If God is good and all-powerful, why do people suffer? If God is just and all-powerful, why does he not make sure people always get what they deserve?
Many atheists say that they cannot believe in God because of the suffering in the world. They often have an attitude of anger against God, though they say they do not believe he exists. They choose to deny the existence of God because they do not approve of him.
A Christian chooses to believe in God because he trusts him without understanding all of God’s actions. The Christian has a personal relationship with God that develops his faith. However, that faith is tested in a time of suffering. It is common for a Christian to struggle with the question of “Why?”
The church must explain the Christian view of suffering for people who are angry at God. The church must give an explanation that also comforts those who want to keep faith in God in a time of suffering.
A theological term: An explanation of suffering that supports faith in God is called a theodicy.
► What is the issue of suffering? What is a theodicy?
How can a God who is good and all-powerful allow suffering? A non-Christian response to this problem is to either deny that God is completely good or to deny that he is all-powerful.
Many people who deny that God is good also deny his existence and become atheists. They refuse to believe in God because of the condition of the world.
Some philosophies believe in a God whose character is mixed with good and evil. They believe he is capable of doing good or evil. Some people who have this belief claim to be Christians, but this is not a Christian belief.[1]
Some people try to solve the problem of evil by denying God’s absolute power. They believe that God tries to make the world better but has limited success because his power is limited. Some believe that God is developing. The idea that God is not perfect, but developing, is called “process theology.” This idea is not biblical.[2]
As we saw in our study of the book of Revelation, God is holy and all-powerful. He is not struggling to bring in his complete kingdom. He gives orders from his throne, and nothing can stop his will from being accomplished.
For a person who denies either the goodness or power of God, suffering is easy to explain. Suffering is a difficult issue for the person who has Christian faith. To deny either the goodness or the power of God is not an option for a Christian.
► What are some wrong ways people try to solve the issue of suffering?
We should not expect that our explanation of suffering will remove the challenge for faith.
► Why is it difficult for an unbeliever to accept an explanation of suffering?
An unbeliever is unlikely to see life from God’s perspective. An unbeliever may think that he should be guaranteed a good life if he lives right. He puts little value on eternity and too much value on earthly life. He puts little value on spiritual things and too much value on material things. Therefore, he finds it difficult to accept suffering for the sake of the eternal and spiritual.
A believer may not be able to imagine how his suffering can ever have good results, even though the Bible promises that God will bring good from all that happens.[1] He may grieve for the suffering of others and wonder why God does not intervene. There is not an explanation that can make us feel comfortable with every case of suffering. The believer has faith in the love and justice of God without understanding why God did not prevent a particular case of suffering.
We are promised that those who suffer with Christ will reign with Him and that the righteous will shine as the stars forever. We are promised that redeemed people will share the throne of God above the rest of creation, including angels, though we cannot fully understand that promise. Scripture tells us that this present suffering is small in comparison to that great privilege.[2] In God's ultimate purpose, the significance of no redeemed individual will be lost, even if his life on earth seemed insignificant and tragic.
For Christians the question of theodicy is different from the question asked by unbelievers. Christians believe in God’s love and providence. They also have the promise of Scripture that all works together for good for the believer. Therefore, the question is, “How can I keep faith even though I do not understand God’s ways or how some things can work for good?” The end of the discussion is already assumed. The believer does not approach this issue with an open mind in the sense that all his assumptions may change.
The ultimate solution to suffering is its abolition. That will ultimately happen for Christians in the eternal state. For the present, for believers, the practical solution is not removal of suffering but persistence in faith in spite of suffering. This practical issue is daily addressed and ministered to by the church. The church is the present solution to the issue of suffering.
Unbelievers tend to reject a theodicy because they demand satisfaction of temporal and self-centered values. A person usually does not accept a theodicy until he has a desire to be reconciled to God. A person who wants to be a believer also wants to believe a theodicy.
