Katie Finch has kindly agreed that some work she did for her evangelism group can be shared here on my blog. There are a few of these essays that deal really comprehensively with real questions that those unsure about Christianity tend to ask and I’ll be posting them over the next few weeks.
If God exists and is all-powerful and loving, why is there so much pain and suffering in the world?
The vast majority of suffering that occurs in the world is due to man, some is directly due to man and some is indirectly due to man. Obviously it is really a sliding scale between how responsible man is for each event that causes suffering. But with some suffering it is hard to attribute them to mankind at all, for example some diseases or some natural disasters (earthquake in Haiti). It is much easier to blame God directly for the suffering caused by these things. So how can a God that is all powerful and loving bear there to be so much pain and suffering in the world?
God gave us Free Will
When God created the world, He gave us free will. Adam and Eve had the choice to obey God’s laws and to live in perfect relationship with Him where there would be no suffering and pain or to choose their own way. They turned away from God and this brought sin into the world.
It is not possible to have free will and no chance of moral evil. Once God created human beings and gave them free will it was then up to them and not God as to whether there was sin or not, because God gave them free will there was the chance of evil and consequently the suffering that comes from it. Therefore the source of evil is not in God’s power but in mankind’s freedom.
God created a world where people were free and there was not sin. After creation God declared that the world was good. People were free to choose to love God or turn away from Him. The blame ultimately lies with us. He did His part perfectly; we’re the ones that messed up.
Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith, 37
Sometimes suffering can lead to good
God is an all knowing God. He knows not only what is going on in the present but what is going to happen in the future. His wisdom vastly exceeds ours. Therefore it is reasonable to argue that God can tolerate present suffering because He knows that in the future people will be better off in the long run than if God miraculously intervened.
For example families getting to know each other better during a time of crisis shows how suffering can ultimately lead to good. If God had miraculously intervened in that situation to avert the crisis the family would not have come together.
This might be hard to understand, that God allows suffering because He knows ultimately it will lead to good but the death of Christ on the cross demonstrates this perfectly.
At the time when Jesus was crucified nobody could see how anything good could come out of Jesus dying on the cross but God could. It was part of His plan. He knew that Jesus death and resurrection would mean people could enter into relationship with Him.
So the worst tragedy in history brought about the most glorious event in history. If it happened there – if the ultimate evil can result in the ultimate good – it can happen elsewhere, even in our own individual lives.
Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith, 39
It is also true that we learn from pain and suffering and sometimes we need it in our lives to teach us something. We may not be able to see it at the time but God can see it. We all learn from mistakes we have made and the suffering they bring. In the Bible it tells us that Jesus learned obedience through suffering.
Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.
Hebrews 5:8
There is also sometimes a sense in which, for a Christian, suffering can be a punishment. God will sometimes admonish his children to remind them that they should follow him. When this happens it is always ultimately for their good. It would be wrong for God not punish his children after they do wrong. Ultimately His hope is still that people would turn to him, in the same way that a Father would punish his child so that they might learn.
Suffering can bring people to God
Another argument against God existing might be that evil people get away with hurting others all the time and why would a loving, all-powerful God let this happen? But there will come a day when everyone will be held responsible for what they have done. Strobel argues that to criticise God for not intervening now is like reading half a novel and criticising the author for not resolving the plot. In fact the Bible says the reason God is delaying is because He wants as many people to seek and find Him as possible.
God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 83
Suffering leads to repentance. God is desperate to reach out to those who do not know Him. Often in our pain and suffering we cry out to God, and we draw closer to Him and even repent. This is ultimately the best thing that could ever happen to anyone, and it is God’s desire for everyone, it is what He is longing for. It is usually only when we suffer that we start to ask questions and seek for something more and God can use this to draw us closer to Him.
But why do ‘good’ people suffer as much, if not more, than bad people? In order to answer this question we need to look at what makes a good person. We may be made in God’s image but we are not morally good. When we assess ourselves against God’s law we fall way short. When we try to do good deeds they are tarnished with self interest, when we seek justice it is mixed with a desire for vengeance. There are no good people. People might do good things sometimes, but when we compare ourselves to God’s utterly perfect standards then not one person is perfectly good. But pain and suffering are often the means through which we surrender to God. All suffering has the potential for good but not everyone realises that potential. We can all, including people without faith, look back on our past and say I learned from that difficult time and I am a better person for it. If we can see good coming out of suffering without God in the picture how much more with God’s help will we see how evil can work for good. There is also a sense in which the Devil has a role in suffering. God is sovereign and is ultimately in control, He does not pleasure in anyone suffering but the devil delights in suffering and uses it to turn us away from God.
How can God bear all the suffering in the world?
It is not a question of how God can bear all the suffering in the world but an acceptance that God did bear it and although we may not fully understand why things happen the way they do. God is in control and longs for us to be in relationship with Him.
He himself entered into all that agony, He himself bore all of the pain of this world, and that’s unimaginable and shattering and even more impressive than the divine power of creating the world in the first place. … The fact that he went beyond justice and quite incredibly took all the suffering upon himself, makes him so winsome that the answer to suffering is how could you not love this being who went the extra mile, who practised more than he preached, who entered into our world, who suffered our pains, who offers himself to us in the midst of our sorrows? What more could he do? The answer to how can God bear all the suffering in the world is that He did!
Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith, 46
The answer to suffering is the answerer. It’s Jesus himself. It’s not a bunch of words, it’s the Word. It’s not a tightly woven philosophical argument; it’s a person. Jesus is there, sitting beside us in the lowest places of our lives, are we broken? He was broken for us. Are we despised and rejected? Do we cry out that we can’t take anymore? He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Do people betray us? He was sold out himself. Are our tenderest relationships broken? He too loved and was rejected. Do people turn from us? They hid their faces from Him. Does he descend into all of our hells? Yes He does! No matter how deep our darkness He is deeper still. In the end God has only given us partial explanations but he knew Jesus was more than an explanation. He’s what we really need. If your friend is sick and dying the most important thing he wants is not an explanation; he wants you to sit with him. He is terrified of being alone more than anything else. So God has not left us alone.
Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith, 52
I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross … In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, his arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing around his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in light of His. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross which symbolises divine suffering. The cross of Christ … is God’s only self-justification in such a world as ours.
John R W Stott, The Cross of Christ, 335-336
God created a world which He called good, where there was no suffering and pain, but mankind turned away from God and sin entered into the world bringing suffering. But God had a plan, He sent Jesus, who suffered and died for us and took the punishment for our wrong doing. This means if we surrender to His will and confess that He is Lord and believe it in our hearts we will be with Him in heaven where we can live forever in perfect relationship with God as He intended and there will again be no suffering.
This is real love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
1 John 4:10
Great post Matthew and Katie!
Can’t take any credit for it Derek. All KT’s work!