Did God Cause a Man to be Born Blind?

[Paidion]

According to most translations of John 9:2-4, a man was born blind so that God's works could be revealed in him. For Jesus (or God through Jesus) healed him of his blindness. For example here is how the NKJV reads:

2 And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
3 Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.
4 "I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work.

Does this seem reasonable? That God would cause this man to be born blind, to endure blindness throughout his childhood and part of his adulthood, just in order to heal him and receive glory for it? Or do we just dismiss this to say, "We don't understand God's ways with our 'human' reasoning" or "God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform" or "We can't expect God to do things the way WE think is best. He does what He wants."

None of these "answers" really answer anything. This is a moral problem, and God is the most moral being in the universe! God is LOVE. Would the God of love do such a thing?

Before ascribing such an act to God, we should first examine the text carefully, and see whether it is indeed translated correctly. As most of you know, Hellenistic Greek (the form of Greek used from 300 B.C. to 300 A.D.) was written all in capitals, with no spaces between words, and no punctuation other than a short line over some words to indicated that they were abbreviations.

Here is a way to punctuate the passage in such a way as to give an entirely different meaning to it:

2 And His disciples asked HIm, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

3,4 Jesus answered, "Neither this man NOR his parents sinned. But in order that the works of God might be revealed in him, it is necessary to work the works of Him who sent Me, while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.

[robbyyoung]

Hi Paidion,

The Jews are drawing from O.T. teachings. For example, remember Moses' conversation with YAHWEH:

Exodus 4:11, And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?

I think Yeshua's answer, as given in the popular interpretation, aligns more with the evidence in scripture. But I could be wrong .

God Bless.

[steve]

Does this seem reasonable? That God would cause this man to be born blind, to endure blindness throughout his childhood and part of his adulthood, just in order to heal him and receive glory for it? Or do we just dismiss this to say, "We don't understand God's ways with our 'human' reasoning" or "God works in mysterious ways His wonders to perform" or "We can't expect God to do things the way WE think is best. He does what He wants."

None of these "answers" really answer anything. This is a moral problem, and God is the most moral being in the universe! God is LOVE. Would the God of love do such a thing?

God made us for the purpose of making His glory shine forth to the world:

"Everyone who is called by My name, Whom I have created for My glory" (Isaiah 43:7)

"For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and glorified Himself in Israel." (isaiah 44:23)

That God would do anything at all for His glory is more than justified, and such an outcome is the one desire of all godly people:

"According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death" (Phil.1:20).

The "death" Paul was looking at here was decapitation. From a worldly point of view, this is a fate worse than mere blindness, but Paul (and Jesus) found no reason to be confined to worldly ways of thinking.

Persecution was to be accepted cheerfully by Christians, knowing that this glorified God: "but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings...on your part He is glorified" (1 Peter 4:13-14).

The persecution of which Peter speaks included imprisonment, torture, being burned alive, being fed to lions and slaughtered by gladiators. How could a loving God allow Christians to suffer such things "merely" for His own glory? No one who is on God's side needs to ask such questions. The Bible teaches that the one concern that true repentance places in our hearts is that God should be glorified.

Even Peter's own torturous martyrdom was viewed in this light: "This [Jesus] spoke, signifying by what death [Peter] would glorify God." (John 21:19).

Job exhibited this attitude also, in his numerous trials (Job 1:20-21). His trials included loss of children, loss of all property and loss of health. You believe that God did not take these things away from Job, but Job disagreed, and so did the author of the book (Job 1:22) nor God (Job 42:7).

Why should it be questioned whether God might cause blindness for His eventual glory? I don't think Helen Keller struggled to see God's providence, in her case, as being inconsistent with His love for her. Jesus specifically said that the deadly illness that befell Lazarus was for the purpose of glorifying God:

"When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby." (John 11:4)

If Jesus claims that the glory of God was the reason for Lazarus' sickness, why would God's having the same purpose in the blindness of the blind man present any theological problems?

It is often true that we do not know how God will glorify Himself in any given situation, but we do know two things: 1) God will glorify Himself in our lives, and 2) He is righteous and compassionate in doing so. The person who has not come to place the glory of God as a first priority in his/her thinking, hardly seems to qualify as a converted person. Converted from what and to what? Before conversion, our own worldly interests dominate our concerns; after conversion, the glory of God dominates our priorities:

"that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you!" (2 Thess.1:12).

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:16)

"For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body." (1 Corinthians 6:20)

"...if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter." (1 Peter 4:16)

"...having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace...In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory...In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory...to Him be glory in the church...world without end!
(Eph.1:5-6, 11-14; 3:21)

[dizerner]

God is the most moral being in the universe! God is LOVE. Would the God of love do such a thing?

What in your opinion is the reason God allows so much seemingly gratuitous and intense suffering in the world?

[Paidion]

Steve, I don't think your examples of God "allowing" persecution, torture, being burned alive, thrown to the lions, etc. fit the case in point. Christians have always undergone these horrific torments, in the apostolic age, and throughout the early ages of Christianity. John the baptizer, as well as the apostle Paul was beheaded, and Peter was crucified upside down. In the middle ages, the Anabaptists were tortured, drowned, and burnt at stake, not by Christ haters, but by such renowned "Christians" as Zwingli, Calvin, Luther, and their followers. We all know that God usually did not prevent these atrocities, and He seldom prevented terrible persecutions of Christians in the 20th century as well as our present century. I am not convinced that His reasons for non-interference is for the promotion of His glory. In any case there is a marked distinction between actively causing a painful situation and doing nothing to prevent such pain.