We cannot expect that a theodicy alone will persuade a person to become a Christian (1) because a person usually will not accept theodicy until he is open to the gospel, and (2) because even if a person believes the theodicy he may not be ready to repent and be converted. However, a theodicy helps the work of the gospel, because if a person wants to know God, he is glad to hear an explanation that removes his objection to God.
► Why does a theodicy not always persuade a person to become a Christian?
Partial Explanations
Natural Causes
Sometimes people try to explain suffering on the basis of natural causes. For example, a person may die of a disease because certain bacteria entered his body. A family may starve because a storm destroyed the crop they were raising.
This explanation really does not explain much. The problem is that we know God could intervene, and for some reason he allowed the suffering to happen.
This explanation is useful when a person suffers the consequences of wrong choices. For example, if a person drives a car carelessly, he is more likely to have an accident. However, much suffering cannot be explained this way.
Personal Responsibility
Some suffering is a result of personal decision: carelessness can cause danger; bad eating habits can cause loss of health; and self-injury and suicide are possible. Therefore, any explanation of suffering must not ignore the fact that our choices do matter. However, since much suffering is unavoidable, personal responsibility is not the complete answer to the problem.
Suffering in this world is not measured out fairly. It is not possible that those who suffer somehow deserve all that happens to them while those that enjoy good things have somehow earned them.
The justice of God does not mean that everyone will receive what they deserve during their earthly life.
Benefits of Suffering
Suffering may strengthen a person’s character, teach him a truth, and draw his attention to God. Even when we do not know the purpose of pain we must not assume that it accomplished no purpose. The purpose may be achieved even without our understanding. However, this does not solve the problem of suffering entirely, especially in the cases of mass tragedy. It is difficult to believe that the 90,000 people killed by an atomic bomb were all benefited by dying at that time, or that the millions of relatives were all benefited by the bereavement.
What about a child who dies? How did he benefit by not having time to live?
Suffering has made some people cynical. Suffering has caused some people to become cruel, and they cause suffering for others.
We are promised in Scripture that all things work out for the good of the Christian. The suffering of the unbeliever may not have good results.
Even for the believer, the good that comes from suffering may be spiritual and eternal, not visible to everyone, and difficult to imagine.
Mystery
We cannot expect to completely explain why a particular case of suffering occurs. Also, we cannot expect that a person will become a Christian only because he accepts an explanation of suffering. Therefore, theodicy has limitations. Some Christians give up any attempt to respond to the problem of suffering.
However, the church has a long list of thinkers, beginning with the apostle Paul, who addressed the philosophies of their day with the reasonableness of scriptural claims. If we fail to give answers, we fail to address the issues of our generation with the gospel.
God’s Order of Priorities
The world is in its present condition because it is fallen from God’s original design. Suffering is a result of sin. Not all personal suffering is the result of one’s own sin, but suffering is to be expected in a world fallen into sin. If God were simply to end all suffering without ending sin, the implications of that action would be disastrous.
To end suffering before ending sin would imply that suffering is a more serious concern than sin. We know that sin is the significant issue because it necessitated the atonement and because suffering is the result of sin and not vice versa. If God removed all suffering before dealing with sin, man would not see the consequences of sin and would see no need of salvation. That would be a serious problem since the gospel calls for a volitional response. The same problem would exist if God alleviated suffering to a lower degree of severity. Men already see sin as less significant than they should; if suffering were less, sin would be taken even more lightly.[1] The most atrocious acts best show the hopelessness of man’s fallen nature apart from salvation.
The fact that sin must be dealt with first explains why suffering must continue for the present. Sin cannot be dealt with as simply as suffering could. God could give money to the poor, health to the diseased, or food to the starving, and hardly any would reject his gifts. In contrast, many reject the offer of salvation, and God will not forgive sin against the will of the sinner.
It is God’s will to end suffering, but it is even more important to end sin. Sin cannot end immediately because God has designed that people be saved willingly. Suffering continues for the present as a result of sin.
► What does it mean that suffering continues for now because of God’s priorities?
