Lux Lucet

Why do the evil and the good both suffer?

Some of Augustine’s questioners wondered how it was possible that God could allow suffering – in this case, the suffering brought about by Alaric’s sack of Rome – to afflict both Christians and non-Christians?    

In answer to this, Augustine wrote,

This being so, when the good and the wicked suffer alike, the identity of their sufferings does not mean that there is no difference between them.  Though the sufferings are the same, the sufferers remain different.  Virtue and vice are not the same, even if they undergo the same torment.  The fire which makes gold shine makes chaff smoke; the same flail breaks up the straw, and clears the grain’ and oil is not mistaken for lees because both are forced out by the same press.  In the same way, the violence which assails good men to test them, to cleanse and purify them, effects in the wicked their condemnation, ruin, and annihilation. Thus the wicked, under pressure of affliction, execrate God and blaspheme; the good, in the same affliction, offer up prayers and praises.  This shows that what matters is the nature of the sufferer, not the nature of the sufferings.  Stir a cesspit, and a foul stench arises; stir a perfume, and a delightful fragrance ascends.  But the motion is the same.  Thus in this universal catastrophe, the sufferings of Christians have tended to their moral improvement, because they viewed them with the eyes of faith. (City of God, Book 1, Chs. 8 and 9).

Augustine’s teaching that God uses the same event for the good of his people and the destruction of the wicked is consistent with Scripture.  For example, the Apostle Paul wrote about his preaching, “For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved and in them that perish:  To the one we are the savour of death unto death, and to the other the savour of life unto life.”   Paul’s ministry was both, and at the same time, a blessing to those who were called in Christ Jesus and a curse to the wicked. The same ministry produced very different results depending on God’s purpose for the individual. 

In like fashion, God used the sack of Rome to test and strengthen the faith of his people and to harden unbelievers in their unbelief. 

Is it possible that God could so use the present crisis in American and in the West to these same ends?

But as good as this answer is, Augustine doesn’t leave it at that.  He continues with another answer to why Christians suffer along with the wicked:  Christians, even though saved, are still sinners.

No only do the saints of God liable still commit sins in their own lives, but they also fail in their calling to rebuke sinful men for their ungodly words and deeds.  Wrote Augustine,

We tend culpably to evade our responsibility when we ought to instruct and admonish them [the wicked], sometimes even with sharp reproof and censure, either because the task is irksome, or because we are afraid of giving offence; or it may be that we shrink from incurring their enmity, for fear that they may hinder and harm us in worldly matters, in respect either of what we eagerly seek to attain, or of what we weakly dread to lose. And so, although the good dislike the way of life of the wicked, and therefore do not fall into the condemnation which is in store for the wicked after this life, nevertheless, because they are tender towards damnable sins of the wicked, and thus fall into sin through fear of such people (pardonable and comparatively trivial though those sins may be), they are justly chastised with affliction in this world, although they are spared eternal punishment; and they rightly feel this life to be bitter when they are associated with the wicked in the afflictions sent by God.  But it was through love of this world’s sweetness that they refused to be bitter to those sinners (City of God, Book 1, Ch. 9).

It’s likely most of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, can think of times when we have failed to say what needed to be said out of fear.  I know that I have failed at this point.  The Apostle Paul exhorted the Ephesians, “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.”  Note well, there are two commands that Paul gives us.  First, we are “to have no fellowship” with evil works.  That is, we are not to participate in them.  But Paul does not leave it at that.  We’re also told we are to “reprove them,” that is to say, we are to actively speak out against evil and those who practice it.  It’s not enough to quietly avoid doing evil ourselves, although this is important.  We are actively to rebuke those who practice evil, including those who claim to be Christians but do not bring the doctrine of Christ.

One of the great failings of the 20^th and 21^st century Protestant church is its near universal refusal to preach against Antichrist and his lies.  Instead of rebuking and exposing the lies of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church-State, contemporary Protestants welcome the Pope as a brother in Christ and see Roman Catholics as allies in the culture war.  In light of this, maybe it should come as no surprise that a nominally Protestant president in a majority Protestant nation had an election stolen from him by a Roman Catholic candidate who has promised, in so many words, to enact the Pope’s political program here in America. 

Closing Thoughts

Perhaps some may think my comparison of the sack of Rome by Alaric in 410 to takeover of the United States in 2021 by the progressives/Deep Staters/Democrats to be a stretch. 

It seems to me, though, that this comparison is appropriate.  Just as the invading Visigoths brought with them a culture that was alien to Rome, in like fashion the takeover of America by the progressives brings to power a view of the world that is radically at odds with what Americans historically have believed and what many Americans still do believe, about the proper role of government and its relationship to the people. 

A few decades back, it was common to hear people speak of the “Culture War.”  That term seems to have become less common in recent years.  But if we go with that way of speaking for a moment, it should be clear at this point who are the victors and who are the vanquished in this contest.  Quite obviously, the coalition of the progressives/Roman Catholics/Deep Staters/collectivists and Democrats have won the day.  Those who believe in the Constitution, personal liberty, limited government and Christian morality have suffered a crushing defeat.  I write this not to be depressing, but rather to honestly acknowledge the situation as it is.  For it is only by first frankly acknowledging the mess we’re in and repenting of our foolishness and cowardice that we Christians have any chance of defeating the forces of darkness that surround us. 

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