D. A. Carson’s excellent book How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil is, by his own admission, not the best book to give someone in the midst of grief and suffering. He explains his view that this book is “preventative medicine.” “Quite frankly,” he writes, “this little book . . . may not be of assistance to those whose despair is so bleak that they cannot bring themselves to read, think, and pray. But I shall be satisfied if it helps some Christians establish patterns and habits of thought that are so strong that when the hardest questions batter the soul there is less wavering and more faith, joy, and hope” (p. 10).
At the end of chapter 6, he returns to the question of a young woman who wanted to know how she should think of her father, who, as far as she knew, was now in hell.
There were, of course, and are, many important things to say.
I could say that none of us knows for certain what transpires between any person and God Almighty before that person is ushered into eternity.
I could say that the final proof of the love and goodness of God is the cross.
I could say that we know far too little of the new heaven and the new earth to have any idea what consciousness we shall there have of those who have chosen to live and die independently of God.
I could add that there are times when, in the confusion, it sometimes helps to think of all that we know of the character of God and ask, with Abraham, the rhetorical question, “Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen. 18:25).
All this I could say, and more.
But it will not do to opt for a sub-biblical system, a selectively biblical system.
Shall we opt for absolute universalism? Then what do we do with the countless texts that foreclose on this speculation? Does God treat those who trust his Son and those who disobey the Son the same way, even though his Word insists, “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3:36)?
Shall we assume that truth and revelation are not the discriminating factors, but human sincerity? What purpose, then, the cross? And what value?
However hard some things are to understand, it is never helpful to start picking and choosing biblical truths we find congenial, as if the Bible is an open-shelved supermarket where we are at perfect liberty to choose only the chocolate bars.
For the Christian, it is God’s Word, and it is not negotiable. What answers we find may not be exhaustive, but they give us the God who is there, and who gives us some measure of comfort and assurance.
The alternative is a god we manufacture, and who provides no comfort at all. Whatever comfort we feel is self-delusion, and it will be stripped away at the end when we give an account to the God who has spoken to us, not only in Scripture, but supremely in his Son Jesus Christ.
—D. A. Carson, How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1990), 105-106.
