rhettsmith.com

GREAT post, Rhett. Mystery is really the reality with suffering in my opinion. There are no tidy answers or absolutes on everything.

I lost a step dad to cancer. My wife lost a sister. God is still God, but we still hurt. It makes me long for heaven, even in my questioning of why. One thing I think I can be sure of is that disease was not God's plan, redemption and wholeness is. Free will can co-exist with God's soveriegnty, in other words.

Shalom!

Rich

thanks for the comments Rich..and sorry for your losses. I do believe mystery is at the heart of suffering...look at the cross.....

anyone who says that cancer was part of God's plan has never been in the room with someone suffering from it. and if they have...well, then I question their view of God.

Rhett;

Thanks so much, I appreciate your thoughtfulness and willingness to share. I will say that I was sorely disappointed by the lack of grace shown by the initial comments to the original post. Even in the midst of disagreement (and isn't that when it's the hardest?!), we must strive to consider others as more important than ourselves. Name-calling and character attacks have no place in truly Christian conversation.

My unrelated two cents,

Brent

"anyone who says that cancer was part of God's plan has never been in the room with someone suffering from it. and if they have...well, then I question their view of God."

My mother and aunts have all battled breast cancer and won. I cut my mom's hair off when she lost it. I was in the room after the surgeries, when we didn't know if she was going to be alive in a year. Other close family friends have battled cancer, including many from my home church and many have lost that battle. My grandfather is battling cancer right now.

I describe all of this to say that while I hated the suffering that these family members and friends have gone through, I have seen it all as part of God's plan for us. It has brought my own family closer together, and Mom's witness through the treatments, her strength, her encouragements to others was amazing to watch.

I don't begin to understand why cancer happens. I won't go so far as Piper went to say that He does bring cancer into people's lives, but I have seen in so many other lives how the cancer has been used for His glory.

I guess your comment that I excerpted at the beginning of this comment, is what I don't understand. Why do you question my view of God, and others' view of God, if we hold the perspective that glory is brought to God through suffering?

You disagree, I know, and I respect your position, but I wanted to share my perspective on it, just the same.

Piper's comments on his cancer are spot on.

Having lost both my father and step-father to cancer (brain tumor and lung cancer), and having nearly lost my mother to breast cancer, I have some experience with family members and cancer.

When I read Piper's list, I saw a man that steadfastly clings to God in the midst of what is likely the most trying time of his life. In the midst of that, he does not curse God but is drawn closer to Him.

If I had cancer I would prefer the likes of John Piper at my bedside, encouraging me to cling to God rather than offering some vapid words of "comfort" or psychological nonsense.

Both my father and step-father believed in God's providence. My father in particular drew nearer to God as his disease progressed. I am confident that I shall see him again in Heaven.

I guess it depends on where one wishes to find comfort--in the sympathy of man, or the purposes of God.

Today was my first day to visit your blog. I'm 30, single, been a follower of Jesus Christ for 22 years. I've been reading a lot about "Emergent" over the past few months. Now, just the word "Emergent" gives me the creeps. Why do I say that here? I don't know...your post against Piper was so virulent. It was so ironic that you were talking that way about someone who has cancer. I'm afraid that this subsequent post will not be read by as many people...not that you're apologizing in this post.

Try reading John Paul II's Salvici Doloris (literally "Healthgiving Suffering"--salvific comes from the same root as health, salus, shalom, wholeness but usually translated as "On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering") and his play titled Job, written while he was a 19-year-old student in Nazi-occupied Poland, his first play. The first is written as pope, the second as an already deeply wise teenager. Ex cathedra has little to do with either one. Both are deep meditations on Scripture. The play Job fleshes out Job's affirmation of faith to make it explicitly Christological: he glimpses the Suffering Servant as an answer to his own suffering. Think of a 19-year-old writing this as people he knows suffer, disappear, die horribly. . .

I do not share John Piper's Calvinist understanding of divine providence but I do believe in God's providence and agree with much of what Piper wrote. Suffering, which does come to all of us in varied forms, is an opportunity to respond out of selfless love, which is the way we are all supposed to live (toward God first of all and secondarily toward each other). Sin is the refusal to live that way; suffering, though not willed by God, does give us an opportunity to grow in love for God and neightbor.

Karol Wojtyla, The Collected Plays and Writings on Theater, trans. Boleslaw Taborski (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)

"On the Christian Meaning of Human Suffering" (Salvifici Doloris) (Washington, D.C.: Office of Publishing Services, USCC, 1984)
or
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris_en.html

Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press), ch. 5 on death (disease is really an aspect of death--death occurs when we no longer can overcome disease) is also a fine exposition of how Christ's victory on the cross gives meaning to suffering.

I'm saddened by your losses, Rhett.

I lost both of my parents to cancer when I was 27. Now my two-year-old son is battling leukemia.

