On Drudge.com yesterday, there was a UK Daily Mail story about a man wanting to sue his parents for birthing him without his prior consent. This is the antinatalism view of assessing negativity to ones birth or the prospect of being born, as stated in the Wikipedia link above. Setting ontological absurdity aside, this can also be seen as affront to Genesis 1 and God’s creative sovereignty over suffering conditions that even a righteous man like Job was guilty of.
In Job 3, Job lamented his poor circumstances to the degree of questioning why was even born. God listened to Job complain about his plight to the extent of questioning his own existence, and then He commands Job to listen to Him from His point of view, in some of the most eloquent Scripture in the Bible. God declared himself alone as sovereign over all of His creation, Job’s sufferings not withstanding, as illustrated in the following outline by David Dorsey.
[WordPress formatting does not all me to show you the text indention I want you to see, but look down, below to the next paragraph/table, to the left, seeing A, B, C, D, C’, B’, and A’. Point A, B, and C work their way to the center – D, and back out again to C’, B’, and A’. Prologue point A correlates to epilogue point A’, and so forth. The center point D is the heart of the text. This is common ‘chiastic’ Hebrew literature.]
A prologue: Job’s suffering (1:1-2:13)
B Job’s introductory speech: he wishes his birth had never happened (3:1-26)
C cycle of speeches by Job and his three older friends (4:1-27:23) D Center: poem about wisdom (28:1-28)
- D Center: poem about wisdom (28:1-28)
C’ cycle of summation speeches by Job and his younger friend (29:1-37:24)
B’ God’s closing speech: birth and all life is under God’s good control (38:1-42 6)
A’ epilogue: Job’s suffering reversed (42:7-17)*
*David Dorsey. The Literary Structure of the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999.
At the center of our struggles in life is God’s wisdom, personified in Jesus the Christ. He understands that we are living under the curse, due to the fall of man. That’s why He put in action the plan of salvation and redemption, not only for man but for all of His creation. All of creation is groaning for its Savior, and that person is Yeshua ha Messiah, the Jewish Messiah. Faux movements like works-based religions and environmentalism will not do, though in their darkened state, they grope in darkness for the answer to their need of salvation from sin. There is no remission of sin without the shedding of blood. Only faith in the blood of the Savior will suffice.
Antinatalism or any other ideology questioning one’s own existence, ultimately feeds into depression and even perhaps suicide, if unabated. This is a serious healthcare problem today, particularly in our young adult population.
So, remember, the suit story is not just another ridiculous story to be shuffled-off in our mixed up days. “For we battle not against flesh and blood…” Be aware of the term, “antinatalism.” It’s an affront to the command, “be fruitful and multiply,” and it should be given no quarter in our public discourse.
