Often times it is recommended to do the selfish thing or evil thing because it is more fun.  What I don’t like is to be engrossed in a world where selfishness is considered by its designers as morally right to the point where doing good is reduced to being do-goody or silly.  But at the same time, given choices to do wrong further makes the imagining of doing something right more rewarding.  I have a choice to do what is wrong, but instead choose to do what is right, the experience is more rewarding to my heart because my will was involved.  How can I enjoy doing right when I was not allowed to choose it?

But to the person who does not have God, imagination might serve another purpose.  Many of the science fiction books I have read and been inspired by have inspired them too.  Many of the video games I have played and enjoyed they have enjoyed too.  To watch a movie, read a book, or play a game in which the artificial world-view is left sufficiently open and mysterious, there lies the potential to be caught up in a narrative where beauty, hope, and meaning are real, and for just a moment (even a fleeting moment), before their own world-view reminds them that this is fantasy, they are caught up in a belief that they are truly important, and that their life is of great intrinsic value and has real meaning, and that there is more beauty and complexity to this world then they can possibly imagine.

So I believe imagination to be a spiritual entity.  For the ones who follow God, it is the fuel that draws them towards their heart’s desire, enabling them to develop discipline and character for the very purpose of [their desire's] consummation.  For the ones who don’t, it awakens in them a picture of what the world and their lives would be like with if it had real hope, meaning, beauty, and real purpose.

Craig,

Beautifully worded!  Rarely have I seen such excellent thinking on this topic, maybe because the
average Christian is afraid to ask these questions.  Even if you hadn’t said it, I would have
thought that your statements come from real experiences and frustrations with faith.

Of course I can’t give you satisfying answers to these questions.  Expect not to find them
instantly.  I can only give you the things I’m learning along the way… I’ve only been a
Christian for 20 years and only know very little. What I am about to say presupposes a Christian
worldview, so please take it as such, as I do not have the ability to prove God exists here or
anywhere outside the constructs of my wordview.

Most of the examples you gave are good criticisms, but have great answers that are very
satisfactory.  However, to be honest, there are some you didn’t mention that do not have good
answers at all – so your general point stands.

I have been reading the Bible and studying it – sometimes in the original language, for a long

time now.  I have to tell you that the small picture of God that I have portrayed in my first
comment is representative of so much of it, you wouldn’t believe it.  For every negative and
confusing passage about God, I can give you about a thousand (not exaggerating) that are the
opposite and are as amazing or more than what I mentioned in my first comment.  I have to
conclude that the few problem passages are there because I don’t understand something correctly -
possibly the original language is unclear or something else – but by and large, the picture of
God that is presented is utterly amazing and beautiful and quite internally consistant.

However, you’re response to that statement is predictable and very appropriate:  That is great,
but it is all still only my complex interpretation.  This is a very important and good point. So
important, that it is in fact the very crux of the problematic issue of finding spiritual truth.

How can we, who are imperfect and a little selfish, whose concepts of reality are colored by our
likewise imperfect culture (religious or otherwise) find spiritual truth?

You can’t do it like cultural, people-run religious institutions do – by simply having a book to
follow and a pastor/priest to answer all your questions about it.  Sometimes you don’t even have
a book to follow, and most of the time your pastor is corrupt or confused himself/herself.

Do you understand a loved one by reading books about them?  Well, maybe at first if some existed,
but what kind of relationship would that be if that were the only way to know about them?  God is
not a concept – he/she is a person, an intelligent being (according to the Bible).  If that is
the case, the Bible was meant to be stories about his/her history, not your only source for truth
about him/her.  If that is all we had, of course people would misunderstand things all the time -
interpret them according to what they want to hear, or with the colored glasses of our cultural
wordview.

But what if you could talk to God, spend time with Him/Her just like you do a significant other?
If you are confused, why not just ask? When dealing with a human person, who would you say would
know the most about them?  People who have read their histories in books, or people that actually
were their closest friends/lovers?  The latter of course – you get the info from the source – not
only do you get to hear what they think, but you watch them act – and actions are more proof of a
truth about them than their own words are.

The spiritual life is about a love relationship between two real people.  Getting to know God is
like falling in love with someone – you don’t really know them that well initially, but as time
goes on, you get to know them better and better.  You are only human, and will never fully
understand any other person, be it God or otherwise, but you will diligently spend your whole
life learning because you love people and love God. God, as well as human beings, are too complex
and beautiful to ever fully comprehend.

