Does God Determine Suffering

Welcome back to another episode of Revealed Apologetics. I'm your host Eli Ayala, and I am joined here with my good friend

Chris Date to talk about Determinism, Calvinism, and the idea of suffering.

How does that all fit together? How do Calvinists kind of understand the relationship between God's meticulous sovereignty and difficulties that we undergo.

And so we're going to be exploring that topic and hopefully we'll be able to address a lot of things that are on your mind, the listeners.

I know that a lot of questions come up when we deal with this topic. It's very easy to get philosophical and theological, but then oftentimes when that really is when the rubber hits the road and we we have real -life situations sometimes that kind of hits differently.

So I hope that this discussion will be beneficial and useful for folks who are interested in this topic and perhaps are going through a difficult time and are asking the questions, how do we understand this in light of the sovereignty of God?

So without further ado, we're just going to jump right in. I'd like to introduce Chris. He's been on the show.

Chris, why don't you say hello to everyone and then we'll jump right into our discussion. Hello to everyone and then we'll jump into the discussion.

No, I'm just kidding. Hi, it's good to be back. And you, Eli, hi to you as well. It was a real blessing for me to be able to spend some time with you a few months back at the conference and I count you a good friend and I'm really thankful for the opportunity to come on the show.

Well, it is awesome day. I had an awesome time, by the way. And it was a great time to be able to hang out with you guys and to hear all of the different presentations.

I didn't come out on the other side a conditional immortality guy, but I loved,

I did admit one thing that you guys have the far better PowerPoints. Well, I think

I'm single -handedly responsible for, no, I'm just kidding. Mark Corbett's was pretty good too.

That's right. So I was like, I wasn't fully convinced, but I came away with a greater appreciation of the view since it wasn't a specific topic that I had delved very deeply into.

So I did enjoy and learned a lot and every now and then, it's not an area that I'm focusing on now, but every now and then

I'll read something on it and kind of try to better understand the position. So it was a great honor and a privilege to be part of that.

Well, we were honored and privileged to have you. Thank you. Well, let's jump right in. Why don't you begin by just kind of updating us?

I know that people who are friends with you on Facebook and social media have been following your story and your wife's story and her health situation.

I understand that you are quite comfortable in allowing that to kind of be the foundation of our discussion instead of just talking abstractly about suffering and difficulties and in light of theological and philosophical considerations of determinism.

Why don't we kind of use that as the context for this discussion and perhaps the things you have to say can enlighten other people in terms of how to understand suffering, tragedy, in light of God's meticulous sovereignty.

How does that sound? Yeah, it sounds great. All right. Well, why don't you open up there? You can kind of give some context there and let people know updates and just what happened and then we can jump into some of the theological implications of all of this.

Yeah, sure, and I'll kind of tell the main points of the story as it were and if you have any questions along the way, feel free to interrupt.

But in short, my wife right now, my wife of just about 23 years, it'll be 23 years in just five days, she was diagnosed with brain cancer back in November and she is fighting that cancer, but with mixed success.

So that's the gist of it, but I'll expand a little bit. So what happened was back in early

November, my wife and I took our two younger sons to Disney World in Florida and in the couple of months leading up to that trip, my wife was saying that she didn't feel herself completely that something was different.

She described it as reality being incomplete, like there was a layer of reality that was missing or something like that.

And this was a little bit concerning, but you know, my wife and I at that point were living pretty physically unhealthy lives.

We were, I mean, you could just tell by looking at me that I'm obese and so was my wife and we were not eating well, we were not being active.

And so we kind of thought, you know, we're gonna go to Disney World, we're gonna do a whole crap ton of walking and then we'll come back and we'll change our lifestyle and that might improve, you know, the things that she was describing.

But when we were at Disney World, things just got worse and to the point where she had, she was fighting headaches and she couldn't move very quickly.

I remember I was running to get us in line for a ride, but it took her so long to catch up that like I had to stop halfway through the line and wait for people to pass by so she could catch up.

And then the night before we returned home, she got sick in our bedroom and I was out in the living room doing some work of our rental home and she sent me a message on Facebook that had, it was like two paragraphs with nary a single intelligible

English word in it. It was all gobbledygook, garbage. And I started freaking out.

I took the phone to her and I said, do you know, what is this you just sent me? Do you know what you sent? And she tried to, you know, wave it off as, oh, that wasn't for you.

Don't worry about it. And I'm like, that's not the point. The point isn't whether it was for me or not. The point is you're,

I don't understand what you're saying here. And she dismissed it. And the next morning as we were getting ready to leave our rental home toward the airport, our youngest son, he said to my wife, mom, you've only got one shoe on, put your other shoe on.

And she was like, no, I don't. I've got both shoes on. And I looked down and I was like, no, star, you only have one shoe on.

And she looked down and she was shocked. So something was really going wrong.

And at the airport, she was slow and dazed. So we got home and she went to bed immediately.

It was the early afternoon and she basically slept until the morning. And when she told me how she was feeling that morning,

I decided, let's just, let's just not take any risks here. You know, let's, let's get you to the hospital to be checked out.

And I was confident that they were, they would find nothing, that this was just some kind of, you know, maybe an illness of some sort that she would recover from or whatever.

But, um, they, when I described to the doctors, when I showed them that message that she had sent, that was all garbage, the doctors got really concerned and they had her do an

MRI, um, of her, of her brain. And we were, we were there for hours waiting for her to get to go do the

MRI. And then we were waiting for another hour or so to find the results. But when they finally called us back there and they set us in a, in a little room and said, wait here, the doctors will come talk to you.

Um, as soon as the doctor came around the corner, you could tell something was up. And I felt, we both felt so bad for this guy that he had to deliver this news.

But he said to her, he said to us, I hate, I'm sorry to have to say this, but you've got a rather sizable tumor in your brain.

And we were freaking out as, as you might be able to imagine. So, um,

I got to look at the MRI. Uh, it was roughly the size of a chicken egg. So if you imagine like a double a size egg, you might get at the grocery store that was in a brain and it was absolutely terrifying.

But we, uh, we went, um, the hospital that we went to near our home didn't have the, um, equipment and, and, and, uh, resources necessary to, um, diagnose this further and come up with a treatment plan and stuff.

