Man's duty vs. Christian responsibility... another instance of a Kobayashi Maru?
We say that a man/father's duty is to protect his family, to set up every precaution he can to ensure their safety and comfort, despite the cost to himself; this is his calling. On the same hand, we say that as a Christian, man is also called to trust God, show mercy, and do what is right. Fair enough. But what is a man to do when these two callings conflict? When, like in "The Road," a bad man will kill the young boy unless he is first killed himself. It seems that in this situation, the father would be fulfilling his duty to kill the bad man first and, thus, save both himself and his son. Indeed, he would be just in doing so as he fulfills his calling as both a man and father.
But what about as a Christian man?
Called to trust God, show mercy, and do what is right, a Christian man should never murder, for any reason, but leave life and death to God alone. So what is the man to do? Is he to give up his duty as a father - his duty to protect his son - in order to fulfill his Christian calling and, in so doing, risk the death of his son or be killed himself? Or is he to give up his calling as a Christian - his calling to trust God always - in order to fulfill his fatherly responsibilities and, in so doing, murder a man made in the image of God? Either decision breaks a calling.
We seem to have reached a Kobayashi Maru.
Or have we? As a Christian man, we begin to wonder if, perhaps, he is ultimately called to a higher duty. Perhaps, as a God-fearing Christian, his ultimate calling is to trust God regardless of the situation at hand, to do everything he can with what he's been given and trust God with the rest.
In this case, then, the man must take every precaution he can to ensure his son's safety. But when those precautions have all been carefully set, when he has done all that he possibly could have and still the bad man threatens, perhaps it is his higher calling to trust God - to trust that he has done what he could, to trust that to kill regardless of the circumstance may be just, but ultimately wrong (and a display of distrust in God), and to trust that at that point, the fate of all three lies in the hands of God. True, this may imply death to the father as he protects his son from a bullet; it may, in fact, imply death to both of them. Or perchance, it may imply unknown love and mercy that changes the bad man's mind. The sovereignty is God's; won't He decide?
Ultimately, as we endlessly insist on trust and loving God His children, are we not also called to trust Him in the most dire of situations? Isn't this when the rubber really meets the road and we show whether or not we truly trust God with our lives - enough to be killed ourselves if it means not murdering another?
Lately I've been wrestling with the idea of what it really means or looks like to trust God. Perhaps I've found my answer - trust is refusing to sin as a consequential reaction to a seemingly worse evil. We are to always live uprightly, regardless of the cost or seemingly worse evil that will occur as a result. We may be just in fighting back, but in so doing, how are we different than the world? And how are we putting our faith in God who ultimately determines everything anyway?
If all this is true, the implications are huge in that we are called to a severe faith in God - a faith that never grows cold, never gives up, and always keeps our minds on Him. That is the kind of faith that moves mountains, parts seas, and feeds five thousand. We're not the ones who accomplish these; He is. And by believing and trusting God, especially in the most dire circumstances, we give Him opportunity to display His huge power. And that is something I long to be a part of.
"To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul;
in you I trust, O my God.
Do not let me be put to shame,
nor let my enemies triumph over me.
No one whose hope is in you
will ever be put to shame."
Psalm 25:1-3
3 comments:
Great post, Lizzie. Wow -- this is a lot to be thinking about. Thanks for writing.
When it started with Star Trek, I had no idea where it would end up. It is this very issue that is one of my deepest passions so to see someone else express it so well is quite moving. Christ never asks us to compromise, but he does ask us to sacrifice. Thanks so much for sharing.
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