Why do we never blame God when things go wrong?

[JBaldwin]

I was recently in a discussion with a skeptic, and the person made this comment to me, "You know what I don't like about Christians? They never blame God when something goes wrong, and they always thank God when something goes right."

To be honest, this one stumped me. If we believe that God is in control, then why do we never blame God when things go wrong? This one really had me scratching my head. Any thoughts?

 

[Mushroom]

I think Christians ought to actually thank God when things go wrong as much as we would when things go right. Both are given us from the hand of our Father for our benefit.

How often that happens is another subject.

 

[Davidius]

As Reformed Christians we do recognize that God has ordained everything, and we are to thank Him for everything, even though from time to time we may be doing so through tears. Recognizing God's sovereignty over all things, however, should not be equated with "blaming" God in the way the skeptic complained. He has probably not met very many Reformed Christians, and his complaints are valid when directed against common evangelicalism.

[bible]Daniel 4:34-35[/bible]

[bible]Romans 9:20-21[/bible]

 

[Zenas]

Blame implies a sense of moral culpability.

While God is responsible, God is not morally culpable for a wrong-doing, because the event is not wrong. Surely with respect to us a murderer killing 10 people is wrong, but with respect to God, all things are intended for the good of those who love him, and it is not wrong for God to cause the taking of a life of people who are guilty before Him, nor is it wrong to call His Saints home.

The problem I have with skeptics is their own sense of morality is the standard by which they judge everyone else, including God, and then they find everyone but themselves left wanting. Basically, they're irrational in applying a subjective standard of morality to an objective being that transcends their standard.

It's like trying to measure the width of the ocean with a measuring cup. *The absurdity of the analogy is meant to show the absurdity of their practice.*

 

[Poimen]

Who says believers don't blame God?

Job 19:6 "Know then that God has wronged me, and has surrounded me with His net."

Job 19:21-22 "Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, For the hand of God has struck me! Why do you persecute me as God does, And are not satisfied with my flesh?"

 

[Presbyterian Deacon]

"When things go wrong" By whose definition?

The question presupposes that man (not God) determines right from wrong. Certainly God is in control of our circumstances...and likewise, it is God...not man who gets to define it. We say it is wrong based on our own puny ideas of right and wrong.

The more we apprehend the Sovereignty of God, the less perplexed we shall be by the calamities of man.

 

[JBaldwin]

"When things go wrong" By whose definition?

The question presupposes that man (not God) determines right from wrong. Certainly God is in control of our circumstances...and likewise, it is God...not man who gets to define it. We say it is wrong based on our own puny ideas of right and wrong.

The more we apprehend the Sovereignty of God, the less perplexed we shall be by the calamities of man.

Amen

 

[Thomas2007]

Romans 8:28 answers the question, but in our finite scope of reference we may not be able to understand or see how it is being fulfilled in the present. Generally, we look backward with 20/20 vision and can see how what otherwise perceived by us as calamities are used by the Lord to fulfill some greater purpose.

For example, consider Joseph - his brother's jealousies caused them to hate him and throw him in a hole and sell him into slavery telling their father he was killed. Great evil fell upon Joseph through their hands, yet Joseph himself recognizes as he is raised up over Pharoah's kingdom that what they meant for evil God meant for good to save Israel alive in the days of famine. (see Genesis 50:20)

We simply aren't smart enough to figure out the Providence of God, but by faith we trust Him and His enscripturated word is true.

Cordially,

Thomas

 

[Presbyterian Deacon]

What we think of as "the wrong" is what the Puritan Divines called "cross providence."

Thomas Watson, in his A Body of Divinity (page 123) wrote:

God is to be trusted when his providences seem to run contrary to his promises. God promised to give David the crown, to make him king; but providence ran contrary to his promise. David was pursued by Saul, and was in danger of his life, but all this while it was david's duty to trust God. Pray observe, that the Lord by cross providences often brings to pass his promise. God promised Paul the lives of all that were withhim in the ship; but the providence of God seemed to run contrary to his promise, for the winds blew, the ship split and broke in pieces. Thus God fulfilled his promise; upon the broken pieces of the ship they all came safe to shore. Trust God when providences seem to run contrary to promises.

