(by Dave, 40-50 min)
“There you have it everyone.”
Dr. Walter Riley recapped his dry eraser pen and walked away from the whiteboard. “These statements and the contradiction they present are without question the most troubling vexation Christian evangelicals have in their faith.”
Dr. Riley looked out over the class of 17-year-olds and realized that this was probably the first time these freshmen had been introduced to the truth. He absolutely adored teaching the Religious Perspectives class. He knew that many of his full professor colleagues looked down their noses on teaching freshman, but not him. There was nothing so satisfying to Walter Riley as introducing a person to a new way of thinking. If that new way rocked their foundation, so be it. Such were the consequences of truth, and finding the truth is what college was all about.
Riley remembered how powerfully these words had shaken him out of his own stilted thinking 15 years ago. He had come from a working-class family on the outskirts of Cleveland and spent his Sundays between his parents in the pews. It was pleasant enough, and he believed what he heard there. He accepted without question the faith his parents expressed nightly around the dinner table and the lessons he learned during so many Sunday school sessions and summer camps. It wasn’t until he entered college that he began to realize how badly mistaken were the people who taught him.
“Do you see the conundrum?” Dr. Riley smiled at his class and crossed his arms as he leaned on the board. It was the second meeting of the class, and the kids were still sluggish in responding. Hopefully, today would change all that as he truly got down to business.
“Don’t be bashful. I won’t bite your head off.” He began slowly walking around the classroom as he continued to speak.
“Okay guys, you are in college now. It’s time to start thinking. I expect you all to open-up in class and say what’s on your mind. The only way we can find the truth is if we spend time talking about it.” He stopped squarely in front of the classroom again.
“Now do any of you see any problem with these three statements?” A tentative hand was raised from a young man in the middle of the room.
“Yes,” Dr. Riley responded. “And what is your name please?”
“Steve.”
“Nice to meet you Steve,” Dr. Riley said with genuine warmth. “Please, what are your thoughts?”
“Well, I guess I see a conundrum there. If God is all loving and all powerful, why does evil exist?”
A door opened in the back of the room and a middle-aged woman in a sharp business suit slipped in and sat down. Puzzled, Dr. Riley pressed on.
He smiled broadly. “Excellent. Anyone else?” He waited patiently. “Oh, come now someone must be feeling or thinking about Steve’s revelation.”
“It doesn’t bother me,” said a tall, thin student with circular glasses.
“And your name sir?”
“Bruce.”
“Okay Bruce. Why doesn’t it bother you?” Dr. Riley sat on the edge of the table in the front of the room.
“I don’t believe in God, so anything you have to say about him, or her, or it really doesn’t matter much to me.”
Riley shook his head appreciatively. “Okay, but there are lots of people who do believe in God and this class is about what those people believe.” He smiled to take the edge off his next observation. “You do recognize, Bruce, that this course is called Religious Perspectives, right?
Bruce stared at him.
“That means we are going to be discussing the subject of God and even if you do not believe, I would hope that the issue raises your curiosity even if only to wonder why so many other people do.”
Bruce continued to stare.
Riley pushed on. “So how about this, Bruce? Suppose that you believe in God. Would you have any problems with this set of statements?”
Bruce came back to life. “Sure. Just like Steve said, the three statements are contradictory, leaving someone who does believe in God in trouble.”
“Trouble? How so?” Dr. Riley quickly stepped in before Bruce could answer. “Not you Bruce, let’s see what others think.” He looked around the room. “How about someone else? Who can describe how they think these contradictory statements might leave someone who believes in God in trouble?”
Another woman in the back row with purple hair raised her hand.
“Yes,” Dr. Riley smiled because these guys were getting into it quickly which always happened once those three statements were on the board. “And your name?”
“Meredith. It’s pretty clear to me that if God is all-powerful and all loving she would’ve created a world where there was no evil. So, since there is evil in the world, there obviously can’t be a God. Or if there is a God, she is not so good or all-powerful after all.”
“Very insightful.” Dr. Riley stood again uncapping the pen. He jotted on the whiteboard: No God, God not good, God not powerful. “So which is it Meredith, is there no God or is God just not so all-powerful or good?”
“I don’t know,” Meredith said with a shrug of her shoulders. “I tend to think there’s something out there, but it doesn’t seem to be the kind of deity most Christians like to associate with God.”
Another hand went up in the back of the room catching Dr. Riley’s attention. He shifted his gaze, and it was the middle-aged woman looking back at him. His face showed a little surprise at this, but he recovered quickly.
“Yes, and your name?”
