THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL


Daniel is regarded by the Jews as part of the writings, and by Christians as part of the prophets. The book deals with a very important question, what's sometimes called the problem of evil. If the world is the creation of one good, all-powerful God, why is it that there evil and suffering in world? Suppose, for instance, that you were all-powerful and that, at a word or a touch, you could end anyone's sufferring.  Would you be reading this right now?  No--chances are you'd be at St. Luke's or Sanford, helping those people that were suffering from cancer or some other dreadful disease. 

Well, Christians and Jews believe that God has exactly that kind of power.  Why doesn't he do what we would do?  It's a tricky question, and probably one of the most important reasons keeping people from belief in God.  Unless the Hebrews had an answer for this question, their faith would have no chance to spread beyond Israel and Judah--as the prophets had hoped that it would.

The book of Genesis has a partial answer to the problem. A key lesson of the early chapters of Genesis is that people suffer because they do something wrong.  Like Adam and Eve, we bring evil on ourselves.

Often enough, this is true.  Someone downs a bunch of beers, gets in a car, shoots off at 80 miles, and ends up in an accident that paralyzes them for life.

We wish this was the way things alwasy worked: people only suffer when they do something wrong. But, unfortunately, this just isn't true. Perfectly innocent people suffer.  The guy that downs the beers walks away without a scratch, but wipes out a family of five in a minivan. Good people suffer—sometimes more than bad people. This is central question that concerns author of Daniel: why do bad things happen to good people?  This is a vital question, and, unless it can be answered, monotheism has very little chance.  How can one believe in a good, loving, all-powerful God when such horrible things happen to good people in this world?  Daniel suggests an answer.

The beginning of the book of Daniel is absolutely shocking.  The Chaldaeans, the most corrupt of ancient peoples, conquer God’s people, the Jews.  The destroy Jerusalem. They destroy the temple.  The do horrible things to their captives.  Daniel and his friends have lost everything.  They’ve been castrated, made into eunuchs. They’ve even lost their names.  Each of these men had had a name honoring the God of Israel.  Daniel = my God is judge, Mishael = who is like God? Azariah = Jehovah is my strength, Hannaniah = God is gracious.  There names are changed: Belteshazzar honors the Babylonian god Baal, Abnego honors the Babylonian god Nebo, and Shadrach honors the god Aku.  Mishach = who is like Aku?  For the rest of their lives, these young men will be addressed by a name equivalent (in our terms) to “Satan is strong,” or “Lucifer’s son.” 

Very bad things have happened to good people! So what do you do in such circumstances?  Here's a bit of practical wisdom from the book of Daniel:

1.  Obey god anyway.  Daniel and his friends follow Jewish dietary laws—and are blessed for it.

2.  Be patient.  The story of Nebuchadnezzar's (lost) dream shows that God can give wisdom no other source can, but it also has the important message that, though cruel and corrupt kings may rule now, in the end, God will establish his own kingdom.

3.  Don’t give in. Never give up, never surrender.  Note the story of Nebuchadnezzar's image. When threatened with the fiery furnace Daniel’s friends affirm God’s ability to deliver them, but insist that, even if God doesn’t deliver them, they won't bow down.

4. Remember that earthly powers aren’t what they seem.  In the story of Belshazzar’s party, Belshazzar mocks God, he and his party friends drinking out of the cups that had been dedicated to the God of Israel.  God writes on the wall: Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin.

Daniel interprets: “mina, mina, shekel, half-a-shekel.”  Coins commonly used in the ancient world. In other words, “nickel, dime, quarter” or “two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar.” Daniel interprets this as a series of puns, the idea being that Belshazzar is nothing more than a joke as far as God is concerned. 

After Belshazzar’s defeat, the Persians take over, a people far more sympathetic to the Jews, a people who even let the Jews go back and rebuild their temple.  But even here, Daniel runs into some trouble (cf. the story of Daniel and the lions Den). Even good earthly rulers are not the ultimate answer!

Now all this pretty clear and straightforward. The next section of Daniel far more difficult, a very complicated series of visions.  I'll be talking about these visions later.  For now, though, note that these visions are in the context of Daniel seeking an answer to problem of evil. He fasts and he prays, and gets a series of visions. But these visisions aren’t at all reassuring: mostly, they are predictions of worse things to come. But mixed with these, there is a promise of something else, the eventual establishment of a righteous kingdom where everything is done in the way it should be. But what good does this do for those who live in meantime? Daniel persists, and finally gets the answer in Daniel 12.

Daniel is told that there will eventually be time of trouble worse than anything that had come before.  But after that, deliverance.  And something more: there will be a resurrection where the righteous will be rewarded and the evil punished.

This a partial answer to the problem of evil. Certainly in an eternal kingdom, God can make up to you anything that's gone wrong in your life. Even the worst of things aren't so bad from this perspective: watching your friends and family killed, being taken to a foreign land and castrated isn't going to look quite so bad after a million years of nothing but happiness. But still, the answer is not quite satisfying. Why did God allow the evil in the first place?

Daniel's answer comes in Chapter 12,  verses 3 and 10.  The righteous will be purified. They that turn many to righteousness shine as the stars forever and ever.

There is something in all the things that he has gone through that makes Daniel a better person. And enormous amount of pressure changes a lump of coal into a diamond. God's answer to Daniel-- I'm turning you into a diamond. I'm turning you into pure gold--into something beautiful that will last forever and ever.

An adequate answer to the problem of evil? Well, at least as good an answer as anyone has ever been able to come up with, and an answer that Jews and Christians have found helpful for two thousand years.