Why is there Pain and Suffering if God is Good?

Series: WHY? Answering the Big Questions of Faith

How can God:

  • 1) Be All Powerful
  • 2) Be All Good
  • 3) Allow Evil to Happen

Written at the outbreak of the Second World War, C. S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain:

"If God were good, he would wish to make his creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty he would be able to do as he wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both."

Is Pain Meaningless?

Genesis 50:19-20 - But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Phil 1:12-18 - Paul in prison.

Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. ...because of this I rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice,

The question isn't: "Why do we suffer?"

The path from Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained must lie along the path of suffering.

"Man as a species spoiled himself.  Good to us then must be either corrective or remedial good.  Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, but the means for that end must be painful indeed, because we have broken bones that need to be healed."   

- CS Lewis.

What About Pain That Doesn't Turn Out Well?

With Paul and Joseph we can see how things turn out well and how suffering served a greater purpose.

But what about Job?

  • Lost his kids
  • Lost his wealth
  • Lost his health

No greater good comes out of it.

I know of a lot of suffering that feels like this.

Alvin Plantinga's No-See-Um's

Suffering turns our lead into Gold

Our suffering sometimes turns other people's lead into Gold

Is Pain and Suffering God's Judgment?

We need to be careful when suggesting that pain is a judgment of God.

A Christian gets cancer every time a Non-Christian does so that the world can see the difference. - Steve Brown

General Judgment on the Earth vs. Specific Judgment against Me

Then WHY PAIN?

Possible Answers:

1. God Chooses Not To Violate His Gift of FREE WILL

Philip Yancey calls "Free Will" Risky Business

  • God desires worshipers who freely desire him
  • Not robots or automatons

2. God Allows Evil Because it Either Brings about a Greater Good or Avoids Some Greater Evil

  • We can never prove that Gratuitous / Needless Evil exists
  • With Faith, we can hope that even the worst tragedies will lead to a greater good and to the Glory of God
  • Romans 8:28   And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
  • But this answer doesn't deal well with our emotions when we are in the middle of pain
  • It also doesn't answer the question, "WHY?"

3.  God is as easily proved by the existence of pain as He is disproved by its existence.

"...at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law." Martin Luther King Jr. Letter From a Birmingham Jail

Pain and suffering are equally a problem if you believe in God and if you don't.

Because if you don't...on what basis do we ask for a better world?

To say that people ought not suffer, die, starve or be oppressed means that there must be an ideal reality that this world is falling short of.

4. God Created a World That Now Contains Evil and Had a Good Reason for Doing So.

  • This is ALVIN PLANTINGA's best answer
  • A Clear Call to Faith
  • It admits that God's insight and understanding far surpasses our own
  • It allows room for us to squirm and protest when we deal with pain
  • But it always returns to the place of Faith: God has Good Reason for this, even though I don't get it!

The Best Reason For Belief In the Face of Pain and Suffering Is That We Serve A Suffering Savior

A.  The Character of God is Revealed in Christ

      In the person of Jesus Christ, we see God as the one who suffers with us and for us

 In Jesus' Life, we see God face the Pain of Evil Head On

Mother Theresa was Asked, "Where is God when a baby dies in an alley in Calcutta?"

Answer      "God is there, suffering with the baby.  The question really is, ‘Where are you?'"

  • She never could have said that with confidence unless she had known about the Cross
  • She never could have had that faith unless she knew that God's very own son suffered and died for her; for me; for you
  • She never would have had the hope necessary to enter suffering herself unless she knew that Christ Triumphed over the Evil he died for, proving that in the Resurrection on Easter morning!

 

B.  Christ's Death Gives Us the Ultimate Solution to Evil

God doesn't give a cosmic band-aid to cover the symptoms of evil

1.  Radical Heart Surgery

  • God doesn't reprogram our brains
  • Instead, he gives us new hearts

Ezekiel 36:26-27   I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

2. This is Personal- God Deals With Us One-At-A-Time

  • Can only be described as a love affair

C.  Christ's Solution is ETERNAL

1 Peter 1:3-9 - Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade-kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith-of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire-may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

 Eternal life is not compensation for pain and suffering in this life.

Eternal life is restoration of this life.

Conclusion: John Feinberg - Moving Beyond Academic Faith

Wrote PHD dissertation on this topic

Then wife contracted Huntington's disease.

  • Premature deterioration of the caudate nucleus of the brain
  • Growing inability to control voluntary movements
    • Loss of balance
    • Difficulty swallowing
    • Slurred speech
    • Involuntary twitches
    • Memory loss
    • Deteriorated attention span
    • Depression
    • Hallucination
    • And finally paranoid schizophrenia
  • 50/50 chance children will get it, and already had 3 kids

"Many think that because God is all-loving, he is obligated to do every loving thing possible. ... rather, everything he chooses to do exhibits his attribute of love."

Two sorts of Justice -

Distributive Justice = each person gets what they are owed, reward or punishment.

Egalitarian justice = each person receives exactly the same thing.

Grace = unmerited favor.

Parable of the workers in the vineyard - Matthew 20:1-16

"Our standing in the kingdom of heaven depends on god's grace, and god has a right to give grace and withhold it as he chooses."

"Coming to this realization about whether God owed me exemption from this trial was a major breakthrough in my experience. It made me realize that if I were to mount a complaint against God over what he had or hadn't done, I had no ground for such a case.  I had been angry at God without adequate reason.  While this realization did not remove the affliction, it made me feel more comfortable with god.  After all, he had not caused the affliction, and he didn't owe me release from it.  But he hadn't abandoned me either.  He gives me grace to sustain me through each day.  I don't deserve that either, but it is there!"

OTHER RESOURCES

http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Evil/

The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (Hardcover)