The woman was easily 50 years old. If Dr. Riley didn’t know better, he would’ve thought it was one of his faculty colleagues peer evaluating his course.
“I’m Patty Johnson. It seems to me there are a number of assumptions being made about those statements you are just accepting without question.”
“Really,” Walter Riley was immediately irritated by the tone. This one is going to be trouble he thought.
“Yes, could you define for me precisely what you mean by evil because it seems to me no definition has been provided.”
“In what ways do you think evil could be defined Patty?” Riley shot back.
“Well, I could define it, but what I need to know is how you and the class are defining it.” She motioned to the board. “Meredith’s comments caused you to write on the board no God, God not good, God not powerful. Those are some very profound conclusions based on the contradiction Lisa and Bruce observed in the words. Yet the conflict itself and the presumed logical conclusions are all based on the assumption that there is an agreed definition of evil that all of us share.”
Dr. Riley blushed. He had been caught doing something for which his doctoral committee professors would have spanked him soundly. Failure to identify the agreed-upon definitions was a no-no.
“Excuse me Patty, but are you sure you’re in the right class? This is not a class in the philosophy of religion, but an introductory overview of religious perspectives.”
“I’m in the right class. It’s on my schedule here, and you are listed as the professor.”
“Fine then,” Riley responded. “What do you all think is a reasonable definition of evil?” This was directed at the class.
“How about the Crusades,” responded Meredith. “There’s an evil that was done in the name of religion. In the name of God.”
Patty rested her gaze on Dr. Riley, waiting.
“Yes, there’s a good example of evil,” he said. “How about others?”
Patty broke eye contact with the professor and slowly shook her head.
“The Holocaust, that’s an example of evil,” a girl named Rachel contributed.
“The atrocities that take place in meatpacking plants all over this country are another example of evil,” said a young woman with her hair tied back in a ponytail.
“Yea, and I think the president is evil,” chimed in a young stocky man from the back row.
“Well, I think you are evil,” grumbled another student from the middle of the class as people in the front row turned to view the building excitement.
Riley had seen Patty shake her head and was extremely unnerved by this response from the woman. It had distracted him, and now the class was getting out of control.
“Okay, okay everyone. I think we get the idea. Patty, I think you have your answer.”
Patty raised her hand.
“Ms. Johnson,” Riley said with resigned exasperation using her last name to express his dissatisfaction.
“Actually, I don’t have an answer, Dr. Riley.” She paused collecting her thoughts. “I asked for a definition of evil. When some people think the president is evil and others think their classmates are evil, it’s very difficult to discern a single definition of evil upon which we can start to rule out qualities about or the existence of God. I wonder if you might provide a definition of evil since you originally wrote the three sentences on the board.”
“Ms. Johnson,” replied Riley with a bit of condescension in his voice. “It is not for me or anyone else to provide a definition of evil. That is up to an individual. What is evil to one person may not be evil to another. The Crusaders Meredith spoke of earlier did not think they were performing evil but looking at it today we would. Therefore, a definition for evil outside of the perspective of an individual cannot be discerned.”
“Wait a minute,” Meredith replied, irritation lacing her voice. “Don’t be apologizing for the Crusaders. Those people knew what they were doing. They knew it was wrong and they did it anyhow. How can you even begin to say that butchering people because they don’t believe what you believe is not evil?”
Dr. Riley held up his hands shaking his palms at the class in a calm down movement. “Hold on, hold on, I’m not saying that.” He paused. “Look, all I am saying is that there is evil in the world however you choose to look at it, and that evil makes the other two statements about God contradictory.”
Patty raised her hand again.
“Ms. Johnson, you do not need to raise your hand every time you wish to speak. That’s not how I run my class.”
Patty nodded appreciatively. “Thank you, Dr. Riley. I agree the responses from the class clearly indicate we all agree there is evil in the world. Nevertheless, defining it is rather essential if we are going to employ the rules of logic and use that definition to make decisions about the qualities of God.”
Dr. Riley was annoyed with her persistence about this stupid definition even as his training in philosophy was sending off warning bells about where Patty was heading. “Fine, then you define evil for us?” the professor snapped.
“Well, that’s the problem isn’t it? As the class illustrated, it is exceedingly difficult to define what we mean by evil in humanistic terms. Everything becomes complicated by the circumstances surrounding a decision to act, by the consequences of the decision we might make or by our own perspective. However, for the purposes of your apparent contradiction evil might be defined as making a choice that God would not make.”
“But that definition only works if there is a God, Ms. Johnson,” Dr. Riley said as if she were making the most elementary mistake there was.
