Nicole’s e-Pistle

February 5, 2025

Greetings, friends!

This week we wrap up our dive into theodicy with the closest I believe we can come to a solution to the “problem.” If theodicy is trying to reconcile the four truths – 1. There is a God; 2. God is all-powerful; 3. God is loving and good; and 4. There is innocent suffering – then Thomas Long suggests the answer may be found in the Latin term solvitur ambulando, which means “it is solved by walking.” In his final chapter of What Shall We Say? – Evil, Suffering, and the Crisis of Faith, Long reminds us of St. Anselm’s famous motto “faith seeking understanding.” Faith in a good and loving God who is still active in this crazy world is a path that we must continue to walk, gaining knowledge about God and wisdom about life along the way.

Long explains it this way. If you have someone who claims to be your friend, and you want to be sure of their sincerity, you cannot perform a logical, mathematical, or scientific test to prove their worthiness of your friendship. There are no chemical compounds or equations that can set any kind of standard of expectation. “Friendship cannot be proved in advance. The only way to know truly that someone is a friend is to walk a distance down life’s road with her or him. Solvitur ambulando” (Long, 116). If you will, I invite you to take a walk with me…

Pause for a moment and reread Matthew 13:24-43, which includes the parable of the wheat and weeds, the mustard seed, the yeast, why Jesus talks in parables, and Jesus’ allegorical explanation of the wheat and weeds to the disciples (who like us, are struggling to understand).

In the parable, the landowner has sown a field of wheat, but when the plants come up, there are weeds along with the wheat. The slaves complained to the landowner, asking whether he had planted good seed. Long tells us that the first steps on our path of faith seeking understanding in light of evil and suffering in the world is the theodicy of protest. Long says that “when we confront God in bewilderment or moral outrage over the experience of evil… this is not a lack of faith but an expression of faith” (Long, 126). A physician once told Thomas Long, “When I get to heaven – if I get to heaven – I’m going to go directly to the throne room of God with a cancer cell in my hand and say, ‘Why?’” (Long, 128). Even Jesus himself asked “Why?” from the cross. We should feel just as empowered.

In the parable, the landowner responds that he was not the one who sowed weeds (evil), but that an enemy had done it. On the one hand, we can be assured that God is not the author of evil in this world. Whatever may be said about the existence of evil, it is not God’s will than any should suffer. 1 John 1:5 says, “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” If any good comes out of the evil of this world, it is neither because there was goodness in the evil nor that a good God preordained the evil for good reasons. There is just evil. The why may be a mystery, but the “who” isn’t. It is not of God. Period. Evil is not just our enemy, it is God’s enemy.

In the parable, the slaves want to know whether they can rid the field of weeds, but the landowner cautions against it, for it would uproot the wheat as well. Many people have taken this to mean that either – A. people are weeds and we should wait for God to sort them out – OR – B. people cannot change the evil in the world, so we shouldn’t bother trying. BOTH of these are a false reading of God’s clear message of justice and mercy and love. However, it is true that we do not have the full wisdom and discernment to know exactly what to “pluck up” from our world or what the unintended consequences might be. It is God who sees the whole picture, but to rush in and hit the “Stop” button every time something bad was about to happen would go against God’s nature. “Suppose God were to come as we imagine, come as a warrior with a sword, cutting out every vestige of evil – all disease, all greed, all violence, all hatred, all sloth – come as a ruthless farmer with a machete, slashing away at every weed? Who could stand? Every one of us is entangled in evil” (Long, 141). Yet, just because God does not whack away at all evil, it does not mean He does not answer our prayers.

In the parable, the landowner promises to send reapers to collect the weeds first, then the wheat. The wheat will go into the barn; the weeds will be burned. Vengeance is the Lord’s, and his vengeance comes in the form of a paradox. The Creator of all things chooses to die on a cross – to submit even to death for the sake of love and peace. In doing so, His “perfect love, poured out on the cross, burns down the gates of hell and destroys the powers of evil and death” (Long, 146). For us to live faithful Christian lives in light of evil, we cling to that time when death will be no more, when God will wipe away every tear, and when all evil has passed away. However, this is not just a distant future reality – there are traces of it even now. God is at work even now, and we are called to be part of it.

Friends, here is our good news (at the end of an incredibly lengthy e-Pistle) – If we are to walk the path, solvitur ambulando, of our faith seeking understanding, we do so with God above us, God ahead of us, God beside us, and God within us. The God who chose to take on human form and suffer alongside us, even to the point of death on a cross, hears our cries and sees the injustice that plays out in the world. We must grow beyond our “immature idea of a God who comes when we whistle to make everything all right in favor of a God who is at work in suffering as the hidden and loving warrior, summoning the faithful to join their actions with God’s, calling them to be in the present world of pain what all humanity shall be in the end: those whose righteousness shines like the sun in the victorious love of God” (Long, 153).

Friends, when you see evil in the world, choose Love. When you see discrimination, answer it with Love. When you see pain and suffering, comfort it with Love. When you see injustice and oppression, protest it with Love… The God of Love is on the move.

Peace and Love be with you all…