Finding truth about any person, especially about God, is a process with a lot against you.  But
good Lord – what in life is more important than relationships?  And what relationship is more
important then the one with your Creator? We are built for relationships, whether the desire is
from evolution or by God’s design, it is hard to disagree that it is not an integral part of who
we are.

A lot of people have a lot of different opinions about my wife. So what! Why should that stop me
from my quest to love and know her personally and make my own conclusions?  I KNOW her better
then them all, and even if I didn’t – I would find out for myself and spend the rest of my life
trying– because I love her.  If I were to read about her in books, I would have a better
understanding of what they are saying becuase I KNOW her personally.  After I’ve known her
personally and watched her and talked to her for years, decades even, when I read about her,
wouldn’t I understand even better what I am reading?  I don’t spend time constructing logical
arguements to determine if my wife loves ice cream, I ask her, and then I watch her eat it.

So it is with God.  The Bible was never intended to be the only source of the truth of God.  God
is the source of truth about God.  The Bible matches up to the person becuase the people who
wrote it were also in personal realationships with God too.  Since you know the person (God) you
can recognize Him/Her when other people are talking about the same person.  The ways they
describe God will be familar to your experience.

Also, I think there is something alluring about mystery in a relationship.  Just because I don’t
know every darn thing about my wife dosen’t mean it’s not possible to love her.  It is an element
that draws me closer to her.  I am drawn to mystery and beauty.  I want discover more about the
mystery and be drentched in her beauty as often as I can.

Why is God different?  He/She is mysterous, and so very beautiful – it brings tears to my eyes to
remember our conversations and our time spent together.

Spiritual truth is learned over time – slowly, through an intimate relationship with God.  It is
learned, forgotten, and relearned anew, just like a relationship with my wife.  God is not a
speciem to be studied under a microscope in a controlled enviornment, nor is my wife.  That is
approaching the problem with a wrong paradigm in mind.  If you can’t control the subject of
observation in order to get repeatable behavior, such an endeavor won’t work.  Think of learning
about a person by being in a relationship, love being the fuel that drives you, not a quest to
conquer by intellectual understanding. Its unpredictable and chaotic, but it is the only way that
will garner the most accurate truth.

Tell me if you can – what is more imporant in life than relationships?  Isn’t it worth any cost
to love and know others regardless of varying options about them?  Why live your life on the
basis of other people’s confusion?  Mabye we can take other people’s word for some things, such
as my car is drivable for long distances according to my mechanic, but for heaven sakes, I’m not
going to rely only on other people to learn about my wife and then tell me the truth they
discovered about her- I want to find out for myself. I have a brain and the ability to reason,
why can’t I do this? How much more is this true about God?

So I say again, you can find spiritual truth.  It is not easy, and it is not instant. It takes a
lifetime. It is found in a thousand intimate moments thoughout your lifetime in a relationship
with God himself.  You will often be wrong, but over time you will be more and more right.  With
the same assurance and authority that I tell you something true about my wife, I can tell you
what I did about God in my first message.  I have been granted the authority because of the
reality of the relationship.  I have the authority to tell people truth about my wife because I
know her very well. I can tell truth about God too – not because I only read a book and am a good
Hebrew scholar or have a grasp of the ancient mind or a mastery of exegesis (I am not good at any of these things), but because I am in a relationship with Him for long enough to have learned those truths, forgotten them, and relearned them again until they were ingrained within me.

“Get truth and don’t ever sell it.” ~ Proverbs 23:23

“When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, your lives will produce these evil results: …the feeling that everyone is wrong except for those in your own little group…” ~ Galatians 5:19-21.

These are two passages point out dangers that the person who is searching for truth will inevitably encounter. Since truth is what this website is all about, and the people who come here to read stuff care about it, I thought it would be a good idea to write about these dangers.

If I understand the first passage correctly, truth is not a commodity.  It is not to be gained for mere profit, but instead to directly enrich your life.  Playing philosophical games with concepts that have no bearing at all on actual life is one example of this.  This is exemplified in the thinking and writing of David Hume, and I think still runs rampant in academic philosophical circles today.  Putting aside how his theories were a part of the evolution of philosophical thought stemming from a battleground between enlightened philosophers from the Age of Reason and their Christian counterparts, Hume’s claim to fame was the statement that he really didn’t know if he existed or not.  Now in the world of philosophical etherality, this may seem pretty cool and avante garde.  In the reality of life, this is profoundly stupid and useless thinking. Obviously neither Hume or anyone who propagates this really takes it seriously at all.  Although he claimed to believe this, he lived his life with the assumption that he did exist.    Epictitus said it best – the aim of philosophy is not to win arguements with logic tricks and constructs, but to discover truth and apply it to the art of living your life.