So they sent us to, uh, the university of Washington medical center and we went there and we spent a few days there.

They did a biopsy, they did a spinal tap. And the long and the short of it was they determined that this is, although a brain cancer, it is probably the best kind of brain cancer you could get.

It's called primary central nervous system lymphoma. And the reason it's the best is because it's curable in quotes.

And what that means is that it is possible to cure it. Not guaranteed though, but we were optimistic and they set us up with this regimen for where every two weeks, um, my wife would go into the hospital for a few days to receive chemotherapy and then she'd come home for about a week and a half or whatever, um, to recuperate.

And after two or three cycles of those, we got another MRI and that chicken eyed chicken egg size tumor had shrunk down to like the size of a

P and we're like, Oh, this is so great. So encouraging. So this is, we were so optimistic.

But then about a month and a half or so ago, was she, was she feeling better when it shrunk down like physically?

Yeah. So all the neurological symptoms of the feeling dazed, the garbage inability to work with technology properly, all that stuff, um, subsided initially.

Um, and, and, and, and, and matched the, the shrink, uh, the shrunk, the shrinking of the tumor, you know, it was clear they were correlated.

So we had every reason to think things were going smoothly and great and that we would get through this in a few more months that after the chemotherapy, there's, there's a, um, uh, sort of almost like a capstone treatment that kind of does the final nail in the coffin.

Um, and, and we were anticipating getting to that point. And that was going to be a hard point. Cause my wife would end up spending a month in the hospital, but then we'd be in pretty good shape.

Um, but about a month and a half ago or so, as we were going in to get another

MRI and after it had been something like eight of these two week cycles, um, some neurological symptoms returned and really got my wife scared.

Um, and I was thinking, I, there's so many possible explanations. Maybe, maybe your brain matter is sort of kind of returning to its original shape.

And as part of that, you know, the brain matter that was being pressed to the side by this gigantic tumor. And so maybe it is having these kinds of neurological symptoms.

Um, but, but I have no reason to think that the treatment wasn't working, but lo and behold, it had stopped working.

Um, we got another MRI and the tumor had grown to a backup from the size of a

P up to something like the size of a Lima bean or so. And then, uh, and then, and so they, they continued the treatment and upped the intensity a little bit.

And another month later, this is, this would be a few weeks ago. Um, we went in again for another MRI and for another cycle of chemotherapy and it had grown even more.

So as you might be able to imagine, my wife and I were pretty psychologically wrecked. You know, we, we, we had gone, it was such a rollercoaster, you know, finding out you've got cancer and then finding out it's curable and, and, and, and seeing the progress.

But now here we are, that brain, the brain tumor is growing again and her symptoms are getting worse again. And you know, quite honestly,

I got to the point where I thought there's a decent chance I might be a widower, you know, within the next year or something like that.

And there is still that chance and it's terrifying, but we'll get to that. Well, so anyway, that was a few weeks ago.

They decided to change her chemotherapy chemotherapy plan, um, to involve more, a greater variety of drugs that some of which are given when the original drug she was given, um, doesn't work.

And we, she's been at home now for about a week or so. And those symptoms have again, subsided.

So that's encouraging, but we really won't know if this new chemotherapy regimen has really been working until we go in for our next

MRI, which will be on June 2nd. I think it's a next Friday at the time we're recording this. Okay.

Um, um, but, and depending upon the kind of progress we're making at that point, either, um, we will have to consider more dire options, um, like brain surgery, which is no good, but might be necessary or, um, there's something called gamma knife radiation where they focus really high powered gamma rays or whatever at the tumor to trick it.

But both of these have, they will result in the death of some brain matter as well.

And she will have lasting cognitive effects to some degree or another. If we go those routes, um, or we'll have to start planning for her demise, you know, and it's, and it's terrifying.

Um, if however, we do see that the chemotherapy is working again and it's shrinking, the tumor is shrinking.

Well, then I think we'll be much more confident that we are on track to go to that last stage of treatment, which is for people that are interested, it's called autologous stem cell transplant, which just autologous means from yourself.

So basically what they will do is they will pump her with stem cell boosting drugs.

So her bone marrow will produce more stem cells. They do that. So that, well, they'll come back into play in a moment.

Um, she'll, once she reaches enough stem cell count, they will take out millions of those stem cells.

And then she will go into the hospital where they will bombard her with even more intense and powerful chemotherapy, which will effectively destroy her immune system.

But that's very intentional because lymphoma is a uncontrolled reproduction of what are called lymphocytes, which are immunosystem cells.

So by killing the whole immune system, the idea is it would get rid of any last undetected traces of the tumor,

Lord willing. And then because her immune system is destroyed, she's incredibly, you know, at risk, but that's why they took all the stem cells out.

They will put their stem cells back in and they will rebuild her immune system and she'll get her all of her immune, her, um, uh, vaccines that she got in childhood.

She'll have to go through all of that again and all that kind of stuff. But, but the result of that, and here I'll, I'll, I'll finish,

I'll wrap up the story. Sure. Um, the result of that, if she, if we get to that point, the result of that is, uh, something that there was a study published last year where they took two groups of patients.

Um, one of which, two groups of patients who were suffering the same cancer that my wife is. And one of those two groups underwent this final step in therapy that I just described.

And then they checked in on them throughout the course of eight years. And after eight years, something like 60 per 60 % of that group, um, had no cancer return at all.

The tumor didn't come back at all. And those chances are pretty decent. Um, and even if she were among the 30 % or so that it does come back, at least it would have bought us a lot of time to continue to be a family and raise our children and stuff.

And, and then maybe have to go through it again, but at least it would be maintainable. So that's kind of where we're at.

We're at a bit of a holding pattern as we undergo a new chemo regimen in order to hopefully continue to make progress.

And here in about a week and a half we'll go in and see whether or not we've made progress and that will present us with a fork in the road, either good or bad.

So that's where we're at. Wow. Now, um, you're a theologian and you know, biblical doctrine and you could probably counsel someone who's going through this.

Um, what role did all of that knowledge play when you are smacked in the face, so to speak, with the reality, right?