God’s Permission of Human Wills
God’s nature includes not only benevolence and omnipotence but also holiness. He desires that his creatures be not only happy but holy and that their happiness derive from holiness. Since human suffering is a result of sin, God’s plan is to deal with sin before rectifying its consequences.
The world does not exist in the state that God originally designed. There was a great calamity in our past called the fall. This calamity was possible because God in his sovereignty chose to create free wills and to let them have genuine choices with consequences.[2]
It is impossible that there be free creatures that are unable to choose, just as it is impossible that there be a round square. The real question is not why there is undeserved suffering but why there is man. Man would not be man unless he had the freedom to act. This exercise of free will does not violate God’s ultimate sovereignty. God wills that men make decisions, even if they do not always do what God would wish. A parent who takes his child to a restaurant and lets him choose what he wants may have preferred that the child order something else. Can it be said that the parent’s will was thwarted? No, because the parent willed that the child choose. It was more important to the parent that the child choose than that he order properly under compulsion. God wills that nobody sins, but his highest value apparently is that men choose whether or not to sin.
God is secure enough in his sovereignty that he does not fear the operation of free wills. No sane king would feel his sovereignty threatened by his subjects’ choosing the colors of carpet in their own homes. In a greater sense, God’s sovereignty is unthreatened, not only by such personal choices, but by any choice man can make.
God’s ultimate purpose will be accomplished in spite of anything any creature can do. His ultimate purpose does not depend on human choices. However, specific acts of God are responses to willful acts of man; otherwise, numerous statements of Scripture are meaningless. To say that God could not allow a space within which to allow a creature’s free will to perform is to limit God.
Scripture teaches that God does intervene in particular situations as he pleases. Man’s free will means that God no longer has the authority to stop any particular action of man. To prevent a particular action of a person would not take away that person’s ability to choose between right and wrong. However, to regularly block all courses of action that are wrong or to take away the consequences of every wrong act would be to destroy free will.
God is able to alter the results of any choice at any time. However, to do it always would be to make men unable to choose, for they would know that their decisions had no true consequences. To do it unexpectedly upon occasion does not take away the significance of even that choice. To prevent all suffering caused by the abuses of free will would be to negate free will, which God will not do. God values the existence of free-willed moral creatures so much that he allowed the possibility of suffering.
God may permit an act of sin or occasion of suffering because to relieve it immediately would interfere with his plan of ultimate restoration. In that sense, all sin and suffering may be said to be his will, though it is all in a sense contrary to his will. These events are no threat to God’s sovereignty. They take place in the pocket within his will where he is allowing free wills to operate within limitations.
Some thinkers believe that sin is essential to the process of developing a free creature into a person who freely chooses to do the will of God. This is not the picture that the Bible gives. According to Genesis, the first people were perfect, and sin was not the misstep of a creature who scarcely knew better, but deliberate rebellion against God. The first sin did not start man on a process of upward development but plunged him into depravity and brought the curse upon all creation. The fall must be regarded as a tragedy, in no way essential to God’s plan or beneficial to mankind. However, since sin is the act of a free will, time is involved for the persuasion and decision of wills. In that sense, the world is now a place where God is developing our faith and character. God uses the situation that exists to bring his creation toward ultimate recovery, but he did not need sin for his original plan.
Mutually exclusive options exist even for God. For example, he could not choose both to create and not to create. Therefore, he could not both intervene in all cases of suffering and also allow suffering to show the consequences of sin and the need of salvation.
► How does God’s permission of human will make suffering possible?
[1] Of course, we must keep in mind that we do not know to what extent God has alleviated suffering already from what it naturally would have been.
[2]“Man therefore sinned by his free will, his own proper motion being allowed by God…”
- James Arminius, Seventy-Nine Private Disputations
The Paradox of Suffering as Exploited Evil
Sin was contrary to the stated will of God. Sin is contrary to the will of God even though he made it possible by the creation of free creatures, allowed it to occur, and exploits it to bring good from it. Therefore, both original sin and presently committed sins are evil.
