The Doctrine of the Fall, the Problem of Evil, and a Bowl of Cheerios
I was recently feeding my year-and-a-half old son a bowl of Cheerios. Its one of my favorite pastimes. We sit on the kitchen table, me on the chair and him on my lap, looking out the window, him with one spoon to play choo-choo and me with one to sneak in an occasional spoonful into his mouth.
As he starts to get full, he likes to take a spoonful and spill it onto the table. I don't mind if its a piece of cereal or two, but he eventually moves up to a whole spoonful, which creates quite a mess, so I tell him "nooo," and he stops. Usually.
On this last occasion, he did something that really tickled me, at first, and then really got me thinking. He prepared a heaping spoonful to spill onto the table, heard me say "noooo," looked sheepishly into my eyes as if contemplating something, pointed out the window and said, "Look!" and proceeded to spill the heaping spoonful onto the table.
My 1-1/2 year old son has learned the art of diverting my attention in order to do something that he knows is wrong.
Like I said, I was tickled by the incident at first. But then I got to thinking. He learned this thing from his parents! From us! He picked it up, little by little, from those times when we divert his attention ("Look at the birdy!," etc.) to get him to do something that he's not gonna like, or to stop doing something that he's really enjoying. His little brain has put together those incidents and has developed a general rule: If someone you love is going to be hurt by something you're about to do, use deception to hide that action from them.
That lesson is not gonna stop with a bowl of Cheerios and a messy kitchen table. It will apply to much more significant issues throughout the course of his lifetime. And I helped bring it about!!
But I didn't want to. I didn't intend to. If I had known that "Look at the birdy!" might one day lead to "Honey, I've gotta go to the office for a while," I would have done everything in my power to stop it.
And I think this is a small clue, a bad metaphor, a faded signpost in the mist about the problem of evil and the fallenness of humanity. Evil, sin, whatever you want to call it, is so intertwined and silently co-mingled with every aspect of life that we often don't see how we perpetuate it, how we pass it along not just to the world at large, but even to our children, and even when we have the best of intentions.
Evil is everywhere. Sin is bigger than we can ever imagine. It is nuanced. It is subtle. It does not present itself as a red creature with horns, attacking in full view. The power of sin lies in its quietness, its hiddenness, and its pervasiveness.
And, of course, from this arises the question that always arises when one considers these issues. The question that has haunted philosophers, theologians, believers, semi-believers, and seekers for millennia: The Problem of Evil, namely, if there is an all-knowing (omniscient), all-powerful (omnipotent) and completely good (omnibenevolent) God, how can He allow evil to exist in the world?
Well, there's a long response and a short response. I'll leave the long response for another time. The short response is "What do you mean by omnibenevolent?" If your understanding of God's omnibenevolence is shaped by the story of a young Jewish prophet who proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God, was crucified and then bodily raised, the "Problem of Evil" fails to be a problem at all. Actually, that's the wrong way of putting it. It continues to be a problem, but now we see that it is a problem not just for us, but also for that omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God as well.
Having said that, the Cheerios incident still haunts me. So I prayed. What can I do change the course, to see that this sin that I taught him doesn't envelop his life?
And then I wrote this post.
And maybe one day my son will read it.
And maybe he will get a glimpse of how a certain sinful tendency in his heart first developed, and how it pains his father to his core for his role in bringing it about.
And if he reads this post, then maybe he's also reading the Bible, and seeing how all our pain, all our struggles, all our tripping up despite our best intentions, has and continues to pain his heavenly Father to His core, and what He has done to deal with it.
And maybe he'll sign up for the program.
Maybe.
But for now, he really loves playing with his Cheerios.
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
As he starts to get full, he likes to take a spoonful and spill it onto the table. I don't mind if its a piece of cereal or two, but he eventually moves up to a whole spoonful, which creates quite a mess, so I tell him "nooo," and he stops. Usually.
On this last occasion, he did something that really tickled me, at first, and then really got me thinking. He prepared a heaping spoonful to spill onto the table, heard me say "noooo," looked sheepishly into my eyes as if contemplating something, pointed out the window and said, "Look!" and proceeded to spill the heaping spoonful onto the table.
My 1-1/2 year old son has learned the art of diverting my attention in order to do something that he knows is wrong.
Like I said, I was tickled by the incident at first. But then I got to thinking. He learned this thing from his parents! From us! He picked it up, little by little, from those times when we divert his attention ("Look at the birdy!," etc.) to get him to do something that he's not gonna like, or to stop doing something that he's really enjoying. His little brain has put together those incidents and has developed a general rule: If someone you love is going to be hurt by something you're about to do, use deception to hide that action from them.
That lesson is not gonna stop with a bowl of Cheerios and a messy kitchen table. It will apply to much more significant issues throughout the course of his lifetime. And I helped bring it about!!
But I didn't want to. I didn't intend to. If I had known that "Look at the birdy!" might one day lead to "Honey, I've gotta go to the office for a while," I would have done everything in my power to stop it.
And I think this is a small clue, a bad metaphor, a faded signpost in the mist about the problem of evil and the fallenness of humanity. Evil, sin, whatever you want to call it, is so intertwined and silently co-mingled with every aspect of life that we often don't see how we perpetuate it, how we pass it along not just to the world at large, but even to our children, and even when we have the best of intentions.
Evil is everywhere. Sin is bigger than we can ever imagine. It is nuanced. It is subtle. It does not present itself as a red creature with horns, attacking in full view. The power of sin lies in its quietness, its hiddenness, and its pervasiveness.
And, of course, from this arises the question that always arises when one considers these issues. The question that has haunted philosophers, theologians, believers, semi-believers, and seekers for millennia: The Problem of Evil, namely, if there is an all-knowing (omniscient), all-powerful (omnipotent) and completely good (omnibenevolent) God, how can He allow evil to exist in the world?
Well, there's a long response and a short response. I'll leave the long response for another time. The short response is "What do you mean by omnibenevolent?" If your understanding of God's omnibenevolence is shaped by the story of a young Jewish prophet who proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God, was crucified and then bodily raised, the "Problem of Evil" fails to be a problem at all. Actually, that's the wrong way of putting it. It continues to be a problem, but now we see that it is a problem not just for us, but also for that omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God as well.
Having said that, the Cheerios incident still haunts me. So I prayed. What can I do change the course, to see that this sin that I taught him doesn't envelop his life?
And then I wrote this post.
And maybe one day my son will read it.
And maybe he will get a glimpse of how a certain sinful tendency in his heart first developed, and how it pains his father to his core for his role in bringing it about.
And if he reads this post, then maybe he's also reading the Bible, and seeing how all our pain, all our struggles, all our tripping up despite our best intentions, has and continues to pain his heavenly Father to His core, and what He has done to deal with it.
And maybe he'll sign up for the program.
Maybe.
But for now, he really loves playing with his Cheerios.
Grace and Peace,
Raffi
Great story and follow up.