You move from a kind of like abstract to kind of like a concrete situation. What role did your theology give you comfort?

Did it, did it, did it go over the shoulder and be like, yeah, I know that's true, but man, this, this sucks.

Like how did, what was your mental state in terms of like your belief and like reality kind of coming together?

Um, what was that like for you? Yeah, well, first let me say that what it did for me would not necessarily result in me telling somebody who's going through something similarly painful and terrifying that, you know, some of the things we're going to talk about in our discussion today,

I don't know that it's always helpful to, to counsel somebody who's going through something incredibly trying, um, with here's, here's the purposes behind it.

This kind of stuff with either reality is we don't know often what purpose there is in our suffering and so forth.

And often I think it's best to simply grieve with those who grieve as Paul says. And so I want to make that caveat, but as for how it, how it affected me, and not just me, but my wife as well, she's also a

Calvinist. Uh, she's not, um, as theologically minded as I am, but she is a

Calvinist. And so what I'll say applies to us both. Um, and before I preface that,

I'll say that this wasn't our first, um, the first time that our

Calvinism and more specifically in this case, our predeterminism, and that's something we could talk about if you'd like, but it wasn't the first time that that informed our suffering or, or, or, um, played a role in our suffering.

We have, um, since becoming Christians lost one of our children, an unborn child that was miscarried after quite a number of weeks.

My wife had to carry our, the body of our dead child in her womb for several days after, um, he died.

Um, and, uh, and there've been other times where we've had to suffer as well, but that was probably the most pronounced and the, our belief in determinism and theological determinism, what you called meticulous sovereignty or meticulous providence in a nutshell, it makes it for us.

It made those past experiences of suffering, including the loss of our child and it makes our current suffering far more bearable.

Um, because we know, we believe, I should say, we believe that, um, what we are going through is not gratuitous.

It's not arbitrary. It's not pointless. It is by God's very design.

And because it's by God's design, we know that it's, um, for our good, uh, and for the good of others that he might choose to, um, reach through us.

And he will probably talk about that in the course of our conversation today. Um, and, and we know that he's trustworthy and able and that we can trust him to that what his ends in mind might be, um, for which reason he has, he is taking us through this are going to be good no matter what, even if Lord God forbid, even if it means

I become a widower and my children lose a mother sometime in the next year or so, even if it comes to that, um, our ability to trust that God is taking us through it for a good reason makes this all much more bearable.

Um, even, even gives us a little bit of ability to find joy and see the beauty in what we're going through when, if we didn't hold a determinism, it would not.

So that's in a nutshell. Sure. To what extent though, did that knowledge bring comfort to the emotion, the powerful emotion that's built into experiences like that?

Because I know that we can say like, yes, this is true. And yes, if you pressed me up against a wall,

I know all things work out for the good. But to what extent did that knowledge overcome the strong emotion of like fear and anxiety that typically comes along with an experience like this?

It's hard to say because I don't know how much more I might have or, and my wife might have experienced the kinds of emotions you're describing.

If we weren't determinists, I just, we just don't know. It's hard to tell. But what I can say is, um, we have both, each of us sobbed an awful lot.

We've experienced fear, we've experienced sadness, we've experienced anger, you know, at the, at, it's not, it's not right that this is the way, and even in determinism, even in theological determinism, this isn't the way it's meant to be ultimately.

Right. We're, we're, we're in a fallen world, experiencing the consequences of the fall and of the curse on, on creation as a result of that fall.

Um, but, uh, so we experience all those emotions. They are incredibly deep and profound and result in a lot of crying and yelling, not at each other, but just in the circumstances and so forth.

Um, might all of those emotions have been even more, um, pronounced if we didn't have our belief in determinism.

Maybe, I don't know. But, um, what I will say is the, our belief in determinism, even if it doesn't temper those emotions, what it does is it gives us hope and it gives us something to cling to, um, in the midst of all of those emotions, um, a hope, a trust.

Um, and again, we can even see some of the beauty in it, um, that, uh, that we, we would have none of those.

So I, I wouldn't say, if we weren't determinists, so it wouldn't say that they overcome those emotions. I think what they do is they provide other emotions so that the emotions we're experiencing are multifaceted rather than purely negative and fearful.

Sure. Now, now you say that there was crying and yelling. Uh, but of course

I would see the opponent of determinism who has no tact and no ability to, um, allow someone to experience that without bringing their theological disagreements into it.

I know that there's, perhaps you probably got some interesting Facebook comments that, you know, I usually try to stay out of those things.

I'm kind of like, are you serious? Like, like, dude, like it is, people just don't know how to separate, you know, okay.

Like now is not the time to bring that up. I get what you're getting at, but we understand the nature of these debates and stuff like this.

And there are some people who just don't have any tact. However, um, the questions that those types of people bring up are good questions.

Sometimes, uh, perhaps to be asked in a different con in a different time. Right. Um, but how would you, how would you respond to someone who, uh, is looking at your situation and saying, well, when you, when you express anger, when you express fear, when you expressing, you know, maybe you shout,

I don't know if you're shouting at God or just shouting abstractly at the situation, aren't you just yelling at what

God has determined? So how is that coherent concept? And so they might kind of point to that as kind of like a reductio, right?

Like, well, why are you, why are you, you should be praising God that he determined these things. How would you interact with someone who comes at this from that angle?

Well, I would say that at least as you've articulated and, and at least as I've seen it articulated, there's not really an argument there.

It's just a bald assertion that somehow for some reason, um, belief in determinism and feelings of anger and sadness, when what you believe to be determined to things before you are somehow incompatible, but merely baldly asserting that does not constitute an argument.

So, um, I'll, I'll look forward to somebody actually making that argument, you know, for why it's coherent or incoherent.

But the reason why my response to it would be to say, it does not seem to me as if belief that God has determined something, um, if you're going to be logically coherent would require that you only experience positive emotions as a result.

Um, there is, or there's nothing incoherent with saying that you can have some positive emotions about what you're going through, believing that it was determined, but also some negative ones.

Neither of those two things are clearly incoherent to me. Sure. Um, whatever

God, I mean, look, when I, um, discipline one of my children, let's say for something they don't know.