To recognize that God today works out his purpose partially through suffering does not contradict the fact that it was not his original intention. He did not design that suffering be a part of his creation, but he uses suffering now to help bring us back to his perfect plan.
Since suffering is not good, we are right to try to avoid it. We should try to relieve the suffering of others. It is normal for us to grieve about suffering, according to Scripture. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus even though he knew he would raise Lazarus from the dead. Even though we know God will accomplish good through suffering, we sorrow because of it now.
As C.S. Lewis said,[1] in the present condition of the world we observe:
(1) The good that comes from God,
(2) The evil produced by rebellious creatures,
(3) God’s use of evil for his redemptive purpose, which produces
(4) Good that comes partially from suffering and repented sin.
[1] Paraphrased from C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain. (New York: Macmillan, 1962).
The Promises of Scripture
God seems to promise protection, provision, and long life for the righteous, yet the righteous suffer. How can we understand biblical promises when we compare them to experience?
The Bible fully recognizes that suffering is real, even for righteous people. The book of Ecclesiastes says that justice in this life is a vain hope. The book of Revelation says that suffering and persecution are to be expected until the return of Christ. The book of Job demonstrates that undeserved suffering may come to the righteous, and that they must be content to trust God without knowing the reason for their suffering. The Gospels predict persecution for believers.
How can the promises of Scripture be consistent with the fact that the righteous suffer? Since God in Scripture acknowledges the fact that suffering will happen to all, why did he make such promises? These promises occur most in the Psalms. However, the Psalms also recognize the reality of suffering and injustice. They accuse God of hiding himself (10:1) and of forgetting his servant (13:1), and they lament the fact that righteous men are oppressed and the wicked exalted (12:1, 8).
The fact that the Psalms are poetry may be a clue to understanding these promises. Many of the Psalms are prayers. The supplicant is pouring out the feelings of his heart. Often the feelings expressed are not consistent with the person's actions. For example, David prayed for severe judgment on his enemies, yet treated them with mercy and forgiveness. Likewise, the prayers that accuse God of injustice or negligence are expressions of feelings not to be taken as an actual declaration that the speaker has lost his faith. Often even in the same Psalm the speaker will make such accusations and later make a declaration of faith. The Psalms teach that we are to trust God even when we don’t understand him.
To be consistent with the genre, the Psalms that contain promises should be interpreted the same way. They should be taken as expressions of praise, as testimonies that God does intervene, but not as guarantees that allow no exceptions.
Promises of God’s protection occur in the New Testament also. In 2 Timothy 4:18, Paul said, “And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom.” This statement could be taken to mean that Paul expected to be protected from physical harm, but he was imprisoned at the time, and earlier in the same passage he clearly stated that he expected to lose his life for his faith. Obviously, Paul’s expectation of deliverance and preservation was something other than physical protection. It seems evident that Paul meant that his faith would survive and that his soul would be preserved. Spiritual preservation was so much more important than physical survival that Paul could face certain martyrdom and still feel protected by God.
A similar statement is found in Luke 21:16-19:
"And you will be betrayed by parents, and brothers, and relatives, and friends; and they will cause some of you to be killed. And you will be hated by all men for my name’s sake. But not one hair of your head will perish. Keep your souls in patience."
These words of Jesus predict both death and protection. Obviously, Jesus is referring to a protection that is more essential than physical protection.
When a person without faith suffers severely, there is a fear that something essential about the person may be destroyed. Suffering may feel like the soul is being crushed or pulled apart. This fear is almost like the fear of death. God promises the believer that neither death nor suffering can destroy him. He is preserved in God’s kingdom with eternal life.
Assignments
(1) Writing Assignment: Describe a time when God gave comfort and brought good results from suffering in your life. Describe a time of suffering that you still do not understand.
(2) Writing Assignment: How would you answer a person who says he does not believe in God because of the suffering in the world?
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