“True,” she replied patiently. “But your three statements make that assumption. If there is no God, then why did you ask us to reconcile the presence of evil against God’s qualities? That question only makes sense if we are permitted to assume there is a God. So, it seems my definition of evil is extremely reasonable in the context of this discussion. Yes?” Patty raised her eyebrows inquisitively.
Riley was now extremely unnerved. Who was this woman? She had to be a faculty member. Had to be. There is no way this was a student signed up for his class. He bit back the question to find out if this was true.
“Okay, Ms. Johnson, for now let’s go with your definition. Given that definition, how can God be all powerful, all loving and permit evil to exist?” He sat back down on the edge of the table crossed his arms and was once again comfortable as the discussion was squarely back on the fundamental issue that separated Walter Riley from the faith of his childhood.
Patty responded, “I think I could answer your question if I could ask a few of my own.” Without waiting for permission, she went on. “Would you agree, Dr. Riley, that we are free agents who have the ability to choose whether to behave as God would or would not?”
“Assuming there is a God, yes, I would agree with that.” The professor eyed her suspiciously.
“Evil as I have defined it occurs when we choose not to do as God would. But your question remains. Why would an all loving and all-powerful God grant his creation the ability to choose evil and, therefore, allow it to exist?
“Yes Ms. Johnson, exactly! Why would he?” Dr. Riley fired back with a good bit of confidence now.
“Do you have children Dr. Riley?”
The professor was surprised by this striking change in direction and had a difficult time hiding it. “Well…..well, yes, but I don’t know how that is relevant to this discussion.”
“Which is better, professor, to allow your children to freely choose to love you or to remove that choice and compel them to love you?”
“To choose of course,” the professor replied.
“Indeed, Dr. Riley. God has done exactly what you would do in seeking genuine love from his creation. He has allowed his children to choose to love him and follow his ways or not. Real love, the kind you want from your children, the kind God wants from us, must be freely given. Jesus tells Christians in Matthew 22 that the greatest of all commandments is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Clearly, God cares whether we love him. But the decision to do so is ours alone. The cost of providing us with this choice is the presence of evil because some will choose not to love and follow God’s ways. When they do, by my definition, evil will exist. So would you agree the question now becomes is there a way to create genuine love in the absence of choice?”
Dr. Riley was thinking hard of this love issue. He had never considered the desire of God to have people love him when he had looked at the three statements in the past.
“Perhaps,” he said, stalling for time.
Patty nodded and continued. “Well let’s consider the alternative. What if God foreclosed the ability of people to choose so they always loved him and chose to follow his ways? There would be no evil as I have defined it. Perhaps that could make for no crime, no war, no murder, but it would also make a world where love was compelled, mandated from the creator. But you already admitted you would not desire that kind of love from your children. Neither would God desire this kind of empty, compelled love from his children. So, if there is to be genuine love, there must be free will choice. The cost of this choice, of creating a world where genuine love is possible, is the possibility of evil.”
Dr. Riley and the rest of the class were very quiet. The professor’s eyes were directed at the floor as he was in deep concentration. Clearly Patty Johnson was making people think.
“One last thing Dr. Riley.” Patty waited until the teacher’s eyes lifted to meet hers. “The choice God gives us so that we can express genuine love to him creates the possibility of evil. But it is only the potential of evil that is present in the world God created. The giving of choice also means we are free to follow God in every decision we make. Were we to do that, there would be no evil. Far too often people seem to think that free will means there must be evil. But that is not so, choice only makes evil possible. The three statements you wrote on the board are only in conflict because they are incomplete. Missing is the requirement for a world where genuine love for God exists. To me it seems we have a world where it is completely possible for love to exist in the absence of evil. All that is needed is for us to choose. What more can you ask of an all loving and all powerful God?”
Walter Riley was speechless. He had never thought of this issue in terms of how God wanted to be loved by his creation. Ms. Johnson, interrupted his musings. “Thank you for an enlightening class, Dr. Riley.” She stood and slipped as quietly out of the room as when she came.
Walking back to his office, Dr. Riley was overwhelmingly curious about Patty Johnson. Who was she? Clearly, not a student slipping in late and just getting up and leaving after taking over the class. Plus, there was her business attire.
As he sat down at his desk, he pulled the class roster for Religious Perspectives. There was no Patty Johnson, but there in the middle of the list was Stephen Johnson, the first student to answer his question. He smiled as a recollection registered with him. Yep, the poor child’s head had jerked around like he heard a gunshot when Patty had first started to speak. Dr. Riley leaned back in his chair and started to think for the first time in a long while about the evil paradox and amusingly what it would be like to have Patty Johnson as your mother.