And obviously there's there, that's an imperfect analogy because we're talking here about natural evil, not something that befalls me as a result of doing something wicked.

But, um, but when I disciple my, or when I discipline my children, um, and I tell them

I'm doing this for your own good, you know, or something like to that effect, they,

I expect that even if my child fully grasps what I just said, that it's for your own good, even if that were possible to fully grasp it, to fully believe it, to fully accept it,

I expect that they're going to experience negative emotions as a result of, uh, displeasing me, um, making me feel disrespected, uh, having some of their freedoms taken away for a time, right?

These are all things you would naturally as a parent, expect your child to experience, even if they fully grasped, grasped and accepted that it was for their own good.

Right. Well, we used to get spanked when we used to get like spanked. And so it was scary. Nothing crazy.

I mean, you know, we got spanked with three, there's three of us, three boys. So like, and I knew that my dad or my mom, whenever they spanked us, it wasn't out of being malicious.

I knew it was for our own good, but that doesn't mean it wasn't scary when we were going through it. Sure. Is that kind of, kind of what you're saying?

Yeah. Scary and other things. Sure. Right. Um, so when

I, when we, given that we believe that we are, what we are going through has been predetermined by God, that, that does give us the ability to say, we trust we, we, uh, you know, we're, we're not without hope.

Um, we have hope we, we, uh, we can see some of the beauty. Maybe one day we'll even be able to see some of the purpose behind why

God ordained for us to go through this. Maybe for example, we'll be able to just to minister to people who go through something similar in the future.

Um, but, but none of those things take away from the various kinds of negative emotions.

Um, and, and those emotions not only may be well justified, given what we're going through, but they could also be just a very natural response to the kind of pain that we're going through.

Go back to the spanking thing. For example, somebody who's go, who's experiencing a great deal of physical pain in the moment may have full comprehension of all the reasons behind it, all the good reasons behind it fully believe that, but there's no getting, there's no way to stop yourself from reacting both physically and emotionally to the pain that you're experiencing.

Pain naturally produces a reflexive types of feelings.

So in the same way, not only do I think that our negative emotions continue to be justified, given what we're going through, even though we believe they've been predetermined by God, but there's also an agree to which it's just natural for those things to produce that emotion.

Even if you're fully aware, and we're obviously not, but fully aware of all the good purposes behind it.

So once again, I would just throw it back to the hypothetical and hypothetical interlocutor. You can claim, and as you know, many non -Calvinists do that.

It's almost, it's almost a meme by this point. But they can claim that somehow if you're a

Calvin, if you're a determinist, you ought not to be upset when things don't go well for you.

But that is just a claim and I see no reason to accept it. Yeah. And I guess I see this, if we can kind of take it step outside to the broader debates on these topics.

It often seems to be the case that the libertarian is just simply assuming incompatibilism in both his attempted argument and his kind of assertions, kind of a throwing stones, you know, kind of, how can

I say this? Or they use their kind of their libertarian incompatibilist quips at the determinist.

There's no argument there. It's just an assumption of incompatibilism which I think is precisely what's baked into that kind of example that I, that I used.

Now, I do have a question though, because, because there is this element, kind of the cliche is God has a plan and that's a cliche that's true.

God does have a plan. But what would be your advice to people who have difficulty coping with the idea that while God has a plan, in some cases we will never know the details of that plan and any with any specificity, maybe in a broad sense.

And somehow this brings glory to God, but there's always that. But why? But why? How, how would you kind of help someone navigate the, the inevitability of the fact that we won't always have the answers, the specific ones we're looking for when we're going through a difficult time?

Yeah, that's a really good question. And I'll offer an answer with the caveat that I am not a counselor.

I have no training in counseling. And, uh, I thought you were going to just answer the question for all people for all time.

What you're supposed to do is, right, exactly. Um, but what I will say is, um,

I don't think we need to know what the purpose is in our suffering in order to allow, in order to feel some degree of hope and trust that, uh, that there is purpose in it because God is perfectly good and all things work out, uh, you know, um, for our good as believers in Christ.

Um, or rather more, more precisely, God works all things, uh, uh, to good for, um, for those who trust in him and his son.

So we, we don't need to know what those purposes are. We just need to know that there's a purpose in order for it to bring us some degree of, um, comfort in the midst of our pain.

And so I think what I would counsel somebody to do is, um, don't, don't try to, um, or at least

I wouldn't recommend trying to figure out or to predict or to speculate as to what that purpose might be.

Um, but look at the character of God revealed in scripture and ask yourself if that God that you read in scripture that is revealed in scripture can be trusted to have a purpose in our suffering, even if we don't know what that might be.

And I think that's a pretty easy thing to do. If you accept that the biblical revelation is true. I mean, God is clearly trustworthy and, uh, and, and people,

I mean, uh, the whole, um, scripture is replete with examples of cases in which, um, people don't know exactly why

God is doing what he's doing, but they still trusted him. I mean, look, that's kind of, that's kind of the whole message of the book of Ecclesiastes is

God is doing something. What that is. I cannot for the life of me tell, uh, there's nothing new under the sun.

He says, you know, what, what happens has already come before. Um, it makes no sense.

It's, it's an enigma, right? It's vanity, vanity, all this kind of stuff. But yet God is going to judge, um, and, uh, bring justice one day.

So I love the answer you gave because it forces us to look beyond our situation and focus on, on God, his own character.

I think this is because we can, we can study and learn the theology of God's sovereignty. But I think what also brings comfort is not just the knowledge that he has a plan, but what brings comfort is also knowing

God's character, just reflecting on the type of God that he is can bring greater comfort to the fact that we don't know the details, but that a

God who is loving one who comforts us with his spirit, one who, uh, really suffered alongside with us by sending

Christ is like, the character of God is part of what brings us comfort. Even when there's a big question mark over a lot of the details.

I think that's an excellent, um, uh, that's an excellent piece of advice. I would even argue that theologically minded person who might be going through something like this might want to just digress from their normal studies and just do a deep dive into the character of God for comfort.

Um, that's an excellent answer. I think, I think you hit it right on the head there. Well, I appreciate that.

