Introduction
Reiterate two goals of this series. This objection is one of the most
common . . .
Some are disturbed philosophically by this question (omnipotence and
goodness). Others are hurting emotionally and spiritually because of
deep personal suffering (EXAMPLES). Still others are troubled by neither
at this point, but probably will be in the future.
Christianity doesn’t give us all the answers to this question.
But I think it provides the best framework for thinking about suffering,
and the most personal help for those who are suffering. I want
to sketch out the framework, and I’ve asked two friends to share
their experience of how God has helped them through terrible suffering.
The biblical framework
The Bible doesn’t provide an exhaustive or systematic treatment
of this issue, but it does devote a tremendous amount of material to it,
which we can distill into a general framework.
The first point is that God is not the ultimate author of suffering;
freely choosing creatures are. Suppose you buy a computer but refuse
to read the manual and start changing parts. When it malfunctions,
you blame the manufacturer. What does he say? “It left our factory
in good working order. We provided you with instructions for its use.
You didn’t follow the instructions so we are not liable for its
malfunction.”
God created humans with the power to choose, and he has provided us
with instructions on how to use this power and warnings that misuse
will result in “death.” If we misuse it, suffering is unleashed
in ways we may never have envisioned—but that is our fault, not
God’s. Free will is an awesome privilege, and it is significant
precisely because it produces real consequences, for good or for bad,
both for ourselves and for others and the world around us (RIPPLES IN
A POND). There is no way you can conceive of genuinely free will without
this possibility. “Why didn’t God create us with free will,
but make sure we used it properly?” is a nonsense statement. The
Bible speaks of most suffering as the result of wrong choices in two
different ways:
Most (probably over 75%) evil and suffering can be explained as the
direct result of wrong choices.
If I make the foolish choice to drink too much at a party, and
then couple that foolish choice with another foolish choice to drive
myself home, I may run into another car and seriously injure or
kill the people in the other car and myself.
If a terrorist group gets a Russian nuclear warhead and detonates
it, this choice will result in death and injury for thousands, maybe
millions of people.
The suffering caused by neglect (CHILDREN), errors in judgment
(BRIDGE COLLAPSES; AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS), poor health habits
(HEART DISEASE; LUNG CANCER), greed (POVERTY; FAMINE; WAR), cruelty
(CHILD MOLESTER), and hatred (HOMICIDES; BOSNIA) account for an
enormous amount of the suffering in this world.
But what about natural disasters (EARTHQUAKES; FLOODS; HURRICANES;
TORNADOS)? The biblical position is that these things are not "ACTS
OF GOD," but that they occur because we live in an abnormal world,
a world made abnormal because of the first humans' choice to revolt
against God. This is what says about many diseases (AIDS; BRAIN TUMOR),
and genetic defects (PHYSICAL; MENTAL RETARDATION; MENTAL ILLNESS).
In other words, they are the indirect result of wrong choices.
Certainly we can understand this concept because we experience
it every day. Our lives are to a great extent affected by decisions
made by others, often living long ago (LIVING IN AMERICA; SURVIVING
A WAR; INHERITANCE). In the same way, we can see how people can
make choices that will affect the lives of others in the distant
future (NUCLEAR TERRORIST >> "FALLOUT": ENVIRONMENTAL
PROBLEMS & GENETIC DEFORMITIES GENERATIONS LATER). This is
a necessary feature of living in a real world with free will.
The Bible says the first humans "pushed a button" with
far greater consequences when they chose to revolt from God's loving
rulership and run things on their own. Humanity's dominion over
nature was contingent to their submission to God's loving rulership.
When they revolted against God's rulership, humanity lost its dominion
over nature so that now nature operates in an abnormal and hostile
manner, not only expressed through disease and disaster and genetic
defects, but ultimately in death (Gen. 3:17; Rom. 8:20,21).
But this doesn't get God entirely "off the hook." While God
is not the ultimate author of suffering, God allows evil and suffering
into his world for his own good reasons. Troublesome questions linger:
“Since God foreknew that creating free-will creatures would result
in evil and suffering, why did he create them?”
The Bible assumes that a universe with free will creatures and evil
and suffering is better than a universe without free creatures and
no evil/suffering. Most of the time we agree with this. We are glad
we can make choices and have relationships, even with all of the problems
that come with it.
“Since God has the power to end all evil and suffering, why doesn’t
he do so?”
The Bible says that he will do so when Christ returns (read Rev. 21:3,4).
There are hundreds of passages that promise that God will one day
call to account all who have rebelled against him and end all suffering
for those who willingly acknowledge their need for his forgiveness
and submit to his rulership. Perfect justice will be done! Therefore,
for the Christian suffering is limited, and knowing this brings great
hope (LABOR PAINS >> Rom. 8:18).
Why does God delay so long? So that as many as possible may come
to him (2 Pet. 3:9). If God judged all evil at 12:00 midnight,
where would you be at 12:01am? Evil isn’t just “out there”—it’s
also “in here.”