Theologically, I disagree with Piper's Calvinism. However, I have to disagree with your statement to the effect that cancer cannot be a part of God's plan.

Cancer, or any other form of suffering, falls within the scope of Romans 8:28's "all things" in which and through which God works for the good of those who love him.

Suffering is as much a part of life on earth as is pleasure. It is part of the fallen world that God permits. Although it is awful to endure, the testing of our faith produces perseverance, which guides us to maturity and spiritual wholeness (James 1). One acquaintance whose 6-month old is still in the midst of a serious illness accurately describes their ordeal as being like windsprints that stretch and push the athlete beyond what they believe they can bear, yet prepare them for more fully for the future. Participating in my parents' faithful struggle with cancer unquestionably helped to prepare me for what I am facing today.

Too often, we find ourselves pursuing utopia here on earth: politically, socially, economically, even spiritually. However, the more we achieve utopia in this life, the more we lose sight of the Utopia offered to those who are in Christ in the life to come.

It is tremendously difficult to face suffering, experiencing it yourself or watching those you love go through it. Yet I can't imagine attempting to face suffering without the belief that God is in control and has a purpose for it. Where is the hope otherwise?

God, please be with those who are suffering as well as their friends and loved ones. Please give them the grace to endure and comfort them with your presence and your peace.

Found you via Hugh Hewitt's post.

Piper has a very high view of God, and that is often confusing. It's terrible in its simplicity - God IS GOD. God is fully sovereign in every way, in every respect. Nothing happens that He does not permit, and did not forsee from before His creation of time. Everything - everything! that happens is due to His plan and design, whether or not we can understand it.

That's the sticking point for a lot of people. "I can't understand how a loving God could let my mother die of cancer," they say. So they either dismiss God as callous and uncaring, or limit His sovereignty by saying that pain isn't part of His plan.

They ignore the third path - the paradox that a loving, merciful God can design pain and suffering into our lives. Sometimes we can see His hand clearly - would the Acua Indians have come to salvation if not for the martydom of Jim Elliot?

Oftimes, though, we can't.

And that's where we have to simply accept the paradox. God IS infinitely merciful. Yet He permits suffering. We can't understand it.

But we don't have to understand everything.

Disclosure - I consider myself blessed to have sat under John Piper's teachings for a decade. He baptized me and my wife, and officiated at our wedding in the old sanctuary at Bethlehem.

Also, I lost my mother to cancer when I was 4. I was at my uncle's side when he died of stomach cancer. My stepmother died of ovarian cancer about a decade ago.

I found this an interesting comment:

6. My theology is very different from John Piper's and it is not going to get any closer....but more than likely, it will get farther away.

Unless you think both of you will be apostate, this is a prediction that one of you will get closer to the true knowledge of God and the other further away. Which one of you will do which?

I have survived Stage -III Hodgkins Disease and have prostate cancer.

This guy Piper is nuts.

Having cancer did change my perspective somewhat; it does to most people.
I'm not so self-centered (or stupid) to think that my cancers strengthen my ties to God.

A great and Godly Presbyterian of our generation, James Montgomery Boice, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at age 60 at the height of his ministry and influence. One of the last things he said to his congregation was this; that he didn't pray for healing, he prayed for God's will. He said that to pray for healing might be to pray for what was second best, and he didn't want what was second best.

My Dad is currently dying of very aggressive prostate cancer. But he gave his life to Jesus Christ 7 decades ago and he's not worried. He's ready. From what I've seen and heard he isn't busy praying for delivery from cancer, he's praying for his wife, my Mom, and his children and grandchildren.

There should be a huge difference in attitude between those who truly know the living God and those who don't. If you don't know God then the cancer is everything. But if you know God, cancer is just another human trial that serves God's purpose. There are answers in His Word. That's why He gave the Word to us; that we might not be blind. jb

If it's not part of "God's plan" -- whatever we mean by that -- then whose plan is it? Might not we by our suffering share in the suffering of Christ, and so much more long for the resurrection? I have prayed "take this cup from me" and so far my cancer has not recurred, but I know that my life is in God's hands, and at any moment my cancer could come back. If it did, God would still be God, he would still be Good, though not necessarily good like a kind grandfather in the sky, but good in a way we can't perceive through this dark veil. Terrible but good, fierce but good. This is the God who kneads us and pummels us like clay and passes us through the fire. Hurts like hell and it doesn't always make sense. But that's the God I read of in the Bible and that's the God who carries me through each day.

17 years ago I had cancer...I have lost a sister and several friends. Black words on white paper never convey a persons heart. I was referred to these post from Hugh Hewitt's website. I love the interaction and it helps to hear what others think on different issues. I really liked John Piper's "Don't waste your Cancer"....I think for a mature Christian the post just confirmed a lot of what I have learned over the years...but after reading your response I realized that people are at all levels of their walk with Christ. I do think John's post drives you to know Christ in every situation...that is the key to walking the walk. Yes there are mysteries...but Jesus Christ is the answer and in Him we can know and we will be known. Satan may mean it for evil but God can bring good out of even Cancer. I don't want it again but I can tell you it made me look at my life in a totally different way....