Um, and I'll just add that you could even see something extremely close to this in the creation account in Genesis one through three, because, um, you know,

Adam and Eve are created in this blissful existence in which they enjoy perfect communion with God and they are given simply one command.

They're not told why, um, it's wrong to eat of this tree. They're just told or eat from this tree.

They had just told that when you do, you will die. Um, but, and there's no evidence that they, that their inability to understand why it's wrong to eat from this tree, um, or, uh, you know, why that's, uh, why that's wrong.

Um, it's not even clear that they fully understood what the consequences are or what death even is.

Like, you know, they've never seen death. They've never experienced, at least if you're a young earth creationist like I am, they've never seen death.

They've never experienced it. And so we'll stop opening another can of worms. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Um, but here's the point I'm getting at. The, the, the, the, there's an argument to be made that the biblical text indicates that what they were doing when they ate from the tree was expressing their desire, not just to trust that what

God has told them is right and wrong is in fact right and wrong, but their desire to know it for themselves. Right.

And what's that? To know it autonomously without God is the foundation and context for it.

Yeah. Exactly. And what, and, and look, look at the results, look at the consequences. So the point I'm getting at is, um, given the choice between simply trusting that this, this perfectly good, perfectly loving, um,

God has, uh, has, has purposed this suffering for us for, for good ends, even if we don't know what they are, given the choice between accepting that or insisting

I've got to know what that purpose is, or I'm not going to be happy. That choice is fairly similar to the choice that Adam and Eve faced.

And we could enjoy the, the joy and the comfort that comes from knowing that a perfect God has purpose in it, or we could wring our hands desperately trying to figure out what that purpose is.

And it's only going to bring us even more suffering and sadness and so forth. And to me, that choice is clear. Yeah.

Very good. Now when you guys were going through this, your wife and yourself, uh, was there a particular, um,

Bible story or section of scripture that you were drawn to when things kind of calmed down and you were,

I mean, we were able to kind of sit back down and like, Hey, I'm, I don't know if you do like daily devotions and daily Bible study, but where are you drawn to a particular portion of scripture to, uh, get comfort or to have some clarity?

Uh, what, what did that look like for you if that was the case? I wouldn't say there's necessarily a specific biblical text or story and, and, and, you know, like I said, my wife isn't as theologically minded as I am.

And we're not stereotypical Christians who have a daily devotional life and, and, you know, mea culpa, we can, that's a topic of a whole nother episode.

But what I will say is there are some, um, texts and stories that have through this brought me comfort and, um, uh, and, and I think to an, and to the extent that I have discussed them with my wife through this,

I think they've brought her comfort as well. Um, and the first one that comes to my mind is Genesis 50, right?

When, when we're, we're at this point where Joseph is now has now revealed his identity to his brothers after, uh, stringing them along and, and not revealing his identity to them for a while.

Um, his brothers who had years earlier sold him into slavery coming this close to actually killing him, but instead throwing him into slavery.

And of course we know the story from there with Potiphar's wife and his time in prison and all of that. Um, and when his brothers, you know, break down in tears, uh, asking for forgiveness.

And then in Genesis 50, 20, I think in this case it's when they express their fear that Joseph might retaliate at some point.

What Joseph says in Genesis 50, 20, I think is incredibly profound. He says, you, you brothers meant or intended evil or calamity disaster against me.

But God meant same exact verb. It, that's a predominant suffix referring back to the calamity that they meant.

You met, but God meant it to the calamity for good. And so we, what we have here and you know,

I've, I've heard, um, the, the non Calvinist explanations of this text late in flowers. Uh, for example, um, when

I debated him on unbelievable, he just listened to that like a week ago before we even spoke about having you on and I might just listen to that.

So it was an excellent discussion, but go ahead. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Um, but he offered this example of police setting up a sting and stuff.

I think there are some creative ways to, um, offer plausible sounding indeterminist answers to this question or rather I should say in this case, incompatible list answers to this question, uh, or to this text, but, but I don't find them convincing.

It seems pretty clear to me that, um, to the, in the, the same way that his brothers intended their action to re to result in calamity for Joseph, God intended that same calamity but for good.

And, uh, I don't think there's any getting around that. But what that means then is that to whatever extent we are suffering, you know, if there are human agents involved, they might be intending evil calamity for us.

Nature, you might say, has intended calamity for my wife and me by, um, suddenly, uh, reproducing cells in her brain, um, uncontrollably.

But God, according to this, we can extrapolate from this text that God intends that same thing for our good or, or for good period, you know, including ours.

So, so that biblical story I think is the one that I lean on, um, the most, but then there are other, you know, uh,

Paul talks about the thorn in his flesh that God has given him for, for one reason or another.

Uh, you know, um, I look at texts which indicate that God has purpose in what he is in the trials he is, um, taking believers through.

So Ephesians 1, 11, um, we've been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.

Romans 8, 28, for those who love God, all things work together for those who are called according to his purpose.

Um, so, so those are some of the things that tell me, yes, there's a purpose in this and that God is intending what we're going through for good, even if they feel evil.

Um, and then, and then a couple more texts I'll mention are just ones that talk about some of the character development that results when going through these kinds of, um, trials.

So Romans 5, 3, we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope, right?

I, I am right now witnessing the development of my wife's and my character as a result of what we're going through.

Uh, James one says the same thing, count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds because the testing of your faith produces steadfastness or, or, um, you know, uh, endurance, um, the ability to stand firm when you know the fiery darts of the evil one come your way.

And then first Peter one, six to seven, um, you for a little while are grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

So here Peter even seems to be saying that there's an extent to which our eternal reward is shaped by the trials that we go through in the here and now, um, such that, you know,

I don't want to open up another kind of worms, but most evangelicals believe in degrees of reward in eternity.

And here's an indication that the way you are shaped, um, as a result of what you're going through, the trials that you're going through may even increase your degree of reward in eternity.

So there's a, these are the kinds of things that I, that I hold on to. Yeah. I just, as you're quoting scripture,

I just think it's, it's, I love being a Christian. There's so there's the fact that we have scripture, it just addresses like everything.