Truth is not for winning arguments.  Truth is not for writing books to make money.  Truth is not to impress your students or colleagues.  Truth is not for writing smart crap in blogs.  The discovery of truth is for direct application in your life.  One of the reasons why I *try* to be honest and show my doubts and confusion over issues here is because I want people to see that even while I write, I am still trying to figure things out.  I don’t have all the answers to things, and I don’t want to pretend that I do.  I want anyone who might read this stuff to be encouraged to try to use truth the right way too – not for selfish motivations or personal gain, but to live life better and to help those around you.

The second verse hit me pretty hard.  I don’t know any church or religious (or non-religious ) entity or group that DOESN’T do this.  Come on!  Don’t we all take pride in thinking that our way is right?  That we have all the answers?  If we get a bunch of people together that think like we do, then we will really sink on this one and succumb to group-think (that now that we believe we are right en-mass, we must really be right…)

Instead, its better to realize that you are probably wrong in most of what you believe.  At best, all you will ever do is scratch the surface.  I like Solomon’s quote:

“For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.”

With wisdom, we can only scratch the surface of finding truth, and only scratching the surface is hardly satisifying at all if it is the place we look to find meaning in life (thus, its pursuit for this purpose brings grief).  If all any of us can do is scratch the surface on any area of knowledge, how can we sit around and pat each other on the back and congratulate each other for being in the “know” – the elite group among the sea of humanity that really has the corner on truth?  This is a ridiculous notion that I know I fall prey to all the time.  At the end of my life of searching for truth, it is humbling to know that I will only ever just scratch the surface.

And that is the what I walk away with today – the pursuit of truth is to improve the way I live and for the benefit of others.  It must be pursued with a humble heart.  If I don’t pursue truth with these thoughts in mind?  I will probably just find what I want to find instead of real truth…  I’ve been down that road a thousand times.  Before I die, I’ll walk that road a million times more.  Somewhere between now and then, I pray I will humbly find real truth and may it improve my life and the lives of others around me.  I wish the same for you guys too.

The region is quite conservative.  Many scholars- atheist, agnostic, and Christian alike seem to agree that the area Jesus grew up in was populated by people who were resistant to outside religion or spirituality.  This culture was in many ways linked to its secluded location up in the mountains off the main roadways.  Although they could see out over the valley of Armageddon where the main roadways were, they were not influenced by the foreign influences that traveled along them.  The body of research work I surveyed seems to agree – Whatever cultural influences that affected Jesus growing up, its certain that little to none were of a foreign nature.  He grew up in a very traditional Jewish world, one that remembered very clearly the stories of Elisha and Elijia, and the many Judges.  For a resident of Nazereth need only look out over the valley to see the very location of where a majority of the stories took place – where God acted on behalf of his people.

Enjoy!

Introduction

There are many attractions to a detailed study of the region of Lower Galilee.  Geographically, it is very unique— described as being a “shattered” region because of its many surface faults.  It has developed into an area with deep basins and sharp mountain ridges.  Its eastern area has seen extensive volcanic activity and earthquakes with a crater as evidence in the highland region near the Horns of Hattin that has resulted in a massive basalt rock layer.  In regards to its history, it is the home for major throughways for armies and trade down though the ages, from as early as the 4th millennium B.C to the present. Shortly after the Israelite conquest of the land of Canaan, it was a region shared by the tribes of Zebulan, Issachar, and Napthli.  It is believed by some to have been one of the most fertile regions in all of Israel.  It was in this area where Jesus grew up as a child, later worked as a contractor, and later still began his early ministry.  Modern scholars, both liberal and conservative, have taken a renewed interest in Lower Galilee to better understand how its geography, foreign influences, and politics might have shaped and affected Jesus’ teachings that lead to the formation of Christianity in its early years.  Also of interest to modern scholarship is the formulation of post-temple Judaism by these same influences by the rabbinical culture who survived in the aftermath of the Great Jewish Revolt and the later Bar-Kochbah rebellion.

Any one of these specific areas of study would be a sizable work by itself, but the purpose here is to provide the reader with an introductory treatment of them.  For such a small region, belonging to a population of hard working farmers, it is amazing to realize that the events that took place here have left their mark deep in the culture and spirituality of the Western world.

