M. Irons, who is indebted to Uncle Screwtape's* outlook for the inspiration of this hypothesis.
Many people after they have left the Assembly struggle with the question, "Why? Why did God let me spend years in the Assembly, and come out of it with serious damages in my life?"
It's a question I have wrestled with sometimes to the point of despair. Believing that God is both all-knowing and all-powerful, and therefore able to prevent suffering and tragedy, how do I make sense of the fact that He didn't prevent us from becoming involved with George, when we were so earnestly praying for God's will in our lives? I've come to a tentative explanation that helps me.
The perspective that has been evolving for me was inspired by The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, which shows the implacable enmity of Satan and his minions against God and against the faith of His people. In the end, the victim slipped through the Tempter's fingers by simply and humbly hanging on to his faith in spite of bombs and the tortures of war.
The overall structure of the Bible itself reveals the perspective of this cosmic conflict. The first few chapters of the Bible show the adversary getting into God's own garden and pulling off a coup right at the beginning. The New Testament records the enemy confronting Jesus at the outset of his public ministry. Christ's life, death and resurrection are framed in terms of that struggle. The closing chapters of the Bible describe the final phase of the war between God and Satan.
Then there is the story of Job, right in the middle of the Bible, like the center post in a timber frame structure. Job shows us how the cosmic conflict intersects with the life of an individual human being. The trajectory of Job's entire life was effected as he was caught in the middle of a showdown between God and the adversary. Satan challenged God that if Job were to suffer, he would lose his faith. God allowed Satan to afflict Job with multiple tragedies to prove him wrong.
Job did not come through triumphantly. He was angry at God, he whined, he was full of self pity. He did not look like an "overcomer." But the important thing was that he did not lose his faith in God. The simple fact that Job's faith survived was pivotal to the cosmic controversy between God and Satan. Afterward, God poured out blessings on Job. But what remains for posterity as the most important aspect of Job's life was his faith that endured the terrible testing.
Perhaps Job's story is telling us that this kind of contest is part and parcel of what it means to be a child of God. Satan says, "Let me put them through a racking illness... through a tsunami... through war...through genocide. They will deny You." Maybe he said to God about us, "If you will let me bring them under the influence of George Geftakys, who will twist their minds and damage their lives and "waste" their years and ultimately betray them, they will lose their faith in You."
And God allowed it to be so, to demonstrate to principalities and powers that the bond between God and His own cannot be destroyed even by spiritual abuse and betrayal.
Our part is to wrestle to continue to believe God, to believe that He exists, to believe that He is good. Even if it is a difficult struggle, and we are depressed, and we whine and feel sorry for ourselves. Even if we are angry at God. Through all this we are still playing an important part in the cosmic dispute. Our struggle shows the powers of evil that our relationship with God is of such worth to us that we are crushed at the possibility of losing it.
God's part is to hold on to us through the trial and the struggle, and to work it all together for good, as He has promised.
Maybe it is only in this way evil can be overcome. Since the angels seem to be solitary creatures, it falls to us human beings, who are created for relationship, to demonstrate to principalities and powers that love is real and is the supreme good.
Given that evil will always be a possibility for free moral agents, it cannot be annihilated; it can only be overcome with good, which is love--God's love for us, ours for Him, and most foundationally, the love of the three persons of the Godhead for one another. Perhaps that is why at the final battle of the ages, Christ will come with his saints--because it's His blood shed in love for them, and their testimony that His goodness and love are real and are worth suffering everything for, that will ultimately overcome the forces of evil. Then God dwelling in the midst of His people in the new Jerusalem will stand as an eternal message of love to the cosmos.
I want to be part of that. I am staking everything that our suffering will have this ultimate meaning. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead has made it possible. Job shows how it can work in an individual life.
* Screwtape, a Senior Tempter, is the main character in C. S. Lewis' book, Screwtape Letters.
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