This article might be scary for some to read because it might expose a little doubt that you have in the back of your mind, others of you may be confused as to why I'm writing about questioning God when you've known me to be a strong and influential person of the Christian faith, but for your benefit I want to dive into a topic that has had me on the edge of my seat for four years.

For many at a Christian college, the environment is meant to strengthen your faith, and it does, especially if you are involved in a tight knit community, but for every year that I have been at Simpson (as a theology major) my faith has been challenged and my worldviews pulled out from under me. It has been stressful and scary and emotionally draining. Many Christians find it difficult to approach their faith objectively like many modern scholars do, but can't because we are so personally and experientially involved in our relationship with God. It wasn't until last semester that I finally embraced my doubts and fear of God not being real and I became free, and let me clarify before you all panic: I am in no way claiming that I have abandoned my faith, rather I am admitting that when I finally faced my doubts and asked the hard questions and chased after them I still found Jesus fully pursuing me in my endeavor in all realness and in ways personally to me that I would notice, meaning that which I experienced could not have been fabricated or deemed as coincidence because I told no one about my doubts.

I have said all of this because a friend of mine on Facebook posted an atheistic video clip of an individual who questioned God. Then, in the comments below, one of her friends attacked her by using their faith to seem better, smarter and more capable of making a believing decision that God was real, which belittled her friend and the speaker in the clip. After my above experience, I in no way was angry that my friend was doubting, but was encouraged that she was actually asking these hard questions for herself and journeying. So, I stood up for her, because I wish that I had someone safe to go to in my doubt without feeling like I was going to be judged or preached to. I wanted to ask my questions freely and work through them logically and emotionally.

Here is the video clip and I want to further warrant that this clip does not give a fair chance for the other speaker to reply:

In my friend's defense, here was my reply:

I think this man has a very good point and is asking a hard question everyone needs to ask.

My claim is that there are diseases, death and corruption in the world because of the consequences of autonomous action, thought and behavior. God did not create them. My claim is based on my understanding of the creation story and what was happening in the mind of Eve as she chose to eat the fruit.

In the creation story, after Adam and Eve 'sinned' they were cursed and put out of the garden. That's when all creatures became violent in order to survive for themselves (survival of the fittest). Therefore, violence entered the world because Adam and Eve chose to depend on themselves and believe that they could be autonomous apart from God. And God didn't want us to be selfish like that for eternity, so he did not let us eat of the tree of life. He also let them undergo the consequences of their action. The consequences of violence and death came out of the diseased thoughts in Adam and Eve. They thought and experienced the following: 1.) I can be autonomous from God because he was holding back the knowledge of good and evil, now I am suffering and dying because I detached myself from God; 2.) nakedness and humanness are bad and shameful and I am vulnerable in this world because something is going to try and take advantage of me because it also wants to be autonomous - creation is against me because we all must survive; 3.) I'm now scared of God because he is going to try and reclaim his knowledge (he already had it, and so did they, but they didn't realize they did). The lesson learned from the creation story is that living apart from God, trying to be independent in a system of dependence, leads to suffering, toil and death.

All of these things were consequences of the original thoughts Eve had when she chose to eat the forbidden fruit. Note that the fruit was there so that Adam and Eve had the freedom to choose. The idea of autonomy became a reality and the consequences led to all creation turning against itself so that the parts could survive. Remember, if they ate of the tree they would surely die, not because God was going to kill them, but because making that choice meant choosing to live individually apart from God, it was a consequence, not a punishment. Before the fall, creation worked together in perfect unity. Next, it is important to remember that God never stopped loving us. After the sin, Adam and Eve's perception of God changed, though He changed in their minds, He never changed in nature. However, yes, in the OT we see God punishing disobedience severely because of how bad everyone's sins were hurting his children and his relationship with them. God's wrath was a big "NO" to sin because of how harmful it was to his people. Adam and Eve died because, like a leaf choosing to fall from the branch, they became detached from their life source when they chose to be autonomous apart from the tree of life (Jesus).

Let's continue through the Bible narrative: autonomy cannot happen on an earth because everything living depends on everything else to live - it's the circle of life. Nothing is autonomous. And that's the 'lie of the devil' (to use common language). How did Jesus, the tree of life, make it so that we could live and be accepted back into the garden? He exposed humanity's sinful thought of autonomy and its consequences by letting us murder him so that we could not deny our evil actions and why we murdered. No, people today did not murder Jesus then, but the narrative exposes the same nature/the same evil in us now that those people had in them then. This is a key part of the gospel message.

The next part is this: we know that Jesus claims to be living water, and eternal life - he is consistently personified as our life source (our tree of life). He came back to restore life to us through the exposing function of his death, and we are considered restored when we genuinely understand and confess that we have tried to live outside of our life source, autonomously. This confession is a sign that out thoughts have changed, and we have the revelation of Jesus Christ. Jesus is our life source, he saved us from a harmful, autonomous mindset that brewed behaviors which were harmful to others by exposing that mindset and leading us to repentance. We repent because we now see how that mindset was sinful. Repentance naturally leads to thanksgiving. Thank yous are not required but are a natural response to his love. Just like if you had a good relationship with your parents and they got you a very special meaningful gift for Christmas, your eyes may fill with tears as you say thank you and run to hug them.

We see his love for us, how he has been trying to get us to see the problem. He understood that we were blind to it, we thought that being autonomous was good, but we are wrong. And he never stopped loving us the entire time. Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

Arguments on Facebook between friends is not loving. Never use your knowledge as a Christian to seem better or more capable than another. Because then you are no better than a selfish human who does the same thing with status and wealth to minorities. Your job is to value your friends and consider them better than yourself, to love them more than you love yourself and treat them with gentleness and kindness and understanding. Being Christian is not about being right. It is always about loving others, even though that love may get you hurt. It is to be hurt like this, through loving, that will expose those who hurt you, even though you only loved. Just like Jesus kept loving us through all of our selfish autonomous mistakes that hurt and used other to exalt ourselves. That's just how the gospel works. It's the only way it works best.

These questions really just remind me of the selfish heart I can have like Adam and Eve and forces me to take responsibility for the consequences of that selfishness and how it has hurt others. If there's a problem in the world it is because of selfish people who are trying to be autonomous. Christ came to destroy that mentality and bring back unity. We need to come together as humans in loving acceptance and help each other change our autonomous mentalities. Otherwise, we will all die alone trying to have success alone.