More Doubt: More FaithExemplo

Can Injustices Cause Doubt?

Does your faith remain intact in the midst of a myriad of injustices around you? Or upon further reflection have doubt and confusion billowed up? Has the word why disturbed you beyond repair? 

It’s true, being a Christian doesn’t give you a magic pill whereby you are never troubled by injustice. Job felt it as the evils settled in, and he experienced unimaginable pain. I felt it recently when I saw a video of a person being dragged into the streets and brutally stoned with cinder blocks, while people drove by seemingly detached and unconcerned. Perhaps you’ve felt it while watching the evening news or when your lover betrayed you or after pondering the grim reality of much of the world scene. Even Habakkuk the prophet posed the question “God where are you?” Maybe that’s a question you have asked when encountering some unspeakable evil or some ghastly injustice. 

Ours is a world filled with injustice, but thankfully not one without ultimate justice. In time, God will make all things right. In the meantime, we scratch our heads, stand confused, and sometimes weep in the face of tragedy, morbidity, and macabre evil. 

As we now see, doubt travels in two directions. For some, it heads toward faith, and for others, it travels toward unbelief. Yet, we must face the question C.S. Lewis once posed in Mere Christianity, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of ‘just’ and ‘unjust’?…What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?” Donald Gowan, in his commentary on Habakkuk, similarly said, “The human demand that God ought to act justly is based solely on the conviction that God is just.”

I think we have our confusions misplaced. When we see life’s injustices, our tendency is to blame God instead of the person who committed the crime. I also think our confusion shouldn’t rest solely in whether God is just or unjust. It makes better sense for us to stand perplexed by God’s sense of timing in meting out justice than it does to wonder if He is just. We ask, “What’s taking so long, God?” And Scripture couldn’t be clearer regarding God’s ultimate sense of justice as we’ll all stand “without excuse.”

Reflection

• How should Christians respond to the injustices that are present in this world?