Does God Determine Suffering

Determinism, Suffering, and the Reality of a Cancer Diagnosis

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 gonna 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 gonna 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. 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 a 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, the doctors got really concerned and they had her do an MRI, um, of, 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, 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 sized egg, you might get at the grocery store.

That was in her 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 sized 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, the 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 puts 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. Sure. 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 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, 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 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, uh, next Friday at the time we're recording this. Okay. 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, uh, 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, um, 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 immuno immune system 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, 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, 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 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 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, 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. Um, there we've, we've experienced fear. We've experienced sadness. We've experienced anger, you know, um, 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 it's meant to be ultimately, right?

We're, we're, we're in a fallen world, um, experiencing the consequences of, uh, of the fall and of, um, the curse on, on creation as a result of that fall. Right. Um, but, uh, so we experience all those emotions.

They are incredibly deep and profound and result in a lot of crying and, um, 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. 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 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're 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 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 things befall 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, uh, uh, 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, it'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, 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. Is that kind of, kind of what you're saying? Yeah. Uh, scary and other.

Things. Sure. Right. Um, so w 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, uh, 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.

Um, 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.

The Incompatibilist Objection and Why Emotion Does Not Refute Determinism

Yeah. And I, I guess I see this.

As we can kind of take it, step outside to the broader debates on these topics. It, it, 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, uh, 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, uh, 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, cause, cause 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. Um, but, uh, 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 in 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 was your 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, um, 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 crisis, 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 the consequences, uh, or, 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, 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.

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 going to 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?