Is our fear of God about His glory? Are we terrified of the expansiveness and greatness of His glory, His beauty? Are we terrified of encountering the True One, the only Person who is Perfect and True, the only One with integrity, the only One who is consistent, the only One who cannot lie, and to Whom all lies are the greatest affront? Are we terrified of seeing our depravity thrown naked by seeing the perfectness of Him? The contrast between Him and our state would humble us. We do not like really to be told we are wrong. It’s a little easier to bear being shown wrong by imperfect humans; there we have the gratification of knowing that they’re not all they’re cracked up to be, either- in them we see ourselves, which is perhaps one reason why when they show themselves better than we ourselves, we are resentful of it, and angry at ourselves- they shouldn’t be any better than we are. But when we are faced with the Perfect, we have no escape in judging that One, except in a rebellious, temperamental fit.
We can try to show Him that He should have made a better world, a world where no evil can be (but then we would have no free will, which we’d mind if we hadn’t lost our free will in that world). We try to judge Him- we try to say, why does He allow evil? Why did He do this to me? Why is my life a horror? But it seems all that we want to do is to find something that can humble Him so that He seems less of a contrast with ourselves. We just want to find out that He is not worthy of praise- He is not actually Beauty and Goodness.
Of course this comes from a Christian who believes that we are always trying to resist God in a desire to preserve our high view of ourselves. It all sounds very judgemental of our resistance of Him, as if it is wrong to ask the question of why there is evil, but that is not what I mean- there is a difference between asking that question, and acting like a spoilt child where the existence of evil is an affront against you alone.
