June 4, 2007 - God and Cancer

A few days ago, a blog reader named Vicky sent me a link to an article written by John Piper, who's a Baptist megachurch pastor and also a prostate cancer survivor. It's called "Don't Waste Your Cancer."

With a title like that, how could I resist reading it? The article's got ten points, each one beginning with "You will waste your cancer if..."

Most of Dr. Piper's points I agree with:

"You will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God" (I've never been a gambling man, anyway).

"You will waste your cancer if you refuse to think about death" (No problem there – I was a philosophy major).

"You will waste your cancer if you think that ‘beating' cancer means staying alive rather than cherishing Christ." (I'm already on record as opposing violent imagery – "winning courageous battles against cancer," and similar expressions – when it comes to dealing with this disease. It may work for others; it just doesn't work for me. And, of course I believe eternal life in Christ is more important than mortal life on our own – that's a no-brainer).

"You will waste your cancer if you spend too much time reading about cancer and not enough time reading about God." (This point's pretty much a repeat of the preceding one.)

"You will waste your cancer if you let it drive you into solitude instead of deepen your relationships with manifest affection." (Bravo, Dr. Piper, on this one! I tried going it alone, during those long months of diagnosis, when I didn't share my worries with anyone else, except Claire. It didn't work very well. The support of a community is critical.)

"You will waste your cancer if you grieve as those who have no hope." (Hope is what it's all about – but, that's a no-brainer, too. Even Lance Armstrong and others like him, who come at cancer with a purely secular approach, aren't afraid to talk about hope. Lose hope on this grim and arduous journey, and you've got little else left except grieving.)

"You will waste your cancer if you fail to use it as a means of witness to the truth and glory of Christ." (How could I argue with that? I hope my life – at least, in its better moments – is all about witnessing to Christ. I hope and pray this blog has been about that, as well, for at least some of my readers.)

In case you're counting, that's seven points. Much as I'm able to affirm the foregoing, Dr. Piper's three remaining points make me gag. They are:

"You will waste your cancer if you do not believe it is designed for you by God."

OK, I'm a Presbyterian. I believe that predestination is a viable concept to use in describing a God who is sovereign, all-knowing and all-powerful. But even I respond with revulsion at this glib assertion that God went into my DNA blueprint before birth, erasing a chromosome here, adding one there, all to create a genetic time bomb that would go off when I turned 49.

Does Dr. Piper actually believe his prostate cancer was custom-designed for him by God – that God went down the rows of souls waiting to be born, and said of the one who would be baptized "John Piper," "this one gets a rotten prostate, it will make him a better person"?

Here's what Dr. Piper says, explaining his rather provocative statement (which is number one on his list of ten):

"It will not do to say that God only uses our cancer but does not design it. What God permits, he permits for a reason. And that reason is his design. If God foresees molecular developments becoming cancer, he can stop it or not. If he does not, he has a purpose. Since he is infinitely wise, it is right to call this purpose a design."

Well, the people who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center had a design, too. They imagined, in the fried moral circuits of their terrorist brains, that the evil they were doing was justified because it would yield a greater good: the humbling of the United States of America – a nation they had demonized, in those same fried brain-circuits, as the nexus of all human evil. I'm sorry, but Dr. Piper's image of God does not differ substantially, as I see it, from that of a terrorist.

Did God fail to prevent my cancer, as well as Dr. Piper's? Of course. Yet, to me, that's a far cry from saying God actively designed our respective cases of cancer, smiting us with custom-made strands of defective DNA.

The question of why God permits human suffering is among the toughest of all theological dilemmas. I tend to come down on the side of God's having withdrawn from active manipulation of human events, in order to allow space for a greater good to flourish: human freedom. There are a whole lot of ancillary consequences to that withdrawal, one of which is cancer. But, did God specifically design this or that particular consequence, for my life or Dr. Piper's? I don't think so. I don't think "design" is a meaningful word to use, in such an instance.

A little analogy may be in order. Fans of the various Star Trek television series and movies are familiar with a standing order called “The Prime Directive” that starship crews must follow, when visiting planets more primitive than their own. Basically, the Prime Directive boils down to “hands off.” Crew members who beam down to the planet must avoid doing anything – like leaving an advanced space gadget behind – that would interfere with that culture’s normal process of development. God has voluntarily adopted a sort of Prime Directive when it comes to human illness, and other forms of suffering. It’s not that God can’t intervene. It’s that God generally won’t, because to do so on a regular basis would undermine human freedom.

I do believe God sees, and knows about, my cancer. Yet, God also knows that, in order to preserve the greater gift of free will, God must lay aside the marionette-strings and let the human experiment spin itself out, in all its beauty and agony. One day, we are promised a place where "mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away" (Revelation 21.4). But, sadly, not today.

Dr. Piper's point #2 is, "You will waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift."

My objection to this one lies in the false dichotomy Dr. Piper sets up, between a curse and a gift. I think my cancer is both. I would never describe it as anything other than a curse – yet, I would also say that the experience of having cancer has been a surprising gift, in many ways. It's led me to new sources of strength, opened up new relationships, forced me to think more about others, centered my mind on higher things.

I would agree with Dr. Piper if he were saying, "cancer is not only a curse, it can also be a gift." But, set it up as an either-or, and I have to cry foul.

The final point where I differ from Dr. Piper is #9: "You will waste your cancer if you treat sin as casually as before."

Here's his further explanation:

"Are your besetting sins as attractive as they were before you had cancer? If so you are wasting your cancer. Cancer is designed to destroy the appetite for sin. Pride, greed, lust, hatred, unforgiveness, impatience, laziness, procrastination – all these are the adversaries that cancer is meant to attack. Don't just think of battling against cancer. Also think of battling with cancer. All these things are worse enemies than cancer. Don't waste the power of cancer to crush these foes."

Oh, pull-eeeze! Do you actually expect me to swallow the line that cancer is just another means God uses to smite sinners? If that's true, then what does it imply for those who don't have cancer – that God doesn't think they're as bad sinners as the people who do have it? Or – stranger still – maybe God doesn't care about those people enough, not to have supplied them with their own, custom-designed bitter pill that's necessary for full spiritual health?

In the course of my pastoral ministry, I've encountered way too many sick people who are laboring under the misapprehension that their illness is a form of divine chastisement visited upon them by God. I try to free them of that particular monkey-on-the-back. I won't deny that some illnesses have a psychosomatic element, through which, say, unresolved guilt or suppressed anger can manifest itself as physical illness. Such illnesses can, indeed, be seen as a result of human sin – but they're a causal outcome that grows out of the sin itself, not a divine punishment imposed from above.

I don't think cancer is God's design for any person. It just is. Or, perhaps it's more accurate to say it just isn't. What do I mean by that? Genesis 1:2 says the earth, before creation, was "a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep." When God spoke into the void, creating the universe, the forces of chaos were pushed back, but not obliterated. Some of that formlessness and void is still hanging around, just beyond creation's ragged edge, causing havoc. Cancer's part of that. Faith teaches that its days are numbered, but in these between-times, we are forced to deal with it.

That's what I'm thinking these days, anyway, about God and cancer. I'm just not on the same page as Dr. Piper, when it comes to the relationship between physical illness and sin, and when it comes to God's role in handing out the cancer genes to particular individuals.

As for the rest, it's all good.