“Since God can and sometimes does intervene to deliver us from
suffering, why doesn’t he do this more often?” (LAKE ERIE
BOATING ACCIDENT: PERPETRATOR RESCUED; VICTIM KILLED) This is probably
the most personally agonizing question for us.
God takes responsibility for this, but he usually does not answer
this question specifically. To Job's demand that he explain why he
is suffering so horribly, God agreed with him that he was not being
punished for some sin he had committed, but he refused to give Job
a specific answer. Instead, he reminded him that if he is great and
wise enough to create the world and maintain it, he is certainly great
and wise enough to be trusted that he knows what he is doing with
Job's life. This was enough for Job, and it can be enough for us
if we really understand and personally know the God of the Bible.
We cannot always understand why, but we can understand why we trust
the One who knows why.
Other world-views do not have an answer to this problem.
You may say, "I just don't accept this explanation." Very
well, reject it. But realize that to reject biblical theism because of
this issue does not solve your problem. You still live
in a world filled with evil and suffering, and your options are actually
quite few.
Evil and suffering are real, but God doesn't exist (ATHEISM)
Our problem is that we insist on justice in a meaningless and unjust
universe. “The certainty of the existence of a God who would
give meaning to life has a far greater attraction than the knowledge
that without him one could do evil without being punished. The choice
between these alternatives would not be difficult. But there is no
choice, and that is where the bitterness begins . . .” [1]
Therefore, atheism at best provides no satisfactory answer for evil
and suffering, and at worst it justifies additional evil and suffering.
It is no coincidence that the century of atheism's dominance is also
a century of unprecedented evil and suffering.
HITLER: “I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies
of conscience and morality . . . we will train
young people before whom the world will tremble. I want young people
capable of violence—imperious, relentless and cruel.” [2]
God exists, but evil and suffering don't exist (PANTHEISM; CHRISTIAN
SCIENCE). Since ultimate reality is oneness, all distinctions—including
the distinctions between good and evil, and cruelty and non-cruelty—are
ultimately illusory.
Vedanta Hinduism: “The illusion of evil is like thinking a coiled
rope is a snake until one is enlightened to see that it is really
only a rope.”
Zen Buddhism: “If you want to get the plain truth, be not concerned
with right and wrong. The conflict between right and wrong is the
sickness of the mind.”
[3]
This is why hospitals, social reforms, etc. did not arise in pantheistic
cultures. This view leads to fatalism and withdrawal, not to fighting
evil and relieving suffering. Only the biblical world-view provides
a basis for doing this.
The God of the Bible provides personal help for those who suffer.
Ultimately the Bible is more concerned with giving us practical help
in responding to evil and suffering than it is with giving us a full explanation
of it. If you demand from God a full explanation of suffering before
you are willing to trust him, you will be disappointed. But if you are
willing to turn to him in humility and trust, and acknowledge your need
for his forgiveness through Jesus Christ, you will find him drawing near
to you to help you when you suffer.
God can personally understand your suffering because he has experienced
it. One of the most painful things about suffering is when we think
no one else understands what we are going through. It is easy to conclude
that God doesn't understand what we're going through, and thus to become
alienated from him. But by becoming a human, God in Christ has experienced
every kind of suffering we ever will or could (Heb. 4:15,16).
He even understands what it feels like to be abandoned by God, something
that we need never experience. Christianity is the only world religion
that can make this claim, because only the Christian God has holes in
his hands. Knowing this makes it much easier to approach God in the
midst of suffering.
God can give you love, strength, hope and peace in the midst of
suffering (2 Cor. 1:3-6). While God reserves the right
to express this in the timing and in the way he deems best, we can be
confident that as we draw near to him during suffering he will be “our
refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Ps. 46:1).
This is by definition a personal experience, but we have the testimony
of many, many people who have experienced suffering far worse than most
of us, that God can and does do this. For the Christian, this is a
tremendous help.
God is able to work through this suffering for your good (Rom. 8:28).
Notice I did not say that God makes suffering and evil become
good; that is irrational and unbiblical. Rather, he is so wise and
powerful and loving that he is able to work even through evil and suffering
for good.
The supreme example of this is the cross of Christ, in which God
worked through the most terrible evil ever committed by humans to
bring about the greatest good ever offered to humans.
The truth is that most people come to Christ because their suffering
reveals their inadequacy to deal with life on their own. “God
whispers to us in our pleasures, . . . but shouts
to us in our pains: It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” [4]
Once we come to Christ, God works through suffering to strengthen
our faith in him, teach us important lessons, and to refine our characters,
and thereby make us more effective in fulfilling his purpose for our
lives. Sometimes we don’t see this purpose for a long time.
Footnotes
[1] Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"; in Martin
Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (Penguin, 1968), p. 416.
[2] In
the Auschwitz museum, cited in Ravi Zacharias, A Shattered Visage (Brentwood,
Tenn.: Wolgemuth & Hyatt Publishers, 1990), p. 59.
[3] Zen
master Yun-Men, quoted in Alan Watts, Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen
(San Francisco: City Lights, 1959), p. 10.
[4] C. S. Lewis, The
Problem of Pain (Fontana, 1974), p. 8.