There's examples. I mean, you got the 66 books, 39 in the old, 27 in the new, you got this 40 different authors, all this diversity, yet it covers a wide range of human experience that provides kind of a foundation for our comfort and instruction.

And I think it's awesome to hear you quote scripture to address your specific situation, but then it applies in so many different areas.

The Bible truly is the living, a living word. I think that's, um, it is awesome.

And to that point, I want to add one thing, a little bit of an anecdote. Uh, my best friend told me about, uh, a time many years ago when he met a very well -known

Christian apologist whom I won't name because of what has recently come out about what this apologist did.

But recently, or like a past couple of years, past few years. So I won't go further than that.

But, but, but he asked this, um, this apologist, and I shouldn't have said what

I just said, because now it's going to sound, and now it's going to sound questionable whether what this apologist said actually should be seen as legitimate, but it strikes me as very true.

And that is, and here's what happened. My friend asked this apologist, you know, look, you've read, uh,

I'm sure you've read the Bible many, many, many times over and over again, start to cut, start to finish.

Have you ever reached a point where you think you get it? You've got everything there is to mine from scripture.

And this apologist said, you know, I've, I can read Shakespeare a few times and pretty much get it.

You know, there, there, there are lots and lots and lots of literature that you can read. Uh, there, there may be layers, but after a few readings you pick up on those layers and you've got a pretty good grasp of it.

But the Bible is unique in that there is no exhausting its depths.

There is no, um, exhausting the mine from which we mine, you know, uh, truths that shape our worldview.

And, um, and, and yeah, that's speaking to the living nature that you just, uh, attributed to it is that it will never cease to shape us and reveal to us.

It's, it's pretty amazing. I think in heaven we probably will be reading the scriptures and still learning new things with the, the teacher there in person.

Amen. Bible studies in heaven will be pretty legit. That's right.

Now, um, if you don't mind, I'd like to shift to, uh, briefly to an apologetic application.

So if you have like a, this situation occurring in your, in your life, um, and others going through similar situations, um, how do we address the, the atheist or the skeptic who thinks this is a perfect example of the meaninglessness and random nature of, of life at this, that your situation, your wife situation is best explained on atheism as opposed to a

God who has good intentions, good purposes, um, but apparently are impossible to discern.

How would you interact with that kind of, um, that kind of idea? Yeah, well, two thoughts come to mind, at least at the moment, maybe more will, maybe more won't.

And I'll be interested in your own answers to your question. Um, but two thoughts come to mind. Firstly, um, it, we as Christians, we, we, our faith is among other things, trust in what we can't see, what we, what hasn't yet happened, what

God hasn't yet done for us on the basis of the varieties of evidence, uh, the varieties of evidences that we do have, um, the, the, uh, the work of God in history, um, the scientific evidence that points to his existence, um, the kinds of, um, uh, the impossibility of the contrary, you know, to, to talk the sincere, uh,

Bantillian or, you know, since you're a, you can tip your hat to my, my audience, they'll love it.

That's right. That's right. So, I mean, there are all sorts of reasons, including by the way, the, the, the, the fact that there does, this does feel like it's not right.

It's not the way it is. And, and of course all of humanity has an innate sense that there is a right and a wrong.

And I think that's best explained by Christian theism, along with all those other things I mentioned. So the point

I'm getting at is to the skeptic who raises the objection or the question that you just offered, I would say in and of itself, take it in isolation.

Um, uh, well, take it in isolation along with the Christian claim that God is good and loving.

Um, yeah, it does seem, uh, it does seem to be somewhat contradictory. Just those two things taken in isolation.

And, um, and one, I could certainly see why somebody would think that this, uh, the, the kinds of suffering that we're going through right now are an indication that it is all meaningless and it's all random and it's all, uh, undesigned, et cetera.

I could, I could see that, but we don't exist in that vacuum. Those two things don't exist in that vacuum.

There's all those other evidences, uh, including our own experience of God in our day -to -day life.

Um, and so what I would say firstly is, um, it's because of this huge wealth of evidence that I have for believing in, uh,

Christianity, that even if, even though there is a lot of on the surface, seemingly very gratuitous evil and suffering, um,

I can trust because of all of this evidence that God has purpose in mind, even for what looks like gratuitous evil and so forth.

So that's the first answer that I would give. And the second one is, um, I mean, have you never read a novel?

Right. Um, when, when, uh, when, uh, when a author, I'm not speaking to you, I'm speaking to the hypothetical skeptic, right?

Have you ever, have you ever read a novel that I get where you're going? Yeah. Have you ever read a novel? You've got a, uh, if you've ever talked to authors of fiction, many of them will tell you that they become incredibly emotionally invested in the protagonists in the story.

And even in some cases, the antagonists, um, and, and they experience the author experiences, um, grief and pain and sadness when the author subjects the protagonist, uh, or protagonists plural to pain and suffering and evil.

Well, wait a minute. Right. I mean, what sense does that make? If, if this skeptical claim had any teeth to it, what sense would it make for, uh, firstly, what sense would it make for the author of a story to experience this kind of, um, consternation when they're the ones subjecting their own beloved protagonists to those things?

Um, if again, the objection had any teeth. And secondly, um, all of the things that the author subjects the protagonists to in the story are purposeful, are meaningful.

Um, the story would not be what it is if it were not for the suffering that the protagonists endure.

Um, and that's not even to mention the, the effects that that protagonist suffering, um, have on the other characters in the story.

So the point I'm getting at is when I, when I see in the world with all of its seemingly on the surface, gratuitous suffering and evil, what

I see is in number one, um, I see not in a vacuum.

I see it next to this wealth of evidence I have. And number two, what I see strikes me as incredibly consistent with the very kinds of stories that we human beings who psychologists will tell you, we're, we're, humanity is designed to tell and listen to stories.

It's part of our genetic makeup. And what I see in the world is extremely consistent with what

I would expect an author to put people through in the story that the author is writing.

And that's an incredible realization because that means I, uh,

I, I, I am, I am one of the protagonists in God's story and history, right.

In his story. Um, and I think that's a pretty astonishing and been pretty, uh, it gives me reason to hope and trust.

So. I think, uh, I would resonate with what you're saying. I think evidences are one of the many things that God gives to firm up and encourage the believer.

