So far, we have seen that God uses bad things as a negative reinforcement technique induce change in people. Those bad things include natural disasters as well as humanly manufactured evils, such as war. But three questions arise: (1) Is God the author of evil? (2) Is God unfair? And (3) how do we know when God is using a bad thing in order to induce us to change? Let us take a look at each.
(1) Is God the author of evil when he uses bad things as negative reinforcement technique? No. Consider an analogy: When a child misbehaves, his parents discipline him. In my day, that often meant spanking, although “time outs” and loss of “privileges” is more common today. Now, in disciplining their child, parents are causing him to experience a bad thing, either slight pain or momentary deprivation. We do not consider parents “evil” for disciplining their children; why would we consider God so?
But of course, parents try to be consistent when disciplining a child, always positively reinforcing good behavior and negatively reinforcing bad behavior. When God disciplines us, however, he seems to hit and miss. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, sometimes good things to bad people.
This raises our second question: (2) Is God unfair? Again, I think, the answer is no, and for two very common sense reasons: First, God may be using a positive technique on a bad. Parents might just as well try to get their child to behave by offering her a lollipop as by threatening a “time out.” So too does God often let good things happen to bad people. But second, the consequences of disciplining a bad child may inadvertently affect a good child. If, for example, parents take away the driving privileges of their seventeen-year-old daughter, this negatively impacts their fifteen-year-old son who depends on her for a ride. (I know this from personal experience.) In a similar way, bad things often happen to good people.
How, then, are we to interpret what happens to us? Or, in the wording of our last question, (3) how do we know when God is inducing us to change? Revelation 10:1-11 answers that question by highlighting the role of prophets, i.e., men and women who speak God’s word to the people. John saw “another mighty angel” with a “little scroll in his hand.” As this angel descended from heaven, he “called out with a loud voice…[and] the seven thunders answered.” But John was commanded not to write down what he said. This is an important point to understand, for God’s ways are mysterious. Unless he reveals them to us, in fact, they are incomprehensible. That is where the prophets come in. They reveal what God wishes to make known. Events come to pass, in other words, “just as God announced to his servants the prophets.”
This does not make their job any easier, however. John was commanded to take the little scroll from the angel and consume it. “It will make your stomach bitter,” the angel told him, “but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.” That is often the way it is with any person who is a witness to God’s word. The word itself is sweet, but its effect when relayed to others is bitter. And yet, to anyone who believes that God speaks to us through the Bible, giving witness is absolutely necessary. The angel commanded John: “You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.”
And so must we.
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