Size & Geography

The overall size of Lower Galilee is relatively small— according to topographical maps, it is approximately fifteen by fifteen miles.  Its northern border has traditionally been the Beth ha-Kerem Valley (meaning house of the vine) with Upper Galilee directly to the north.  The western border is the eastern edge of the Plain of Acco on the coast.  To the southwest, its boundary is the valley running north east of Mt. Carmel and the Jezreel valley to the south and southeast.  Its northeastern border is the Hula Valley, and to the east, the Sea of Galilee.

Depending on the sources sited on Lower Galilee’s geographic sub-regions, we find anywhere between two to four.  For our studies, we will select three: western, central, and eastern— each having distinctive features and boundaries that make them stand out from the others.

The western region is a continuation of the Judean Shephelah, similar in general altitude and underlying rock formation.  It consists of soft, round hills composed of Eocene limestone.  It is divided in half by the Nahal Zippori which receives its name from the town of Zippori in the central region where its source is located. This serves as the main drainage system for this southwestern region, as well as for a majority of the lower central region.  This area has historically been sparsely populated due to the presence of a hard pan of lime concentration which prevents the formation of soil and the occurrence of springs.  Because of this, serious attempts at agriculture were difficult except if done near the river bank of Nahal Zippori.  The region was mainly used by bedouin who took advantage of the rich grazing potential.  The largest expanse of oak forests in the country is still preserved here.

The central region of Lower Galilee is the most interesting in terms of geologic uniqueness.  It is considerably broken up by faults and cross-folding, and because of its extreme complexity it is given the description of being a “shattered” region.  It holds hills with high altitudes due to the presence of a rock dome which has long been broken down and eroded to form the Bet-Netofa and Turan valleys.  The mountain ranges in the north of this central region holds its highest peaks reaching elevations around 1962 feet above sea level (Mt. Kamon).  These elevations are unimpressive compared with the higher ones found a handful of miles to the north over the border into northern Galilee which has peaks nearing 4000 feet.  Besides the Bet Netofa and Turan valleys, we find other geologic basin formations.  The town of Nazareth is found in a Senonian chalk basin which lies in the highland region to the south at the edge of the Jezreel Valley.  Because of its softer porous rock, we find numerous natural springs most likely determined the town’s location here.  To the north, we find the Shaguar basin valley, a small valley just a couple miles north of the Bet Netofa valley.

Each of these main basin valleys is drained indirectly by a single river.  The Turon and Bet Netofa valleys are drained by the Nahal Iphtah-el, which starts in the Turon Valley, moves north though a thin valley at the edge of Mt. Turon, and then turns southwest and eventually merges with the Nahal Zippori that continues its windy course to the costal region of Acco.  Similarly, the Shaugar has draining problems with the Halazun river which runs along a serpentine riverbed in steep narrow valleys before it reaches the coast.  Because of inefficient drainage, these basins are usually swampy and waterlogged during the rainy season.  This causes any roads or towns to be located at the basin edges or up on the slopes of the surround hillsides.  However, these valleys are filled with rich alluvial soils due to erosion of the hills surrounding them making them very fertile for growing crops.  Overall, nearly thirty percent of the Lower Galilee region consists of these level basins which greatly contributes to its high output of grain crops.

This region is quite beautiful almost year round.  Flowers fill the hillsides and grain crops fill the basins when they are not waterlogged.  Vines and olives trees can be found all over the hillsides in great amounts.  The northern valleys are currently engaged in growing olive trees on a large scale.  Most of the highlands in this central region were at one time filled with forests of oaks and maple trees.
The final region to be discussed here is the eastern one.  Its topmost rock layer is composed of basalt originating from ancient volcanic activity.   The rock layer shows us how far the volcanic lava flowed from its center near the Horns of Hattin.  This flow extends up north of the Sea of Galilee into the bottom portion of the Hula valley portion of the Jordan Rift Valley.  It begins to cover a wide area initially, but tapers off towards the hills of Upper Galilee towards the latitude of the city of Hazor.  This entire area contains the largest expanse of basalt in Israel.  The hill and plateau portions of this region suffers from frequent drought and lack of irrigation, so dairy and limited grain production are done.  The only exception to this is the Javneel valley, which will be discussed shortly.

