Is the Universe a Perfectly Safe Place?

Is the Universe a Perfectly Safe Place?

I recently heard a commencement speaker quote Dallas Willard:

“The universe is a perfectly safe place for us to be.”

It is one of those sentences that lands with promise. I can feel what it is reaching for. There is something in me that wants it to be true, not in a shallow way, but in the deepest possible way. I want to believe that the ground beneath all things is goodness. I want to believe that beneath all the noise, beneath all the fear, beneath all the loss and violence and grief, there is a Love that holds.

And yet, almost as soon as I heard the sentence, I also felt its incongruity.

A perfectly safe place?

What about tsunamis?

What about children buried beneath rubble?

What about genocide?

What about cancer, abuse, war, famine, car accidents, addiction, betrayal, and the long sorrow of families who never quite recover from what happened to them?

What does it mean to say that the universe is a perfectly safe place when so much of life feels anything but safe?

That question has stayed with me.

I do not think Willard meant that the world is obviously safe in a surface-level way. He was not naïve. He knew that people suffer. He knew that bodies break down, that evil is real, that death comes. I think he meant something deeper. I think he meant that reality is finally held within the goodness of God. The deepest truth about the universe is not chaos, terror, or abandonment. The deepest truth is God.

And that is beautiful.

But it also needs to be handled carefully.

Because Christian people have sometimes been too quick to say comforting things in ways that do not comfort. We can reach for a sentence of faith and accidentally use it to silence grief. We can say, “God is in control,” and mean to offer hope, but for the person sitting in ashes, it can sound like we are saying, “What happened was somehow good.” Or, “This was necessary.” Or, “You should be able to make peace with this.”

That is where I find David Bentley Hart helpful.

Hart has written powerfully about suffering, especially in response to natural disaster and innocent death. He refuses to explain evil as though it were a necessary part of God’s beautiful plan. He resists the kind of theology that looks at horror and says, “Somehow this too is good.” For Hart, there are things in this world that should not be reconciled in our minds. They should be named as enemies. Death is an enemy. Violence is an enemy. The suffering of children is an enemy. Genocide is not a mysterious blessing. A tsunami is not a sacrament. Evil is not one more color in God’s painting.

This matters because there is a way of talking about the safety of the universe that can become cruel.

If we mean, “Everything that happens is secretly part of God’s perfect design,” then I cannot say yes to that. I do not think the Christian story requires us to say yes to that. In fact, I think the Christian story teaches us to say no.

Jesus does not stand before the tomb of Lazarus and explain death as a necessary good. He weeps. He is troubled. He enters the grief of his friends. And then he calls Lazarus out of the grave.

That seems important.

The Christian hope is not that death is secretly good. The Christian hope is resurrection.

The Christian hope is not that evil has a necessary role to play in God’s plan. The Christian hope is that evil will be defeated.

The Christian hope is not that every wound was meant to be. The Christian hope is that every wound will be taken up into the healing life of God.

So perhaps the question is not simply, “Is the universe safe?”

Perhaps the better question is, “In what sense?”

If by safe we mean that nothing terrible will happen, then no. The universe is not safe.

If by safe we mean that nature will never turn against us, history will never crush us, and human beings will never harm one another, then no. The universe is not safe.

If by safe we mean that every tragedy is part of a divine blueprint, then I hope we have the courage to say no to that too.

But if by safe we mean that reality itself is held by Love, then yes.

If by safe we mean that God is not finally defeated by death, then yes.

If by safe we mean that the last word over creation is not violence, loss, decay, or despair, then yes.

If by safe we mean that Christ has entered the far country of our suffering and filled even death with his presence, then yes.

In that sense, I can receive Willard’s sentence, but only as an eschatological promise. It is not a description of the world as it now appears. It is a confession about where the world is going. It is not a denial of suffering. It is a defiant hope in the face of suffering.

The universe is not presently safe in every way.

But maybe, in Christ, it is finally safe.

That distinction helps me.

It allows me to be honest about the world without surrendering to despair. It allows me to name evil without giving evil too much dignity. It allows me to grieve without pretending. It allows me to hope without becoming sentimental.

And maybe that is the kind of faith many of us are trying to learn.

Not a faith that explains everything.

Not a faith that rushes to defend God by making peace with horror.

Not a faith that asks grieving people to call their pain good.

But a faith that stands at the tomb and weeps.

A faith that looks at the cross and sees God with us, not far away from us.

A faith that looks toward resurrection and says, “This is not the end.”

So I am still sitting with Willard’s sentence.

“The universe is a perfectly safe place for us to be.”

I cannot say it quickly.

I cannot say it without tears.

I cannot say it as a slogan.

But maybe I can say it as a prayer.

Maybe I can say it as a protest against despair.

Maybe I can say it as a hope that has passed through Good Friday and is waiting for Easter morning.

The universe is safe, not because the world is harmless, but because God is good.

The universe is safe, not because nothing can hurt us, but because nothing can finally separate us from the love of God.

The universe is safe, not because death is unreal, but because death does not get the last word.

And that, perhaps, is the promise I heard inside the incongruity.