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Every
now and then Christians are challenged to justify their faith in God. Some
people just do not believe things they can’t understand.
Here
is a little story that may help you the next time you find yourself in a
conversation with a person who is trying to put you on the spot. It is
also a reminder to all teachers that they should not be too sure of
themselves when venturing into certain areas. While there is no absolute
proof of this, it has been said that the student in the story was Albert
Einstein.
DID
GOD CREATE EVIL?
Once
day a university professor challenged his students with this
question..."Did God create everything that exists?"
A
student excitedly replied, "Yes, he did!"
"God
created everything?", the professor asked.
"Yes,
sir," the student replied.
The
professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created
evil, since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works
define who we are, then God is evil."
The
student became quiet by such an answer. The professor, quite pleased with
himself sat down.
Another
student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question
professor?"
"Of
course," replied the professor.
The
student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"
"What
kind of question is this? Of course it exists. Have you never been
cold", replied the professor. The students snickered at the young
man’s question.
"In
fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we
consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Every body or object is
susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what
makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 F) is
the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of
reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have simply created
this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat."
The
student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"
The
professor responded, "Of course it does."
The
student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir. Darkness does not
exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can
study, but not darkness. In fact, we can use
Newton
’s prism to break white light into many
colours and study various wave lengths of each colour. You cannot measure
darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and
illuminate it. To determine how dark a place is you measure the amount of
light present. Isn’t this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to
describe what happens when there is no light present."
Finally,
the young man asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?"
Now
uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already
said. We see it everyday. It is in the daily example of man’s inhumanity
to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the
world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil."
To
this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it
does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. Evil is
just like darkness and cold. It is a word that man has created to describe
the absence of God," and with that the student sat back down.
A
STRATEGY FOR TEACHERS?
This story can be applied in many different areas, but what jumped out
at me was the analogy of the darkness.
Some students have a great deal of difficulty understanding certain
concepts that are taken in school. To simplify it to the absurd level, if
a student has problems in math, we give them "extra" math to do.
That is like telling a person to close his eyes and he won't notice how
dark it is.
Instead, our challenge as teachers is to find some way of
"lighting" the child's path so that he "begins" to
understand a bit of math or even just one concept. Once we convince him
that "math" is not impossible, it will be possible to move
forward and he will progress rapidly.
So instead of "labelling" and "identifying"
children, we should look at their learning difficulties not as things that
exist, but rather as a "lack of something". It is our job to
find out what that something is and add it to the child. |
