What would make God cruel, for you?
Is God CRUEL for sending the Son for our salvation?
If the Father knew Jesus was going to die, was it cruel to send him?
Here are some thoughts in the shadow of Good Friday and Easter.
Just yesterday someone called me out on Twitter (shocking, I know) for how I was talking about God’s love.
I said this (ignore the 666 likes, or just add another if you’re on Twitter):
Let’s say it again: God doesn’t love us because Jesus died. Jesus died because God loves us. Getting this wrong ruins our doctrine of God.
— Geoff Holsclaw (@geoffholsclaw) August 5, 2016
This person took offense that I would link death as part of God’s act of love.
This person claimed that God was surprised (their word) at Jesus’ death.
Why?
Because if God was not surprised, if God knew that Jesus would suffer, then God is cruel (their word) for allowing it.
The idea seems to be that if God (the Father) allowed God (the Son) to suffer, then God is failing morally (as a parent, as a person), and is therefore properly judged as cruel.
What counts as cruel for you when it comes to God?
What would make God cruel in your eyes?
Problem: Not all suffering is cruel.
Example One: When I pinned my 5 year old son to the ground so that my wife could take out the huge splinter in his hand, I (and she) caused him suffering. But it was not cruel.
In fact, it would be cruel to do nothing and allow the sliver to become infested and festered with disease. That is the cruelty of neglect. But what we did (causing suffering of a kind to us and him) was an act of love.
Example Two: Being a mediator of reconciliation between two warring parties will cost the mediator an amount of suffering, especially if the mediator is full of empathy, as this person aligns with the perspectives of both parties simultaneously. This is why self-care is so important for therapists (and pastors).
Choosing (not being forced) the road of reconciliation is always a path of suffering (but it isn’t cruel).
Example Three: When a parent reports that one of their children has abused another one of their children, and the first is place in jail, the parents and the child experience a kind of suffering (and the victimizer will probably accuse the parents of being cruel for turning them in).
It would be cruel, however, to do nothing (for all the children involved).
This Is The Work God Does
Each of these examples, doing the work of healing a body, or a relationship, or of protecting one child while excluding another, could all be seen as the suffering work of love of the Father, Son, and Spirit in and through Jesus’ death.
Suffering is involved.
But it isn’t cruel.
These kinds of questions…
are why I’m starting Grassroots Christianity, to take hard questions and honest doubts, and use them to grow the faith of everyday people. Pick up the little manifesto here as I begin to roll out different things after Easter.
My Thoughts (for another post)
With the rise of awareness of trauma and taking mental health seriously, which are both good things, I do wonder if our definition of love is shifting.
People used to say that love would DO no harm to others (i.e. treat others as you want to be treated). Or that love would lay their life down for another (1 John 3:16).
Now it feels like love will ALLOW no suffering to others — hence God’s love didn’t know it would cause suffering/death for the Son, otherwise it would be cruel to have known it and to allow it.
What are you seeing when it comes to ideas of what would make God cruel or not?