So I would not, even as a presuppositionalist have anything against what you just said. I think that's a very helpful thing to point out.

I think something you pointed out also that was very useful is to recognize that, um, there can seem to be a conflict when we take those items.

Uh, the idea of a loving God and their suffering in isolation, right? Van Til, Van Til would point out that when we are defending the

Christian faith, we don't do it in a piecemeal fashion in which we talk about the individual parts without the broader context.

And so basically what you just said was kind of just a reminder of the, the role of our worldview, how all of that informs and impacts the way we understand the goodness of God and suffering and things like that.

So I think that's very, very useful to kind of see things holistically, even when you use the, and I love when you use the analogy of the, um, the author writing a novel.

Uh, if, if I'm writing a novel, I'm making things up as I go along, maybe I have a blueprint or whatever, but God has the entire novel already set with all of its details, which means every character, every movement, every action is moving towards a specific goal.

And because God, the author is good, all of those goals accomplish his good purposes. Um, so again,

I think that's a very useful and helpful way to kind of contextualize how to understand how all of this works.

I think it's super, super helpful folks. If you're interested on this idea of the author novel analogy with respect to how to understand

God's purposes and things like this, Chris has done multiple videos covering this topic. And I think you've, you've actually had a couple of interactions.

Was it with Braxton Hunter? You had a discussion on this topic? I did, but even before that I had an interaction with the person from whom

I first, uh, discovered the amazing nature of this analogy.

And that was, uh, uh, Parker, I forget his first or last name.

He's the guy who does the show. Yeah. Parker said a case. Yeah. He's a great dude.

So I would check out his work on the divine or on the author analogy as well. Okay. I'd have to get,

I have to get you, uh, Parker and his, and Joel, that'd be nice to get us all on and do a, do a show together.

Those guys are sharp. Uh, Joel, who Joel is his brother. Joel said a case. Oh, I didn't even know.

Clearly. I don't watch Parker enough. And they both have mustache. They both have mustaches. So, uh, interesting mustaches.

So, um, all right. Sorry for throwing, throwing things off a little bit there. Um, well we're, we're at the top of the hour.

Uh, so I, I, I've been trying to keep things within an hour so that people could listen to it. I know it goes, it goes,

I like, I wish I could stay for three hours. It'd be awesome. But, um, let's try to, let's try to wrap things up as we move to the top of the hour and kind of make some, um, some application in terms of encouragement, guidance, and, and how people should think about these things with clarity.

Um, what, what for you was the biggest mental and emotional challenge and how did your theology really just help you keep things in balance?

Um, and how do you, and how do you navigate that balance still with the reality that this is very difficult, that this is a very, especially with your wife.

I'm not going to be talking about you, but I mean your wife and how, from your perspective, humanly speaking, there's not much you can do except to just be there for her as best you can.

Um, how do we navigate that kind of difficulty? Um, at least in terms of how you're thinking of the situation you're going through and your wife's going through.

Yeah. My, my thoughts in response will be somewhat disjointed and stream of consciousness and maybe incomplete.

Um, sure, sure. But firstly, you said something that triggered a thought. You said the only thing you can do is be there for her.

Well, that's not exactly true. Um, one thing that somebody who's in a position similar to mine can do when a loved one is going through something like this, uh, is, is serve them.

Um, you know, given the, the, the effects that this tumor is having on my wife's cognition,

I am kind of her secretary right now. I'm handling all of the conversations with doctors and phone calls and stuff like that.

I'm, I'm, I'm her chauffeur, I'm driving her to appointments and to things like that. Um, I'm, I'm doing things around the house for her that she can't do.

I'm not as many as I should, but you know, the point is one thing you can do beyond just be there for the person is serve them and, and, and take some of the load off of their back so that they can focus on their own, um, recovery.

Um, as for the biggest intellectual or, or mental challenge and, and how my theology is over or how my theology has at least been impacted by it is, um, is going to sound a little, it's going to sound a little

TMI and, and, and maybe even a little off topic, but it's not, uh, well,

I mean, it might be TMI, but, but it's not off topic. And that is, um, this is one of many kinds of things that a married couple might go through that might affect their experience of, of a certain kind of physical intimacy that married couples are designed to have.

And probably one of the hardest things for me, cause when it comes to the, the, the problem of suffering, when it comes to the fear that I might lose my wife or that she may experience, um, lasting cognitive effects or whatever, my theology kind of already.

Uh, and when I say that, when I say my theology, I mean what I'm consciously aware of what

I've built, the worldview that I've developed as I've been a student of the scriptures over the past 20 plus years.

Um, all of those things I just mentioned in others, the theology kind of already accommodated in some of the ways we've already talked about it.

It has allowed us to have hope and trust in God and, and realize there's purpose in what we're going through and see beauty.

And so all of that stuff, what I wasn't expecting is how unprepared

I was and still am at this moment for the huge impact that something like this has on that aspect of my, of our marriage, of the marriage that I just described.

Because, you know, in a, in a happy Christian marriage, that part of a married couple's life is going to flourish and ours was flourishing and now it is almost entirely on hold.

Sure. And I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's true, but at least it seems like that is particularly a challenge for me as a male.

Um, maybe I'm wrong about that. Maybe it would affect women very similarly. I don't know, but there are some at least stereotypes of what, you know, what men are like and the kind of impact this might have.

I wasn't prepared for that and still aren't. And so I, I do experience a lot of pain and frustration, not at my wife, but in the, but at the circumstances, um, you, you come to realize that, um, that aspect of a marriage is far, far more profound than just the physical stimulation that happens.

There's, there's bonding, there's, there's feeling good about myself, feeling good about the pleasure

I can bring my wife, et cetera. Um, and I don't get any of that now almost. And so that has been incredibly challenging to deal with and what it has, the way it's shaped my theology or is,

I should say is shaping, because again, I'm not there yet, but I'm realizing more and more that even something as seemingly carnal as that aspect of a, of a happy marriage has got to be something that I can in some sense, find fulfilled fulfillment in God when

I can't find it in my wife because of what she's going through. Right. And I'm not there yet.