We all know that many seem to need an explanation for the pain that must be endured in the world while God has the power to prevent it but usually doesn't do so. This is an age-old problem that has been debated for centuries. This is not that to which I am objecting in this thread. I object to the concept in the minds of many that God ACTIVELY caused a child to be born blind, and have to endure the difficulties that accompany such a situation into adulthood, only to bring glory to God by healing the man through Christ.

I thought the reading of the passage which I brought forth would bring joy to the readers in this thread. But no one even directly addressed the matter of the alternate reading. Instead it seemed they wished to defend the traditional reading. On what grounds? Certainly not on grammatical grounds. Can it be that they WANT to believe that God does such things as to deliberately CAUSE a person to be born blind, only to heal him many years later? Do they really think that brings glory to God? I don't think any person unpredjudiced by a particular view of God's character, would think so. But what would actually bring glory to God would be clear evidence that He does not do such things. I do not claim that this alternate reading provides such clear evidence, but I think it a significant step in that direction.

[Jepne]

As far as I am concerned, God can do anything he wants - for sure, but I always thought those verses sounded odd, and very Calvinistic. I am no Calvinist.

We live in a fallen world - many people were and are born blind. God didn't have to make one particular person blind so Jesus could make a show of healing him, did he? There were myriads of halt, lame, lepers, blind, deaf, barren..... healed by God in four gospels and many letters of Paul and the Apostles, and none other was ever spoken of as afflicted since birth so God could get glory out of healing him.

Steve, the suffering you refer to was persecution for the Word's sake - that is completely different from a man spending his life as a beggar.

Lazarus' illness and death is a good case in point, but that incident took place over a matter of only a few days.

Of course we want God glorified in our lives and most often our character is shaped by suffering, but no one has addressed the matter of the punctuation in these verses, which strikes me as odd since I did not think there was a preponderance of Calvinists on this forum.

Helen Keller was born blind and deaf, but spent her whole life working to overcome it by learning to communicate in spite of it, and God was glorified in her character, I would say.

[john6809]

But no one even directly addressed the matter of the alternate reading.

3,4 Jesus answered, "Neither this man NOR his parents sinned. But in order that the works of God might be revealed in him, it is necessary to work the works of Him who sent Me, while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.

What does Jesus say?
1) Neither of the man's parents sinned.
2) The works of God were revealed in the blind man.

Does the new rendering point out that Jesus had to heal the blind man during the day because nobody could work at night? If that's His point, how does that answer the disciple's question about the reason for the blindness? It makes more sense if Jesus says, "The reason he was blind was so that God could be glorified in his healing." than to say, "Nobody sinned to cause his blindness. But, if God's work was going to be revealed, I had to do it now, before it's too late."

[Paidion]

What in your opinion is the reason God allows so much seemingly gratuitous and intense suffering in the world?

As you know, Dizerner, this is the age-old "problem of pain." None of the great thinkers of the world have been able to give a completely satisfying answer, and so it would be presumptious of me to claim that I have such an answer.

Of course, I realize you are not asking me to provide an answer, but to give my opinion. Suffering results from two main sources: 1) Man's cruelty to man and 2) natural sources. So here is my opinion:

1) Man's Cruelty to Man
Certainly God doesn't ALLOW man's cruelty to man in the sense that He gives permission to anyone to bring about such suffering. But He usually does nothing to prevent such suffering. He created man in His image, certainly not in His physical image since He doesn't have one. God is spirit. But God does have a mind, and a free will. Thus He has given man a free will also. We all have the freedom to choose unless we are externally restricted or are severely mentally handicapped. God wants us to freely choose Him and/or His Son as Lord of our lives. So God normally doesn't interfere with our choices. If he did do interfere routinely, we wouldn't be able to exercise the free will which we possess, and we might be similar to a race of robots or puppets controlled by a string. That is not what God wants. He wants beings who FREELY choose to submit to His authority, and He is willing to wait until everyone does so, no matter how long that takes.

2) Natural Sources

It is my opinion that when Adam and Eve fell from grace, all of nature fell with them. We read in Genesis that originally God created plant life for the food of all animals and people. There were no meat eaters. But some types of animals began to devour other animals. Through natural selection, these animals began to develop teeth and claws that were useful for tearing and killing other animals. Human beings also began to eat the flesh of other animals. Initially all bacteria were beneficial, but then some strains developed that were harmful to other forms of life. As I began down this road of thought, I speculated that at one time mosquitoes didn't suck the blood of animals to produce their young, but sucked the juices of plants for that purpose. About 2 weeks later, I ran across a science book that mentioned an experiment with mosquitoes in which they were isolated in an environment in which there was no access to mammals or any animals. They had access only to plants. It was observed that they then sucked the juices of plants and produced offspring just as well as with blood. This surprised me that even today's mosquitoes could use plant juices to produce their young.

Then there are earthquake, floods, tsunamis, landslides, etc. that cripple or kill many people. I think prior to the World-wide flood (I believe "Noah's" flood was worldwide), that such conditions did not exist. The high point were not so high as now, and the low points were not so low. So even these conditions have resultled from the fall of nature.

[Paidion]

John 6809, surely you don't think that Jesus was speaking of literal "day" and "night."

[steve]

I stand by my previous post, which does not appear to be refuted by the particular responses posted.