**********************
“Mom, I can’t tell you how embarrassing that was.” Steve Johnson was sitting at Sunday dinner with his mother, father and sister. “
“Nobody knew I was your mother,” Patty said chomping down on a forkful of salad.
“Of course they knew!” he almost shouted. “Do you know that I was not five steps out of the door when Derek called me a mama’s boy?”
“Well, what did you expect me to do?” she replied. “You come home from your first class and start talking about this Dr. Riley who claims that your perspective on faith needs to be broadened. It only took a few questions from me last Sunday to figure out broadened means discounted.”
Steve sat back in his chair too angry to eat. “Mom, does it even occur to you that you don’t need to fix everything.”
With this Steve’s father, Dominic, started to chuckle.
“It’s not funny, Dad.” Steve turned his ire on his father. “How would you like it if she did that to you? Just showed up at the construction site and started to tell you how to direct your crew.”
“What makes you think she hasn’t done that?” He looked at his son revealing nothing about the truth of this inference.
Steve looked back to his mother calming himself a bit. “Mom, really, why did you come there?”
“You know the answer to that question, Steve.”
“Maybe, but I’d like to hear from you.”
The two looked at each other. “Because she loves you, dope.” Steve’s sister Adriana entered the conversation.
“I’m aware Ana, but does love have to be coupled with domination?”
“Is that what you thought my visit to your class was about?” Patty said a bit wounded.
“Well, what would you think if I showed up for one of your board meetings at the bank and started to challenge the Chair of the board? Would you think perhaps I was trying to influence what was happening to you? To make sure that you only heard what I thought you should hear, and in the process, made your Chair look foolish? What would those people think of you after I excused myself and left?”
“Our COB is no preening fool like your Dr. Riley who was more concerned about his own convictions than exploring the truth with you all.” Patty spoke this line, but her face revealed Steve’s words had wounded her.
“You shouldn’t be so sensitive Steve,” Adriana piped up.
“Shut up, Ana,” Steve shot back.
“You shut up!
“Alright, Ana. How about you and your father give me and Steve some time together.”
“But I’m not finished eating,” she said sitting behind an empty plate.
“Your plate says otherwise.” Patty’s eyes glanced down.
“Fine.”
*************************
“Steve, I apologize,” Patty said truly meaning it.
He sighed. “Mom, why did you come to my class? What in the world made you think that would be a good thing to do?”
“In retrospect, it wasn’t a good idea.” She took a breath and tried to discern the best way to proceed. “My faith is pretty important to me, Stevie, but do you know why?”
“Do I need to?” he replied. “What difference does it make if I understand why your faith is important? Isn’t it enough that I recognize your faith is important for you? But, Mom, just because it’s important to you doesn’t mean it’s important to me.”
He paused. Stephen knew his mother well, and she was not going to like his next statement. “I don’t have your faith, Mom, and you can’t force it on me.” He looked at her expecting the usual hammering logic he heard every day and last Friday in his class. There was no way she was going to let her son walk away from faith. But instead of resolve, he saw sadness. A tear slid down her right cheek and was quickly brushed away.
“You’re right,” she said. “I can’t force it on you, but I wasn’t trying to dominate you when I came to your class. It’s important you know that. I wasn’t trying to bully you into believing what I believe. I went to your class to confront the teacher. My real mistake was not thinking about what that would do to you.”
“No, Mom, that was one of your mistakes. Why do you feel like you have to fix the world? Why is it not okay for people to have their own beliefs? It seems like you feel compelled to fix people as if their beliefs are not as valid as yours. I think that’s why you came to the class last week. You can’t stand that somebody has another point of view and is willing to pass it on to your son or others. But it’s up to me to decide if I will listen, not you to decide if I should even hear it.”
Patty slowly shook her head up and down accepting the rebuke, regret and disappointment building in her. She was losing him on the most important issue.
“I apologize again, Steve. I’m aware that I raised a son who will think what he pleases. It was a mistake to come to your class and I regret it. But before you walk away from your faith, let me leave you with one thought. You think my Christian faith is untrue, but I’ve lived my life believing it is absolutely true. That belief changed who I am, Honey. It made me a vastly better person, despite what you may think about me now.
“Mom, I didn’t mean…”
“Let me finish Stevie,” she interrupted. “There are many things in my life I did in response to my faith that I would never have done without it. I look back on those things and am glad I believed. At 17 you can’t have the lifetime perspective I do. To you, faith is still just words and concepts, a notion to roll over in your head and then accept or reject. Regrettably, all I did in your class was ineffectively add to that lowest level of faith experience.”