Overall, this region is geographically composed of four separate tilted blocks with steep ridges facing northeast but with gradual slopes sinking in elevation to the southwest.  The first of these block formations overlooks the Plain of Magdella and the Arbel Valley.  It is the location of Mt. Arbel.  The second formation is the range that overlooks the east side of the Sea of Galilee and runs down to a couple miles south of its bottom alongside the Jordan Rift Valley.  Its opposite, southwest facing side does not gradually descend due to the formation of the Javneel valley, and is instead a thin ridge.  The final two tilted block formations exist south and west of the Javneel valley, one faces the Javneel valley to the north and east, and the other is bordered to the north by the Nahal Tavor which drains into the Jordan River to the east.  This region, in particular is very rocky and hard to cultivate.

The Javneel valley is a unique sight.  Amidst the steep mountains completely surrounding it, this beautiful area flourishes with an intense amount of fruit and vegetable production.  It does not share the drainage problems of its fellow basins in the central region.  The Nahal Javneel, originating in the highlands southeast of the Horns of Hattin, runs thought the center of the valley to the southwest, through a connecting valley to the southeast that connects to the Rift Valley, and then drains into the Jordan.  It provides both a good water supply and efficient drainage system for the valley.

One final place of interest is Mt. Tabor in the south within the Jezreel valley.  Even though it sits on the valley plain, it is still considered by most to be inside the Lower Galilee region.  It is the second highest in elevation in the region reaching nearly 1929 feet, and is theorized to have been formed by a volcanic intrusion originating from inside the mountains nearby.

Climate

The Lower Galilee region has a normal Mediterranean climate.  It follows the same pattern of rainfall as most other sections in Israel, but gets about 20-25 inches per year during its rainy season.  This along with its many springs abundant in basin formations, the region is very well watered and abundantly fertile.  However, the lower east and western regions are not fertile, resulting in the central region being home to a majority of the region’s population.

Key Roads and Towns

Having laid out a background of the region’s geography and climate, we are now prepared to discuss Lower Galilee’s network of villages and roads.  Since the interior of Lower Galilee is filled with east-west valleys, it is natural to assume that the region is an excellent source for lines of communication between the Jordan Rift valley and the coastal plain.  This is mostly true except for the unfortunate reality that each valley never completely connects.  All roads making use of these valleys will eventually encounter mountains making it more difficult to traverse.  Regardless, this region provides the best east-west travel in all the country because of its level basins and many options for alternative routes. Due to the winter flooding of the basin valleys, it is not be surprising to find that all towns and roads stay to the edges or up on the hillsides of this region.  With these two factors in mind, we will begin to explore the major roadways and towns that have been found.

From the earliest times in history, we find that Lower Galilee was home to a portion of the great International Highway that connected the empires of the Fertile Crescent— Egypt in the southwest and Syria and Mesopotamia in the northeast.  It held the most direct and least mountainous connection between the Plain of Chinnereth on the west side of the Sea of Galilee near the town of Rakkath (later consumed by the town of Tiberias during Roman occupation) and the Jezreel Valley.  Once it entered the valley floor, this road navigated between Mt. Tabor to the north and Mt. Moreh to the south before turning to the southwest, passing close by the towns of Kishion and Nain in the Valley of Chesulloth.

While the main route of the International Highway that connected Mesopotamia left Megiddo or Jokenum and crossed the Jezreel Valley between Mt. Tabor and Mt. Moreh, an alternate route existed.  This alternate was known as the Megiddo-Hannathon-Acco road.  Its position at Hannathon provided the traveler with an alternative route to the coast from the Jezreel Valley.  It also provided another route to reach Mesopotamia from Egypt and southern Israel by traveling east to the Horns of Hattin and connecting with the main route of the International Highway again near the Sea of Galilee.

Besides the International Highway and its alternate routes, there are three other notable lateral and local roads in this region.  The first of these was an important roadway connecting the Transjordan towns with the coast for the purpose of international trade and shipping called the Acco–Hannathon–Javneel Valley Road.  Until recent times, it was known by the name Darb el-Hawarnah, meaning “The Way of the Hauranites.”  The important towns that grew up along this route within the Lower Galilee region were Hannathon, Rimmon, Horns of Hattin (Adami?), Jabneel, T. Yin’am and T. Ubeidaya near the Jordan River.  This route was mentioned in Papyrus Anastasi I by the Egyptian scribe Hori during the reign of Ramses II.  According to Saarisalo, some of the villages mentioned that were not located near the fertile valleys sprung up in response to a commercial opportunity for business with passing caravans, merchants, and other travelers, a common reason for a town’s location in the ancient world.   Another historical source that mentions this route is in one of the Amarna tablets (EA 8).  The king of Babylon writes that his caravan was attacked by the kings of Acco and Shim’on near Hannathon.  His caravan must have been using this route.

