Today’s
Scripture Reading (April 18, 2020): Jeremiah 18
Charles
Darwin, in his Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, reveals his struggle with
the omnipotence of God when he writes:
“...But I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and
as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us.
There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a
beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ
with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of
Caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice... I feel most deeply that
the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well
speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man
hope and believe what he can.”
As much as I might want to disagree
with the father of the Theory of Evolution, I find that I stand in agreement
with him. I own, using Darwin’s phrase, that I struggle with the idea of the
omnipotence of God in light of the world in which I live out my days. I see the
cruelty and selfishness of the human race and wonder how a loving God could
ever have created this mess of a world in which we find ourselves.
The natural pushback is that it is
not God who created this mess, but us. But that implies a limitation of God,
even if it is self-imposed. We may call him El-Shaddai or God Almighty, and
there is no doubt that the Creator of this world is much more potent than any
of us, but his power can’t be without limit, or this world would look much
different.
It is this question that Jeremiah
ponders as he watches the potter work with the clay. At first, it is something
marred and ugly that emerges from the process. But the potter is undeterred and
simply destroys what he has first created to make something better. God uses this
image of the potter and the clay to explain what is about to happen to Israel. What
has been produced is marred, and God is willing to destroy that which exists to
shape something better.
But there is a very crucial
difference between the clay and Israel, or between the clay and us. And that
difference lies in the reality that the clay cannot say “no.” It is not that
God has not tried to shape Israel. He sent his prophets and priests to urge the
nation toward a better way. But the people always said no. And this not just a
condemnation of them, but also of us. We frequently say no to the will and
direction of God. We make excuses or pretend that we didn’t know what to do
when the truth is that we simply wanted to do something different. And so, we
created a mess, and God is powerless to stop us.
Yet, he still beckons and calls to
us toward a better way, if we are only willing to hear. Of course, Darwin is
also correct in saying that this subject matter might be too profound for human
intelligence, and a dog might as well try to understand the mind of Newton. And
so the struggle continues.
Tomorrow’s
Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 19
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