Unsolvable Questions

What we mentioned in earlier posts needs to be noted,

• namely that the knowledge of our misery is knowledge by faith or what might be called faith knowledge, 
• and that the misery as we see it here can be confessed only by faith. 
• The fall into sin by our first parents with its consequences can only be seen by faith, 
• as well as the fact that we are unable to do any good and inclined toward all evil.

People without faith as to the seriousness of sin and misery are not able to accept the course of justice. 

• For us sin becomes fully a reality only when we see it as guilt before God. 
• And without faith it will never be that. 
• Only faith understands the severity of the words: so wicked and perverse, 
• which means leaving God and willfully turning against Him. 

Moreover, faith is offended by the problem that exists in accepting the reality of both those matters. 

• How can it be that this world and especially man came from God’s love and yet sin is found in man, which is an element totally foreign to God? 
• Only faith knows the struggle involved in this. 

Once more, we repeat that we mean faith in God through Christ, 

• for only that faith has responded to God’s love, 
• and is able to understand how the origin of man and of the world lies in God’s love. 

Such faith always wrestles with the possibility and reality of sin. 

• How can something proceeding from God become so depraved?
• Does not the fact that His love is the fountainhead of creation exclude every possibility of sin? 
• Or, if we must diagnose – also by faith – the reality of sin, do we have to accept that God’s love, which is an almighty love, willed and intended this sin? 

In this case, 

• it is again only faith that knows and understands the love of God
• and will maintain that it could never have willed sin, 
• and that there is not a single connection between the intent of His love and sin. 

Only faith retains that tension. 

• Only faith that trusts God can leave question marks 
• because it humbles itself at the same time before God, 
• Whose doing and willing transcends all minds. 

Faith has its difficulties, even more than unbelief, 

• but it can tolerate these as unresolved problems for God’s sake. 
• It cannot do other than assume that these must exist, because it knows God as the Incomprehensible One. 
• We need to prepare ourselves to face irresolvable questions.

Unbelief will attempt to force a solution. 

• It will seek to avoid the seriousness and the completely being-against-God nature of sin, 
• and therefore seek to reach an ostensible solution. 
• Or, it will attempt to encroach upon God’s holiness and almighty power – upon His all-encompassing love. 

Unbelief will not be able let the problem exist. 

• Only by faith are we able to accept it as insoluble 
• and continue unmoved in our confidence and trust in Him, 
• Who created all things from and through and unto His love. 

Adapted Excerpt from The True Faith by Simon Gerrit De Graaf (1889-1955)

Did God, then, create man so wicked and perverse? 

• No, on the contrary, God created man good and in His image, 
• that is, in true righteousness and holiness, 
• so that he might rightly know God his Creator, 
• heartily love Him, 
• and live with Him in eternal blessedness to praise and glorify Him. 

From where, then, did man’s depraved nature come? 

• From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise, 
• for there our nature became so corrupt that we are all conceived and born in sin. 

But are we so corrupt that we are totally unable to do any good and inclined to all evil? 

• Yes, unless we are regenerated by the Spirit of God. 

The Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Day 3