The second important local road in this region was the Acco–Beth-Hakkerem Valley–Hazor Road.  The majority of this road exists in the Beth-Hakkerem valley that makes up a convenient pass to the Jordan Rift Valley, but it ends six miles before reaching it.  At this point, the terrain becomes mountainous and broken, created by the Ammud wadi system making a direct eastern approach impossible.  The traveler instead must navigate to the north into the Upper Galilean region to Sefet before they can once again descend into the Jordan Rift Valley to connect with the International Highway.  A later dated road has been found that takes a southern route eventually leading to the Plain of Chinnereth.

A final route system that deserves mentioning is one that became more prominent during the Roman-Byzantine period.  Zippori (Sepphoris) and Nazereth in the lower regions became popular because of Rabbinical interest and occupation of the former and Crusader and Christian interest of the latter.  These towns were built up and existing roads were upgraded and connected to the nearby larger villages of Hannathon and Shim’on.  In the process, a new route system became popular that replaced the stop of Hannathon with Zippori as a central town in its passage – Acco–Zippori–Tiberias and Zippori–Shim’on–Megiddo.

Archaeology

Not much intense archaeological activity has occurred in the Lower Galilee region until the early 1980s, and the towns that have been excavated, such as Bet She’arim, Japhia, Nazereth, and Zippori (Sepphoris), mainly date from the Roman-Byzantine period.  However, frequent site surveys have been conducted.  Pottery that has been found at these sights and others reveal older settlement during the Chalcolithic, Canaanite (Early, Middle, and Late Bronze Ages) and Iron Age periods.  No site dated in the time frame of these earlier ages has been excavated extensively at this time.  Out of all sites surveyed, Hannathon is the largest in Lower Galilee and contains the most complete historical record, spanning the Chalcolithic to the Ottoman ages.

History

With the previous geological overview and an understanding of the region’s location in terms of human settlement and lines of communication, the stage has been set to introduce a brief historical overview.
The earliest settlements found by archaeological surveys date back to the Chalcolithic period (4th Millennium B.C.). Out of these, the towns of Sho’im east of Nazereth, Hannathon in the Beth-Netophah Valley,  Ein Yibque’a in the western lowlands, Hurbat Akin in the southwest region near the banks of the Tavor river, and Ein Hadda, also in the Nahal Tabor region of the southeast all have evidence of pottery belonging to this period.

Canaanite Period

The earliest mention of settlements of this region in written records have been found in the Egyptian Later Execration texts that were inscribed on figurines dating to the end of the nineteenth century B.C., during the Canaanite Middle Bronze Age.  These records contained lists and curses of the Pharoah’s potential enemies.  The city of Shim’on is mentioned.  The people living in the land at this time were probably Amorites, a nomadic people group who had migrated from the north and eventually formed settlements.  They expanded south as well as west, putting an end to the Sumerian and Akkadian kingdoms in Mesopotamia.  At least within written records, their main areas of occupation in regard to the Lower Galilean region were in cities slightly beyond its borders, such as Hazor, and Megeddo.

The later Hyskos Period (Egyptain for “foreign kings”) saw extensive building of these two towns, especially at Hazor, which according to archaeology and other ancient documents, points to it being a capitol city.  This may be why it is referred to in the Bible during the Israelite conquest as being the head of the northern kingdoms (Joshua 11:10).  The next mention of this region is in city lists of the conquest of Thutmose III during the Late Bronze Age.  The Lower Galilean towns mentioned are Shim’on, Adamim (near the Horns of Hattin?), Shemesh-edom, and Chinnereth.   Shemesh-adam (near the Horns of Hattin?) is the first place mentioned again in a campaign by Thutmose III’s son, Amen-hotep II.  The later dated El-Amarna letters, which were written in Akkadian cuneiform, mention two towns in Lower Galilee— Hannathon and Shimon.  Aharoni appears to contradict himself in light of the apparent existence of Hannathon from these texts when he later says that the interior parts of Lower and Upper Galilee were “forested and unoccupied during the Bronze Age.”

Israelite Period

There appears to be a strong connection of the conquering group called the ‘Apiru mentioned repeatedly in the El-Amarna letters and the Hebrews of the Israelite invasion.  For example, these letters mention an invasion of this conquering people group of Galilean region by a letter by the King of Tyre describing the fall of Hazor to the ‘Apiru (EA, 148).   Repeatedly throughout his overview of the Israelite conquest, we find Aharoni making connections between the events in Joshua and events described in the El-Amarna letters even though he leans towards a belief in most cases that they are similar events from two separate times periods.  However, he goes so far as to suggest that the tribe of Asher actually came during the El Amarna period while the other tribes came during the Iron Age period a century or more later.  The reason for this is based on the fact that its name has been found in inscriptions describing Seti I’s campaigns.

