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CAN THE TERMINATOR FALL IN LOVE?

Have you ever wrestled, in the midnight hour, with the question of why God made a world like ours where bad things can happen? I mean, why? That’s the age-old dilemma, isn’t it, expressed so eloquently in the classic book, Philosophy: An Introduction Through Literature:

“If God is perfectly loving, He must wish to abolish evil; and if He is all-powerful, He must be able to abolish evil. But evil exists, therefore, God cannot be both omnipotent and loving.”

And maybe you think, “Never mind abolishing. Why in the first place did God even make a world where bad things can happen? Forty-seven years ago, on July 25, 1956, the Andrea Doria went down; some of you remember. Why? Why’d God create a world where that could happen?

Our series for the week bears this difficult title: MADE FOR JOY. And we’ve been quoting cheerfully from verses like Psalm 16:11, where a happy king named David writes:

“You [God] have shown me the path that leads to life. You have filled my life with the joy of Your presence, and throughout eternity there will be joys untold.”

Well, friend, if the Garden of Eden was the original Disneyland, with the sign out front reading “The Happiest Place on Earth,” and if God intended for His creatures to be experiencing nothing but joy, what’s gone wrong? Why aren’t we having what we were intended to have?

There are a number of attempted answers to that question, and I think a guy named Andrew might just be part of the divine solution. Some of you may be familiar with an old sci-fi story entitled The Positronic Man by the late, great Isaac Asimov. In the tale, Andrew was a “robobutler,” a man-like machine designed to do household chores. Perhaps you’ve rented the video starring Robin Williams, Bicentennial Man, which was based on the Asimov story. “Andrew” purrs quietly around the house, doing the bidding of Sir, the man of the house, his wife, and a daughter named “Little Miss,” played in the film by that cute little Pepsi girl, Hallie Kate Eisenberg. As the Asimov story develops, the robot, Andrew, keeps getting smarter and smarter, although it takes him a long time to learn how to play along with “knock knock” jokes. But the story gets right to the heart of the dilemma, which is that robots aren’t supposed to have any free will or any emotions or desires of their own. Andrew finally complains, “One would like to have more expression. One has thoughts and feelings that presently do not show.”

Years go by; in fact, decades and almost centuries pass, because the android never dies, even though the human beings keep passing on. Somehow, working for four generations of this family, Andrew manages to collect a salary, even though he’s essentially a household appliance, and with the blessing of compound interest adding up over such a long time, he becomes wealthy. He tries to find a nice android wife. He wants to become more and more human. Film reviewer Roger Ebert puts it in one sentence when he says: “The movie’s buried themes have to do with self-determination and the rights of the individual.”

And right there, friend, you have it. Why don’t we have joy in our lives when God wants us to have joy in our lives? Because you and I are also free individuals. We’re not robots or androids. We don’t have pre-wired software in our heads, directing us to walk in jerky motions from A to B and back again, endlessly saying, “I’m so happy. I love God. I’m so happy. I love God.”

In his book, Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis explores the obvious link between joy and freedom. Because despite the sci-fi progress of this android, Andrew, in Asimov’s story, The Positronic Man, robots and computers don’t learn how to be happy. Only a fool falls in love with the sultry female voice on his PC which says to him, “Welcome to CompuServe.” Anyway, here’s the Lewis essay:

“God created things which had free will,” he writes. “That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible.”

So there you have it. If you and I are not made to be Garden of Eden androids, or fake lovers out of that old horror film, The Stepford Wives, then we have to be given free will, and this thing called evil has to be at least possible. We don’t have to be bad, but we are permitted to be. And where, then, does the issue of joy come in? Here’s the rest of what C. S. Lewis has to say about it:

“Why, then, did God give them free will?” he asks. “Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata — of creatures that worked like machines — would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free.”

So friend, true joy, real joy that isn’t just pre-recorded on a chip placed in your brain, can only come if you voluntarily choose to live in relationship with God. In the book of John, Jesus is talking with His disciples and followers and He tells them:

“I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”

And you ask: “I have told you WHAT”? Well, if you read the context of the passage there in chapter 15, the Bible makes it plain that Christ is talking about men and women who “remain in His love.” Who voluntarily submit to His leadership and obey His commands. Those who truly seek Jesus as their Friend and Redeemer and Lord — meaning they follow Him in all things — are going to have the fullness of heaven’s joy. But that joy will never be thrust upon them, because joy that is thrusted-upon is not joy at all. Every husband and wife in the world knows that.

In the 20-second radio promo piece that we sent out to all of our radio stations for this series, MADE FOR JOY, we used a marvelous line from the theologian G. K. Chesterton. Here it is:

“All men matter.” All women too, of course. “You matter. I matter.” And then Chesterton adds this: “It’s the hardest thing in theology to believe.”

We had a few lines from Philip Yancey the other day, who, at one point in his own spiritual journey, almost sank into the popular despair of existentialism. And in his book about the Old Testament, entitled The Bible Jesus Read, he writes this:

“What I know about astronomy also feeds my doubt. Scientists tell us that our sun is one of perhaps 500 billion stars in the Milky Way, a medium-sized galaxy among two hundred billion others, all swarming with stars. Can one person on a speck of a planet in a speck of a solar system in a mediocre clump of a galaxy really make a difference to the Creator of that Universe?” A bit later he adds: “What is a human being, but a tiny blip in the billion-year progression of history?”

That’s really shades of Psalm chapter four, where the songwriter David wonders aloud:
“What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?” I like the Clear Word paraphrase, which puts it this way: “What is man that You concern Yourself with him? Of what value is he to You that You continue to be bothered with him?”

And of course, the answer lies in the fact that you and I are not androids like Andrew. The “bicentennial man” was just metal parts and a few gigabytes of computer memory. If he broke down – without you having the extended factory warranty and the head-to-toe service plan – you’d just go out and buy a new chunk of metal using your chunk of plastic. But you and I are created human beings. What value are we to God? Friend, the value of your LOVE for God — if you DO love Him — is inestimable to heaven. It’s priceless. To have your love He would do absolutely anything, bear any expense, fight any battle, take any risk, and be lifted up on any cross. Just to experience the freely given love of one person — like me or like you — who chooses, with eyes wide open, to commit allegiance to Him.

It’s obviously the one thing in the universe which brings joy to Him. And I must say — He turns right around and gives that same joy back.