“Gran and Grandad moved from a lovely country cottage to a poky little house downtown,” Susan mused.
“Why?” her daughter asked.
“I’ve no idea. Something awful must have happened, but your gran would never talk about it. She took the reason to her grave.”
There are some things we cannot know. With advances in science and the benefit of Artificial Intelligence we sometimes assume that we will eventually know all the answers to our questions. However, while science can show “what” it can seldom explain “why”. The Bible, in contrast, gives many explanations of why life is as it is, and why certain things happen. Nonetheless there remain things that we cannot know.
The Puzzle of Job
The Bible describes a series of catastrophes that happened to a faithful man Job who, convinced that he did not deserve them, was perplexed as to “why”. Three friends came to comfort him, offering long explanations about God’s character and why He had allowed Job to suffer so badly. While many of their statements about God are true even today, for example that He does correct people (Job 5:17), their conclusions about Job’s situation were wrong. God was angry with them as they had not spoken well of Him (42:7)—they had presumed to attribute (incorrect) motives to Him, which they were not entitled to do. In a supremely majestic speech God says that no one has any right to request explanations from the one and only God who has created and sustains the universe (chapters 38–40).
Don’t Challenge God
It is a temptation even for believers to try to “rationalise” why God allows events that seem unfair. For example, He might allow one person to die young (against the medical prognosis) while another survives a disease and lives a long life, defying medical understanding. However, the lesson of Job is that it is quite simply never our place to question why. We cannot know, and it is not our business. Apart from causing great distress to people (as Job’s friends did to him), it is the height of disrespect to Almighty God.
Susan’s curiosity was probably harmless and would at best waste time. Questioning God is not harmless as it can anger Him. So let us accept that we cannot always know why God does what He does, but submit to Him in humility (James 4:7–10), acknowledging His superiority (Isaiah 55:6–11). One thing we can know as it is repeated throughout the Bible: God ‘does no injustice’ (Zephaniah 3:5).
Anna Hart