The next notable historic account regarding the Lower Galilean region is Joshua’s conquest of northern Canaan in Joshua 11.  One of the kings the Israelite army fought against was from Shim’on, located in the southwestern corner of the region.  The location of the final battle at “The Waters of Meron) is debated.  Aharoni suggests it is located in Upper Galilee.  However, Gal argues based on new evidence that the waters of Merom are located at a rich spring at the base of the Horns of Hattin located on the International Highway, an ideal place to stage an army for battle and provide better ground for chariot warfare.  Another vanquished king of this region might be found in the defeated kings list of Joshua 12.  It is suggested that due to the ordering of kings from towns in the south to the north, the king of Goyim in Gilgal mentioned in verse 23a may actually be the “King of the Goyim (or people) of Galilee.”

Not long after this incident, the tribe of Zebulun inherited most of Lower Galilee as described in Joshua 19:10-16.  Bar differs in his boundary lines to the west and east from previous scholarship He proposes that Rimmon, which marked the eastern border, was actually the spring in the region of the Horns of Hattin.  For the northwestern boundary corner, he proposes the mouth of the Yiphtah’el valley where it opens up into the Acco plain pointing towards Tel Keisan.  This would make for a larger territory than previously assumed, but Gal argues that it seems more plausible because it follows more natural boundary lines.

Foreign Occupation Period (Assyrian – Greek)

The next notable event in Galilean history is the Assyrian conquest of the land mentioned in 2nd Kings 15:29.  According to more recent scholarship, the entire population was not deported by Tiglath-pileser.  Drawing on documentation from Assyrian annals, we find that based on the numbers, as many as 625 or 650 deportees from each major Lower Galilean town would have most likely been military or royal officers (ANET 283).  However, the vast majority of the population—regular farmers, would have continued to stay.  Horsley argues further that since Syria had periodically invaded and controlled parts of northern Galilee and other regions, it may have been their administrators that were deported rather than the Israelites.  He mentions that the region of Samaria was probably the only place were the the Assyrians deported most of the pollution and then repopulated it with other conquered people.  This displaced people group of non-Jews drove a cultural and geographic wedge between Galilee and its religious center of Judea ever afterwards.  Galilee remained traditionally and religiously tied to Jerusalem, but the Samaritan region, now inhabited by a displaced people group composed of mainly non-Jews,  became cultic. Galileans rejected the Samaritan temple as a place to worship by evidence of pilgrimages and tithes to Jerusalem. For the next 400 years, very little changed except switches in foreign governing empires from Assyrian to Babylonian to Persian.

During the period of the conquest of Alexander the Great and the spread of Greek culture, it appears that the effects of hellenization on the people of Galilee had mostly to do with land ownership and administrators put in place for tax collection purposes.  There was no forced hellenization like what took place in Judea during the later periods that involved foreign religious practices.  Greek philosophy would have been very unlikely to make any impact on the farmers of this region—religious syncretism would have been more likely, but as was have already noted, this appeared to not have happened.  So in summary, it appears that the inhabitants of Lower Galilee, while surrounded by foreign culture, failed to be seduced by it and continued to be conservative in their adherence to traditional Judaism.  This was the religious culture and environment that Jesus was eventually raised in.  It was not one bombarded with radical Greek philosophy, but rather one of conservative religion adhered to by the hard working people of the land.

New Testament Period Events & Culture

Finally we reach this region’s most important events— those of Jesus’ early ministry and his time there growing up in the town of Nazareth.  We find that Jesus was rejected with an attempt by the townspeople to throw him off a cliff nearby at his own hometown as he begin his ministry (Luke 4:14-31). We are told of his first miracle that occurred at Cana in John 2:1-11; 4:43-54.  Scholars are not certain if the location was at Tel Qana in the northern edge of the Beth Netophah valley or at Kefar Kamma, a town a few miles away from Nazareth.

Baily reflects on this region and its choice by God as the place Jesus would connect with the world.  Its secluded geography resulted in a tendency of its people to insulate themselves from foreign thinking and culture, making it both independent and conservative.  This was the place God chose to grow up and spend a good portion of his time ministering in.  This was the region that he chose many of his disciples and his closest friends who would later become the first apostles and leaders of the early church.

