Does God Cause Disease?

Mike Hosey, An Elder

The fact that we live in a fallen world where everything is broken, and an ungodly evil seems to reign is indisputable. One need only look around on any given day to witness death, strife, unfaithfulness and all manner of human problems that spring from humanity’s obvious brokenness.   One frequent sign of brokenness is disease.  The standard explanation for disease is that the first humans broke the world when they disobeyed God.  Death and disease entered the world when our greatest grandparents dropped the ball.  But that’s not the only cause. Occasionally, disease is the result of satanic forces (Matthew 17:14-18).  Often, disease comes from our own unwise behaviors.  Alcoholics have an addictive disease, in part, because they drink too much.  Many people with gingivitis have that disease because they don’t brush their teeth appropriately.  But sometimes we can’t find a good reason for disease.  In times when people who appear to be clearly innocent are afflicted by disease, we question how a good God could allow something like that, even in a broken world.

But what if he doesn’t just allow it?  What if he sometimes causes it? 

In reading that, you might consider the very question heresy.  But if so, you will have to contend with Jeremiah who argues in the King James Version that both evil and good come from the mouth of the Lord (Lamentations 3:37-38 KJV). Or consider Isaiah 45:7, where that prophet relates that God creates peace AND calamity  -- or if you prefer King James, he makes peace and creates evil (Isaiah 45:7 KJV). So why would a good God do this?  Perhaps we can find some clues in the word “disease.”  The prefix “dis” means lack.  So DIS + ease = a lack of ease.  When I make my children do their chores, or their homework, or (sometimes) to go to church, I am causing them a lack of ease. It is not because they did anything wrong, it is because I am disciplining them to be good adults, and to have right skill sets, and especially right attitudes.  Sometimes they fight this process, and when they do, the “dis”-ease is longer and more intense, but only because of their attitude. The psalmist explores this a bit (Psalm 119:67-75). In that passage, he describes how he was afflicted – which is a word used to express disease. He says that before his affliction he went astray, but by the end of the passage he rejoices that a faithful God improved him with the tool of affliction.  Through the whole passage he maintains that God is good and right.  Like Job, and like that psalmist, we should never charge God with wrong doing (Job 1:22). Instead, we should recognize that he is good, and because he is good and we are not, he is able to use all things for good purposes including our diseases (Romans 8:28-29).  While reading that passage, be sure to notice that in verse 29, we are being conformed to the image of Christ, and consider what that might mean.