Suffering and the Goodness of God
As a pastor, one of the most common reasons I hear from people for their struggles with faith in God is their confusion about the problem of suffering and the goodness of God. I have encountered many people who are disillusioned and sometimes very angry. They can find no answers to their questions, so the problem is often used as an argument against the existence of God, whether that argument is clearly articulated or not. But there are answers, or at minimum, helpful ways to think about it.
Before I start writing about that, I first need to mention that people who are suffering are often not looking for answers. They may even ask a lot of questions and make statements that sound like they need answers, but typically, especially early in the grieving process, they may just need comfort and are often in shock. If you know someone that is suffering, sometimes the best thing to do is just be there. Just listen and love. Maybe you can also help with their practical needs.
If people are not looking for “answers”, why write about it?
First, I write about it for those who really do want answers. It is true that some people are inconsolable in their pain and they just need love and comfort, however, there are those that are wired in a way that they really do want to make sense of their pain. I am one of those types of people. Maybe you or someone you know is too. If so, a blog post like this can be very helpful. For us, there can be an added level of suffering when you get confused about God in the middle of those dark moments. In my times of suffering I have personally received much comfort from the thoughts that follow.
Second, a while back I was at a one-day conference hosted by the Barna Group. Barna is a research group that specializes in statistical data that affects the Church. One of the main points of this conference was to present data to pastors about how young people are leaving the church in large numbers. One of the main reasons given for this mass departure was that the church is failing to address the hard questions in life. One of the primary areas of questioning that we are failing to answer concerns the problem of suffering and the goodness of God. In my experience, it is not just the young people that are struggling to reconcile those two things. I also write this for them.
Some of the ideas presented below are not original to me. Many people have written about this subject. What I am attempting to do is summarize what I think are the best of those ideas and condense them into something short and understandable. I also add some of my own thoughts.
The Problem
What exactly is the question we are trying to answer? I believe it is something like, “If God is good and all-powerful, why is there so much suffering in the world that he created?” Some reason that if God is good, he isn’t truly God, and if he is God, then he isn’t truly good. In other words, if God is a good God, then he isn’t all-powerful enough to stop the bad stuff, and therefore he is not really God. And if he is really God and chooses not to stop the bad stuff, or even causes it, then he isn’t good. Either way, in this line of thinking, he is not worth following even if he does exist.
On the surface, this seems like a very logical and even moral stance. However, we need to look deeper than the surface to get to the truth of this matter. Reality is almost always much more complex than we think it is or would like it to be. But if we want answers, we need to be willing to think deeply about the issue. What follows are brief summary arguments about some of the main categories on this topic.
Attributes of God
As a follower of Jesus, I believe that “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights”. (James 1:17) I also believe that “God is Love” (1 John 4), and that He cannot do evil of any kind (James 1:13, Duet 32:4, 2 Cor 5:21). I believe that God is all-powerful (Job 42:2).
So how do we reconcile the apparent contradiction between a good God that is all-powerful yet allows such horrible suffering to take place in the world he created? Bear with me while I build to that.
Made for Love
Why did God create us? Many Christians would answer, “we were created to worship” or “to glorify God.” Atheists are appalled by the thought of a God that would create the human race just so they could adore him. Actually, that does sound egomaniacal and seems morally repugnant. I believe it is true that we were created to worship, but that is only part of the reason. Worship is how we express our love to God. The other part of the purpose is so God could love us. So, why did God create us? Simply put: to love and to be loved.
Love and Free Will
There is a very high cost for love. In order to love, you must be free. Choice requires freedom. Love requires choice. Therefore, love requires freedom. A robot can serve you, but it cannot love because it cannot choose. It can only do what it is programmed to do. A being can only love if it can also choose to not love. If God was only concerned with us serving him in the worship we give, he could have made us like robots that go through the motions, but He chose to create beings that could choose to not love him, thus giving us the capacity for real love. Now if we can choose to not love, that means we have the capacity for all sorts of unspeakable evils, and history and the nightly news show ample examples of this truth. Much of human suffering comes as the result of our own choices or the choices of other humans (Prov 19:3; James 1:14). But not all.