“It’s more than just concepts to me,” Steve interjected without acrimony. “I get the importance of faith, or I wouldn’t have signed up for Dr. Riley’s course.”
Patty nodded her head in agreement once again. “Steve, do you remember when you were in grade school, and we got your glasses?”
He nodded.
“The day we picked them up you looked around almost astonished. I remember you were so taken by being able to see the individual leaves on the trees.” Patty smiled broadly at the memory.
“I remember.”
“Before you put those glasses on you had no idea how visually vivid the world could be. You just figured it was the fuzzy normal you had always seen. Stevie, it’s that way with faith too. Once it’s yours and you live believing, the world becomes a place where opportunities to serve God are seen. Acting on those opportunities makes a difference in the world and changes you. The desperation that drove me to your classroom is that I can’t stand the thought you might never see the world in the way I’ve seen it through the eyes of faith. It breaks my heart to think that won’t happen for my son and he won’t know the joy of living his life with the purpose of serving God. In desperation I lashed out at your teacher to try and prevent it. That was misguided, and I am truly very sorry.”
“Thanks, Mom. Apology accepted, and I hear you.” He looked at his mother somberly. “It’s tough though don’t you think? You have to believe to be able to have the experiences like you do yet without those experiences it’s hard to believe.”
“That’s right,” Patty admitted freely. “That’s why the book of Proverbs has so much in it about learning from your elders. I hope you will trust your elder mother and spend some time seriously considering that Christianity is true. If your mind and heart are open to that, God will start to work giving you experiences like I had.”
Steve tapped his index finger on the table nervously and looked away. He wasn’t buying a word of it.
She pressed on insisting on his attention. “Steve!” He looked up. “These experiences will confirm through life the truth of the Christian faith. It will be like putting on your glasses for the first time. You’ll think about and see things you did not when your mind was closed to the possibility.”
She could see, still no sale. “But you can close that door too Sweetheart. I know because I did for a period in my life and believe me, I don’t care to go back there. It’s better with God, and all your mom is asking is that you consider the possibility the Christian faith is true and if it is, what it means to you.
He was quiet looking away again. “One last thing my precious boy.” Steve took a breath and rolled his eyes at this. “Think about what I’m like. The person you saw in the classroom. What would it take to convince somebody as hard-headed and critical as me that Christianity was true? Think about that before you close your mind entirely to what I’m asking.”
Steve took this in. “Well, does this at least mean you’ll stop coming to my classroom.”
“Yes, no more classroom visits,” she smiled wryly. “Although I did enjoy pointing out that your Doctor of Philosophy Professor wasn’t being too philosophical.”
“So, I guess that’s what it’s like to be a Christian, huh?” Steve said with an edge pointing out the inconsistency of his mother’s pitch for faith and her enjoyment of verbally having at someone.
“Ha! Touché my son. But Christian faith doesn’t mean sinless. It means forgiven. Read the Bible some, especially the New Testament and you will see that faith doesn’t make you perfect. It makes you saved. Then each person will decide what he or she will do in response. After all, I did tell you no more classroom visits. Where do you think the ability to yield when you’re wrong and you’ve hurt someone comes from? Read the book, Stevie, with a heart that’s open to it as true and see what happens to you. That’s all your sinful, but loving mother asks.”
Steve nodded his head, but Patty wasn’t convinced. “Well,” she thought. “All I can do is try. Lord be with him.”
*******************
Author’s note
I hope you enjoyed this installment of the Purpose Lost series. For Patty, the story is her future, and for Steve, his past from their first two appearances. I also hope the connections between the stories is fun for you to realize as you read. So first, thanks for reading.
There are responses to most of the criticisms launched at Christianity. I think it’s good to be prepared for them with reasonable answers. Yet no answer will matter if we are insensitive to people. I believe our ability to evangelize is about listening first and then responding. In the story, Patty didn’t know her son was moving away from his faith. She talked with him only after she responded to Steve through confronting his professor. Maybe a conversation with Steve should have been her first step when discovering his new beliefs.
I believe individual Christian evangelism happens through relationship. In my experience a balance of preparedness, willingness to listen and caring responses are the best way to individually evangelize. I hope the story encapsulates that for you, but we are all individuals and will decide for ourselves how to fulfill Christ’s great commission. However you decide to do it, I pray that you will have great success. Living with God is much better than without, and eternal life with God a blessing beyond measure. Like you, I very much want to play a role in the Spirit’s work to give these blessings to others. It gives me a very real sense of purpose, and I think we all need that.
May God bless you in your faith journey this and every day.
Dave
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