Along these same lines, C.H.Spurgeon wrote that "When we can not trace God's hand, we can always trust God's heart."

The working of God in these cross-providences which seem to run counter to our perception of what is good, right, and happy" are not "things gone wrong," but rather the Soveriegn working of our glorious Lord who works all things for His own glory!

It was William Cowper who wrote:

"Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace,
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.....

Blind unbelief is sure to err
And see His work in vain:
God is His own interpreter,
And He will make it plain."

And of these cross providences John Trapp once wrote:
"He that rides to be crowned, will not think much of a rainy day."

Troubles come. Things seem to "go wrong" but we ride to be crowned! God's ways don't always make sense to us, but that's the point. They don't have to make sense to us. God's in control not us.

As Watson says in his A Body of Divinity:

God is the great superintendent of the world, he holds the golden reigns of government in his hand, guiding all things most regularly and harmoniously to their proper end.

Far from blaming God then, this should lead us to bless Him and trust Him for His grace!

 

[Semper Fidelis]

JBaldwin,

Check out the latest WHI show "Christianity vs. Liberalism": The White Horse Inn: Know What You Believe & Why You Believe It

It doesn't precisely deal with that question but gives a partial answer as to how the "skeptics" disgust with much of American Evangelicalism is appropriate.

I think the problem with most Evangelicals is that they have a pagan notion of sin, suffering, and death and do not deal with the issue honestly. The honest approach, obviously, is not to place the Creator on trial for sin and death but to weep and mourn for it appropriately. There is a time for mourning under heaven. There is even a time to cry out to God for the effects of Sin that our first parents plunged us into and that we deserve as those who sin just like them.

If we would honestly mourn for sin and suffering then our testimony of the Grace of God is more genuine and real. It is not merely a constant refrain of some sappy "I've got that joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart!"

If Americans had ever experienced the abject suffering and death that Europe did given the quality of "faith" that most have then the country would be mostly a morass of unbelief in the same way. Most Americans believe because they think of God as a Sugar Daddy.

 

[PuritanCovenanter]

Who says believers don't blame God?

Job 19:6 "Know then that God has wronged me, and has surrounded me with His net."

Job 19:21-22 "Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, For the hand of God has struck me! Why do you persecute me as God does, And are not satisfied with my flesh?"

Here is John Gill on this. I am not sure that "God has wronged me" is a good translation...

Job 19:6 - Know now that God hath overthrown me,.... He would have them take notice that all his afflictions were from the hand of God; and therefore should take care to what they imputed any acts of his, whose ways are unsearchable, and the reasons of them not to be found out; and therefore, if a wrong construction should be put upon them, which may be easily done by weak sighted men, it must be displeasing to him. Job had all along from the first ascribed his afflictions to God, and he still continued to do so; he saw his hand in them all; whoever were the instruments, it was God that had overthrown him, or cast him down from an high to a very low estate; that had taken away his substance, his children, and his wealth: or "hath perverted me" (l); not that God had made him perverse, or was the cause or occasion of any perverseness in him, either in his words or in his actions, or had perverted his cause, and the judgment of it; Job could readily answer to those questions of Bildad, "doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?" and say, no, he doth not; but he is to be understood in the same sense as the church is, when she says, see Lam_3:9; "he hath made my path crooked"; where the same word is used as here; and both she and Job mean that God had brought them into cross, crooked, and afflictive dispensations:

 

[mark]

Or Psalm 88 especially. Or any of the prophets. Of course we blame God from time to time. People aren't being honest if they don't. Saying, "Why God?" is a form of blame. Whether it is descriptive or prescriptive is another matter. Maybe it's both!

But, we are commanded to rejoice at all times (Phil 4:4). The question is how. And it's a real question that deserves answers from a heart of compassion. We are not to give flippant theological directives or approach the matter using presuppositional apologetics.

A LACK OF CHARITY means you are not a Puritan, much less a Christian.