Thanks for the discussion...

You want to know if God plans our sufferring? All you have to do is look at the suffering of Christ. Here is the one person who deserved no suffering. This was the greatest evil committed in the history of this world, because not only was He innocent, but He was only doing good. Just think He was suffering for those that were inflicting the pain upon Him. Did God plan this suffering? You bet He did! If God planned Christ's suffering why do you think it is incompatible with God to plan ours?

I found this by the Hugh Hewitt link, grieving with those who grieve.

I have never heard of Piper and am not a theologian. One book on suffering from a non-deterministic perspective is "The Doors of the Sea: Where was God in the Tsunami?" (Eerdmans, 2005) by David B. Hart. The author is an Eastern Orthodox Christian.

Ronnie,

Thanks for posting. I hope I didn't make it seem like suffering isn't part of God's plan. But I could see how you thought that. I think suffering is definitely part of life. I actually felt like Piper minimized our suffering by blaming it on God as the originator of cancer and disease. I think suffering is part of the human condition...as you pointed out, our Lord suffered a death on a cross. I see suffering as part of the fall, and as the outcome of living with free will. Whereas I suppose that many Calvinists and others don't believe in free will, but have a more deterministic view, which if nothing else, would have to point to God as the creator of suffering, so as not to give man and woman free will. This is the pivotal point where I part ways with my Calvinist friends. And it is the pivotal point I believe in the issue of theodicy.

Speaking as someone steeped in the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition, I will concede that there is a strain of determinism running through it going back to its early days--but not all the way back to Calvin. Many (I think I may say, most) Calvinists *do* believe in human free will--or rather, to use J. I. Packer's correction, in human free agency. (Dr. Packer's point is that to speak of "free will" is to attribute freedom to an abstract concept, the will, rather than to the human person; he believes, and I agree, that this philosophical mistake is the root of much of the disagreement over this issue.)

To put it simply, the best Calvinist position on this issue is that human beings are free moral agents and that at the same time God is fully sovereign. His will neither precedes ours nor is dependent on ours, but rather is coordinate with ours. This is, obviously, merely a thesis statement, but there is neither space nor time here for the full-blown argument, which has been well made by Dr. Norman Geisler, among others.

It must be said, though, that when it comes to cancer, the issue of free will/free agency is rather secondary, since apart from "lifestyle cancers" their appearance isn't much a matter of human choice. (Unless, of course, one is a certain strain of Pentecostal; I have lost far too many friends and family members to cancer, and still remember with some bitterness a man who told my granddad that if he had enough faith, God would have healed him, and thus that his impending death from cancer was his own fault.)

piper's theology will be tested in this process.

I read John Piper's piece with interest because I had the identical diagnosis, surgeon, and hospitalization 2 months before him. I see the surgeon tommorow--who knows, I may run into Pastor John in the clinic.
His ideas have much potential, unfortunately it is somewhat wasted. To claim that my (and his)cancer is a gift from God, and then to refer to Job's experience as proof spoils his argument. The Job narrative clearly ascribes Satan as the instigator. If God is the One who gives us cancer, then to pray for healing would be to reject God's gift. To defend the soverienty of God to the exclusion of His love is to do Him no favors.

--The Job narrative clearly ascribes Satan as the instigator.

The Job narrative proclaims God's sovereignty over Satan and that Satan cannot act without God's permission. God uses the events to teach that very lesson. Dr. Piper cites Job 2:10. But he said to her, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?" In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Please pardon Dr. Piper for taking God at His word.

--If God is the One who gives us cancer, then to pray for healing would be to reject God's gift.

Actually, just the opposite is true. I'm HIV positive. Unless there's a cure, this will *never* change. I still pray for healing. The reason I do so is that I have hope. My HIV status has been a great blessing to my life. It has provided opportunities for ministry I could not otherwise have. It drives me to continually lean on the Lord for grace. Is it a consequence for mistakes of the past? Yes. Is it a gift from God? Yes, for as one of His covenant people, I know that God causes *all things* to work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

To deny that suffering is a gift from God is to deny the plain teaching of Scripture.

John 9: Was not a man born blind from birth precisely so that Christ might deliver Him and teach a lesson that Christ heals spiritual blindness the way He healed physical blindness? I believe His words are: "...it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him." Does Paul not plainly say that both faith in Christ and suffering both gifts from God in Philippians?

--To defend the soverienty of God to the exclusion of His love is to do Him no favors.

To defend the love of God at the expense of His sovereignty is to insult God's grace and mercy.

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