At the Back of the North Wind, Chaper 8

[Written for Wheatland Mission Youth Group Book Club]
North Wind is a troublesome character. Reading through the book, she is not exactly God, but more like one of His messengers. (Angel? Death?) That said, her conversation with Diamond about her nature in chapter 8 seems like she is arguing from God's point of view (and not just as one of His messengers). This passage is what I want to discuss here. First, the excerpt:

"Here you are taking care of a poor little boy with one arm, and there you are sinking a ship with the other. It can't be like you."
"Ah! but which is me? I can't be two mes, you know."
"No. Nobody can be two mes."
"Well, which me is me?"
"Now I must think. There looks to be two."
"Yes. That's the very point.—You can't be knowing the thing you don't know, can you?"
"No."
"Which me do you know?"
"The kindest, goodest, best me in the world," answered Diamond, clinging to North Wind.
"Why am I good to you?"
"I don't know."
"Have you ever done anything for me?"
"No."
"Then I must be good to you because I choose to be good to you."
"Yes."
"Why should I choose?"
"Because—because—because you like."
"Why should I like to be good to you?"
"I don't know, except it be because it's good to be good to me."
"That's just it; I am good to you because I like to be good."
"Then why shouldn't you be good to other people as well as to me?"
"That's just what I don't know. Why shouldn't I?"
"I don't know either. Then why shouldn't you?"
"Because I am."
"There it is again," said Diamond. "I don't see that you are. It looks quite the other thing."
"Well, but listen to me, Diamond. You know the one me, you say, and that is good."
"Yes."
"Do you know the other me as well?"
"No. I can't. I shouldn't like to."
"There it is. You don't know the other me. You are sure of one of them?"
"Yes."
"And you are sure there can't be two mes?"
"Yes."
"Then the me you don't know must be the same as the me you do know,—else there would be two mes?"
"Yes."
"Then the other me you don't know must be as kind as the me you do know?"
"Yes."
"Besides, I tell you that it is so, only it doesn't look like it. That I confess freely. Have you anything more to object?"
"No, no, dear North Wind; I am quite satisfied."
"Then I will tell you something you might object. You might say that the me you know is like the other me, and that I am cruel all through."
"I know that can't be, because you are so kind."
"But that kindness might be only a pretence for the sake of being more cruel afterwards."
Diamond clung to her tighter than ever, crying—
"No, no, dear North Wind; I can't believe that. I don't believe it. I won't believe it. That would kill me. I love you, and you must love me, else how did I come to love you? How could you know how to put on such a beautiful face if you did not love me and the rest? No. You may sink as many ships as you like, and I won't say another word. I can't say I shall like to see it, you know."

Ok, so apologies for the long passage, but the author, George MacDonald is getting at something important here, and I thought it best to look at the whole thing.

For a long time people have wrestled with the problem of how evil can exist along with a "good" God. (That is, if God is good and all-powerful, then why does He allow X to happen?) You fill in the X with your own question, of course: why did my mother get cancer...why does God allow babies to starve to death...why do innocent children get sexually abused...etc. The name for this problem of why God doesn't step in to stop evil is theodicy, and MacDonald tries to answer it here. I don't know that he does it very well (I don't know that you can do it very well...I think this question...these kinds of questions, make our faith as Christians something meaningful). 

North Wind's argument essentially boils down to the following points:
1. Her goodness has been revealed to Diamond, and is something in which he believes.
2. She is good to him because she chooses to be, not because she "owes" it to Diamond.
3. She cannot have two natures. She cannot be both good and evil.
4. When it looks like she is not being good, Diamond has to choose between what he sees, and what he believes (see #1).

These 4 points roughly correspond to 3 key aspects of the Christian life: faith (#1), grace (#2), and human choice (#4).

This is all well and good, but I feel like MacDonald only touches on the problem before resolving it far too easily. (Diamond is apparently too afraid to follow North Wind's suggestion that there is a possibility that her true nature may be cruelty...something that C.S. Lewis takes up in one of my favorite books of his, A Grief Observed, when he asks how do we know God isn't just some "cosmic sadist"?)

Going to leave it there. Hopefully it has made you think. Don't feel like you have to have a great answer for people when they ask how you can be a Christian and believe in a God who lets children suffer. I don't. And I've heard a lot of different answers. This is one of those things where I can't help but feel the question may be more important than any answer we can make. And I think the question becomes especially important if we truly believe that the Kingdom of God is something that we are invited to participate in...not just something that we are waiting for to happen.