I'm, I'm you could talk to my wife and she'd tell you the same thing that I'm not there yet. I'm, I'm still feeling pain and frustration about that.

And I'm, I haven't yet fully allowed God to meet that need of mine. But, but the reason

I bring this up is just to say that any aspect of your life, any need that you, that you have, you've got, you know, you've got to in time be able to find its fulfillment in God.

You know, he says, man shall not live by bread alone, but on every word that comes from God.

And that should be true of this need as well. And I'm not there yet.

So anyway, that's, that's the way it's shaping my theology more than anything else.

Was there anything else? I don't really know that question actually, but I appreciate you just being open and honest.

Again, these are things that people don't normally talk about. These are the aspects of the, the kind of the dirt, the details of, of suffering that we don't really talk about, but those are real issues that people go through.

So I'm hoping that when people listen to this, they can resonate with that and find encouragement of, of that biblical truth that even in light of the fact that we might not be getting our needs met in that capacity in situations like this, ultimately our needs are met in Christ.

And I know that sounds really generic for people, but it's true. Not all cliches are, are false.

That's right. And notice how this is one very nitty gritty example, a detail in which what we are going through is forcing me at least.

And I know that in other ways, even in this way, possibly star is pushing her in this way as well, driving us more and more to Christ and to being as fully dependent on him as possible.

Because the reality is anything, everything in this world is a transitory could end at any moment ephemeral.

The only constant throughout at all is God and is Christ. And we've got the,

I think one of the big purposes behind experiences like this is to more is to strengthen that bond between Christ and the believer and drive the believer to be more and more and more consciously dependent upon the

Lord to meet one's needs rather than dependent on the things around us that are so transitory.

Sure. Yeah. Well, I'd like to end our discussion here with reading Philippians chapter one verse 29, which is not the same context, but I think there's some application where Paul says for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in him, but also to suffer for his sake.

And he, of course, he's talking about persecution and things like that. But there is a very profound truth to the fact that every kind of suffering we go through we can, we can use those as opportunities to honor

God as a determinist believing that God determines all things that when he determines suffering, that we are determined in and of ourselves, right?

To bring glory to God in the best way possible in the best way that we can in those difficult times. And so I just pray that God grants you the grace to do that and gives you the strength whether you're interacting with people online or speaking into other people's lives or whether it's your own internal situation and that of your wife,

I pray that God gives you the grace and strength to to honor him in that situation.

So if we were to answer the question, does God determine suffering? We can say,

I thank God that God determines suffering. Thank God. I can't imagine what it would be like if he didn't.

And, and let me just leave you and listeners with this. If people are interested in more details about what my wife and I are going through and sort of our own history as a married couple.

I the last episode of my YouTube channel, The Apologetics was me interviewing her and I put all sorts of pictures and stuff in there.

So if people want to hear more, they can check that out. I also talk about it in a a little bit in a article that I published at the

Logos Bible Software's academic blog. So people can go to chrisdate .info and poke around on my website to find those things.

I will try to when I set this up and put it out, I will try to get the link to that video with your wife here.

Folks are interested in that. So but Chris, I appreciate your friendship. I appreciate your mind and I appreciate you being willing to open up about this difficult topic.

And I'm sure it's going to be an encouragement and it already has been encouragement to those who have been following stars situation and yours as well.

So I'm sure there are many people praying for you. And I just pray that God gives you the strength, man. I, when you said, as you can imagine, with reference to the difficulty,

I was thinking to myself, no, I can't imagine. I, I, when, when people are going through difficulty,

I can't, it's very hard for me to put myself in their shoes because it's like, I could not imagine.

Uh, that's, it's like only by the grace of God, can we continue on through these difficult? I don't see how people who don't know

God go through things like this. Um, you know, it's moments like this where I, I take great pride in being a

Christian and knowing that we have hope even when we don't see the hope in front of us. And when skeptics say that your religion is, is a crutch,

I'm like, Hey man, thank God I've got a crutch to help me walk. And now it's not now for before, before skeptics run away with that little comment, right?

It's not merely a crutch, but it's definitely a crutch. That's right. Well, thank you so much, brother.

Um, it, I'd like, I'd love to get you back on, uh, in the future. We can talk about some other stuff as well.

Um, I always appreciate when you're on, I remember the first time I had you on, uh, we covered answering,

I think it was answering objections to Calvinism. Um, and it was a lot of fun. So I'm looking forward to hopefully having you back on.

If, if you have the time and you're still willing to. And, um, yeah, if you ever need anything, let me know if there's anything

I can do. Well, next time you do one of those big Calvinism conferences that you do, maybe, maybe consider maybe

Chris could be one of the speakers. Maybe he's got something meaningful to say, you know, that's a great idea. I do.

I, I, I do want to do a part two. Um, by the way, I, I had an Epic online

Calvinism conference, which people can purchase the, uh, the lectures there on the website at revealed apologetics .com.

Um, I had Guillaume Benyong, James White, Scott Christensen, myself, and I think that was,

I think that was it, but not Chris date. I don't know why I didn't have Chris. Uh, you also had, I think you had

Saiten Bruggencate. That's right. Saiten Bruggencate. That's right. So, um, next, next one, we'll try to mix up, mix things up a little bit and definitely get

Chris day. Cause you do an excellent job. I don't know why I never, I didn't even think about it. Only if number one, it makes sense.

And number two, only if it won't prevent other speakers that you want to invite from accepting your invitation.

Um, I don't want to. And the fact is that will happen at times given the controversial views that I hold.

So, but if it makes sense, if it fits, I'd love to be considered. Listen, every single person

I've had on, I've had some random person reach out to me. Like it doesn't matter who it is. I'm like, you need more precepts.

So I go, let me get Scott Olyphant. I'll watch out for Scott Olyphant. Oh, I want to get James. Oh, James Anderson. Watch it. It's like, it'll just be me just talking the whole time.

You can't win for trying. You can't win for trying. Well, brother, I wish you the best. I wish you many blessings, you and your family.

And, um, I'm sure we'll keep in touch and folks who are listening to this recording. Thank you so much for your viewing support.

Um, in some cases financial support, I greatly appreciate it. And, um, I love and appreciate all you guys.