What's Wrong with the World?

   "Many of the students who want to engage me in conversation are first-semester philosophy students. (As an aside: there ought to be a rule. You should not be able to talk about philosophy unless you’ve had more than a semester of philosophy. If you haven’t had any, that’s fine—you can talk all you want. But if you’ve had only a semester, you are messed up. You’d be better off just not taking a philosophy course at all!) These amateur philosopher-students love to catch me alone and ask me standard questions such as, “I just wanted to ask you if you believe in a God that is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, and if so, how do you reconcile those beliefs with the issue of theodicy?” to which I respond, “You just took a semester of philosophy, right?”

   “Well, yes. How did you know?”

   “Because if you hadn’t, you’d have just said, ‘If God’s so power­ful and so good, how come bad stuff happens?’ But I’m not going to answer the question until you ask it correctly.”

   “I worked on that all week! What do you mean, ‘ask it correctly’?”

   “You’re not asking the question properly.”

   “What do you mean ask the question properly? It’s my question. You can’t tell me how to ask my question.”

   To which I patiently respond, “I will answer your question when you ask it properly.”

   When they are ready, I tell them how to ask that question properly:

   Look me in my eyes and ask me this: “How on earth can a holy and righteous God know what I did and thought and said yesterday and not kill me in my sleep last night?” Ask it that way, and we can talk. But until you ask it that way, you do not understand the issue. Until you ask the question that way, you believe the problem is out there somewhere. Until you ask the question that way, you believe that there are some individuals who, in and of themselves, deserve something other than the wrath of Almighty God. When you ask me the question that way—when you say, “Why is it that we are here today? Why has he not consumed and devoured each and every one of us? Why? Why, O God, does your judgment and your wrath tarry?”—then you truly understand the issue.

   The problem with the world is me. The problem is the fact that I do not acknowledge the supremacy of Christ in truth. The problem is that I start with myself as the measure of all things. I judge God based upon how well he carries out my agenda for the world, and I believe in the supremacy of me in truth. As a result, I want a God who is omnipotent but not sovereign. If I have a God who is omnipotent but not sovereign, I can wield his power. But if my God is both omnipotent and sovereign, I am at his mercy."

Voddie is Correct!  What's wrong with the World?---I am!  How can the world be set right?---Jesus!