Behind Enemy Lines
Humans are not the only beings that God created with free will. There are other beings and some of them chose to rebel against God. Among these was Satan, or the Devil. He is the leader of the other beings that rebelled against God. Mathew 12:24 calls him the “prince of demons.” He is also known as “the enemy” (Matt 13:39), “the prince of this world” (John 12:31;14:30;16:11) and “the god of this world” (2 Cor 4:4). He has been given dominion in the world we live in (Col 1:13). In other words, we live behind enemy lines where a being that comes to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10) has power and is raging against the people that follow Jesus (Rev 12). He is not God’s equal adversary. He (and every other being) is ultimately subject to the rule of God. But for now he is at war with God and with man (Eph 6:12). If you reflect on the events of the Fall in Genesis chapter 3, it becomes clear that the credit for pain and suffering in the world falls to satanic action and the free will of humans to believe the lies rather than trust God. The consequences of the Fall changed the very nature of the universe. But there is more to consider.
Chaos
Humans have free will, but only partial free will. We cannot choose who our parents are, or our genetic makeup, or many factors of our environment. We are subjected to the free will choices of those that came before us. We are also subjected to the free will choices of many around us; even some we have never met. If a stranger decides to commit a crime against us, he or she is using their free will to usurp ours. Many more examples could be made.
Now, add to that the free will of other created beings, like the Devil and demons, and the other good created beings mentioned in the Bible (angels). Think of the interaction of all these free agents, and how natural processes like weather and gravity play into that and we have some extremely complex interactions going on. That is chaos, at least from our standpoint. However, God is not at all overwhelmed by it. He knows and completely understands EVERYTHING. He has made provision for it all.
God’s Character
What about the question against God’s goodness? Since God is all-powerful, does He deserve credit for all the good and all the evil in the world? No. He designed a world where people are capable of love, and therefore able to choose to not love. The kind of world He created is one of complex interactions that sometimes result in temporary pain for some. We cannot judge His character based on these things. Where should we look to see it?
God’s character is perfectly visible in Jesus. Hebrews 1:13 says, “The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.” When we see Jesus, we see the father. What was Jesus’ response to suffering and evil? He hated it and was constantly at work defeating the works of the enemy, even to the point of surrendering his earthly life to a torturous death to defeat him (1 Cor 15). He was constantly healing and delivering, feeding the poor and giving guidance on how to overcome. He gave love, perfectly fulfilling his part of the purpose of his creation. For that, I am forever thankful and I worship him. “We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
Some perspective
In light of all the suffering and evil in the world you may ask, “was creation a good idea?” God, in his omniscience (knowing all), thought it was. In fact, He pronounced it “very good.” (Gen 1:31) But maybe you read all that I have written and still feel that God is not good because of something you have experienced. If that’s you, please consider this. How long is this life when compared to eternity? If we are eternal beings, then the “light and momentary troubles” (2 Cor 4:17) that we experience here are nothing compared to the glory of eternity with Jesus. This world is not our home. We should not “store up our treasures” here. We should store them up in Heaven. (Matthew 6:19-20) Suffering feels so foreign because we were created for heaven, and there is no suffering there. Heaven is the ultimate expression of God’s kingdom. But we can experience that kingdom here and now. That’s why Jesus told us to pray “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” When the rule and reign of God’s kingdom is in effect in our lives here on earth, fear is far from us. Even the treat of death cannot shake us. We can know to the deepest part of our being that this promise is true:
“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:54-55)
God is Lord over all, and He is good. That does not mean that bad things will not happen on earth. Jesus warned us of the opposite. He said, “In this world you will have trouble.” But that was immediately followed by a promise. “But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) EVERYTHING that is broken will be made right. All those that belong to him will receive eternal, retroactive redemption. I chose the word “retroactive” on purpose, and I mean it. To explain why would require too many more words, but I quote C.S. Lewis to make the point:
“They say of some temporal suffering, “No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”
I exhort you in the love of God: Let go of your fear. Everything will be okay. Not on your terms, but on God’s. Let go of your anger. You cannot control everything that affects you, but everything will be okay in the end. Trust God. Everything will be okay in the end if you trust him – really trust him.