After the death of Jesus, other notable occurrences in the land of Israel and in Galilee in particular occurred.  The most notable was the great revolt in the summer of 66 A.D.  It appears that although there were frequent outbreaks of violence from numerous causes in this region, it mainfested itself in partially organized banditry and was aimed at the ruling class elite rather than Romans in general.  Josephus was sent from Jerusalem to assert control and regain stability in this region, but he utterly failed to do so.  This was not just a local occurrence, but occurred thoughout Israel and seemed to be a general indication of intense popular unrest and anger towards corrupt religious and political leadership coupled with economic hardships.  Roman retribution of this revolt occurred a year later in the summer of 67 A.D.  It was lead by Vespasian and was as Horsley put it “swift and devastating.”  The entire campaign in Galilee lasted until November, and resulted in a considerable percentage of the population being killed or taken away as slaves.  Numerous towns and villages were destroyed as well.

Following the re-conquest of Galilee, it came under direct Roman rule as part of the overall province of Judeah.  This marked a period where Rome was phasing out local client-rulers, and it is believed that the economic pressures were lifted off the peasant population because of this.  In other words, the middleman had been removed.

Following the Bar Kokhba Revolt, it appears that the rabbinic school, surviving mostly in Pharisaic forms, moved from the area of Yavneh to Lower Galilee and at first settled on its western borders at Usha, Shefar ‘am, and Beth She’arim.  Later on, they moved their base of operations to more the prominent cities of Sepphorus and Tibirus.   It appears that the majority of the rabbinical teachings were largely ignored by the vast majority of Galilee’s inhabitants because most of their regulations over and above the mosaic law were only possible for a middle class urbanite to follow.  It was during this time that the Jewish Mishnah was complied by the Tannaim scribal tradition under the leadership of Judah the Prince, although its inception begin before the fall of Jerusalem by Rabbi Akiba. Rabbinic academies were established around this time as well.  This time period of early Rabbanic influence in Galilee fell approximately in the middle of the talmudic period, which was marked by a strong movement to establish a standardized text of the Hebrew Bible.  This standardization seems to have solidified along with meticulous rules for its reproduction during the rabbinical establishment in Galilee around 100 A.D.

Regardless of the region’s heavy involvement in the religions of Christianity and post-temple Pharisaic Judaism, there seems to be no activity or interest by the general population for either.  Horley concludes with his overview of the history of Galilee that “the continuing independence of the Galileans was rooted in their continuing cultivation of popular Israelite traditions such as Mosaic covenantal ideals of justice and stories of resistance such as the Song of Deborah and the narratives of Elijah and Elisha.”

Works Cited

• Aharoni, Yohanan. The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography. 2nd Edition; Translated by A.F. Rainy; Philadelpha: Westminster Press, 1979.
• Baly, Denis. The Geography of the Bible. New York: Harper & Row, 1957.
• Barag, Dan. “Japhia.”  Pages 659-60 in vol.2 of The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. Edited by Ephraim Stern. 4 vols.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
• Dorsey, David A. The Roads and Highways of Ancient Israel.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
• ________ “The Inheritance of the Tribe of Zebulun: Joshua 19:10-16.”  Masters Thesis,  Northeastern Bible College, 1971.
• Efrat, Elisha and Efraim Orni.  Georgraphy of Israel. 3rd Edition. Jerusalem: Jerusalem University Press, 1971.
• Freyne, Seán. Galilee From Alexander the Great to Hadrian 323 BCE to 135 CE: A Study of Second Temple Judaism.  Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1980.
• Gal, Zvi. Lower Galilee During The Iron Age. Translated by Marcia R. Josephy; Vol. 8 of The American Schools of Oriental Research Dissertation Series; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1992.
• Horsley, Richard. Galilee: History, Politics, People. Valley Forge, Trinity Press International, 1995.
• Karmon, Yehuda. Israel: A Regional Geography. London: John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 1971.
• Smith, George Adam. The Geography Of the Holy Land: Especially in Relation to the History Of Israel and of the Early Church. London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1894. Repr., Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 2007.
• Tzaferis, Vassilios and Bellarmino Bagatti, “Nazareth.” Pages 1103-06 in vol.3 of The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land.  Edited by Ephraim Stern. 4 vols.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.
• Wegner, Paul D. The Journey from Texts to Translations: The Origin and Development of the Bible.  Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 1999.
• Weiss, Zeev.  “Sepphoris.” Pages 1324-28 in vol.4 of The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. Edited by Ephraim Stern. 4 vols.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993.

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