how can a good God create a world iwhere there is suffering

[Guest]

This email is in response to an article posted at:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0725/p01s02-ussc.html which is about
pastors having difficulty in explaining how a good God could create a
world in which suffering occurs. The article is pasted at the bottom of
this email.

The Christian Gospel provides a solution to this issue.

The problem of suffering is that when we consider that suffering exists,
if there is a God then the following questions can be asked:

a) Is suffering God's doing?
b) Is suffering something God could have stopped but didn't,
c) Is the prevention of suffering is beyond God's realm of power, or
d) Is God is unaware of [our] suffering.

Each of these questions implicitly suggests that
A) God is evil because he creates suffering.
B) God is evil because he does not prevent suffering although he has the
power to do so.
C) God is not omnipotent because he is unable to prevent suffering or
D) God is not omnipresent because he is unaware of suffering.

The Christian Gospel suggests an alternative solution to this problem
that maintains both God's goodness, his omnipotence and his
omnipresence.

The solution is as follows:

God COULD stop suffering immediately, but do do so would require him to
destroy the source of suffering which in the Christian world-view, is
the human beings that sin [that is, all human beings].

But because he loves us [See The Gospel of John Chapter 3, verse 16], he
is providing an opportunity for those who create suffering [all human
beings], to repent and turn away from their sins [which is the source of
suffering]. Forgiveness is available for the sins we have committed
because Jesus has taken on himself the penalty that would otherwise fall
upon the committers of sin [all human beings], so that all who turn away
from their sin [repent] and ask for God's forgiveness can be forgiven.

The Christian Gospel proclaims that one day God will return and destroy
all who do not repent, and bring back to life all who have repented and
turned to Jesus where they [those who repented and asked for Jesus'
forgiveness] will subsequently live forever in a perfect world free of
suffering.

So, to the question is God incapable of stopping suffering, the answer
is no he is not, but he refrains from stopping suffering because he
would have to destroy us to do so.

To the question, is God incapable of stopping suffering AND AT THE SAME
TIME allowing the people who created that suffering to not be destroyed,
the answer is YES HE CAN, and he has done so through the Gospel which
allows those who want to repent of their sins [the source of suffering]
can be forgiven and be allowed to live in the perfect world that will
come when Jesus returns to ressurect [bring back to life] all those who
have turned to him during their lifetimes.

To the question, is God incapable of stopping suffering AND AT THE SAME
TIME allowing the people who created that suffering AND WHO DON'T REPENT
to not be destroyed, the answer is that to allow those who do NOT repent
to live in the perfect world would cause two problems - firstly, they
would destroy the perfect world by continuing to sin [thereby
introducing new suffering] and secondly, if he allowed people who have
no interest in stopping sinning to live in the perfect world, he would
not be Good.

So then, returning to our initial four problems:

a) Is suffering God's doing?

The answer is no. Suffering is a side-effect of our sins.

b) Is suffering something God could have stopped but didn't,

The answer is a half-yes - God could stop it immediately but refrains
because he loves us who are the cause of that suffering. He will some
day however stop suffering by destroying the source of that suffering -
human beings who sin - and do not wish to stop sinning.

c) Is the prevention of suffering is beyond God's realm of power

No, God could stop suffering immediately. He refrains only because he
loves the sinners who have caused it, and wishes to give them an
opportunity to repent before he returns to finally destroy all that is
evil [the source of suffering].

d) Is God is unaware of [our] suffering.

Not only is God completely aware of our suffering, he has entered into
it himself in the person of Jesus. When Jesus was crucified, he took on
himself the full measure of the penalty owing to sinful people through
all of time from the first human being who lived in history through to
the last human being to live in history [when-ever that will be].

So, even if you accuse God of creating this world even though he knew
that suffering would result, the answer to that accusation is that in
the person of Jesus, God took the blame for all the sufferings that have
ever happened in human history. And having done so, he offers free of
charge a repreive for those who committed the sins [that is US], and the
opportunity to live forever in a perfect world to come.

For those who are not interested in stopping sinning - he offers a
warning. If you reject God's grace made available to you by Jesus
taking on himself the punishment owing to you, and do not repent [that
is, turn away from your sins], there will come a day when you will be
held accountable to God and you will suffer the full consequences of
your sin.

To those who protest that God should be able to save them without their
repentance, the response is, that if he were to do so, he would fail to
be good.

The article at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0725/p01s02-ussc.html is
included below:

In face of human tragedy, what's a pastor to say?
To stem losses in church membership, spiritual leaders search for better
ways to explain awful events such as 9/11 and the Virginia Tech
massacre.
By G. Jeffrey MacDonald | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

CRAIGVILLE, Mass. - Warm waves lapped a Cape Cod beach just a few blocks
away, but pastor Liz Magill spent much of a July day in a dining hall
among the staples of her unusual week off: a laptop computer and a group
discussion about suffering.

"This is supposed to be a vacation," laughed Ms. Magill, pastor of
Worcester Fellowship, a ministry among homeless people in Worcester,
Mass. "I'm going to go home exhausted."

In her uncommon reprieve, Magill had plenty of company - about 80
preachers, lay people, and theologians from at least five denominations.
Together, they grappled with a problem facing modern American churches:
People in the pews want to know why, if God is loving, the innocent
suffer - and they aren't always happy with the answers from the pulpit.

The occasion was the annual Craigville Colloquy, a theological
conference of Christians. Attendance this year was unusually high,
organizers said, because the collective effect of tragic events - from
9/11 to hurricane Katrina to April's massacre at Virginia Tech - has
made the issue more urgent in the faith community.

"It's getting harder to give answers that do in fact satisfy," says
Richard Coleman, a United Church of Christ minister from Pembroke, Mass.
Events are producing "a whole rash of dying, killing, and suffering that
for us just doesn't add up. That makes the old question more intense
because we want someone's life, when it ends in death, to have some
meaning" and not simply succumb to the inexplicable.

The explanation for suffering has become a thorn in the side of many
21st-century congregations, and pastors acknowledge the challenge. "We
chose this topic because this [struggle to explain suffering] is a
reason why people are leaving our churches," says the Rev. Llewellyn
Smith, one of the colloquy organizers.

Rejection of suffering as beneficial

One factor, observers say, is a culture that no longer accepts suffering
as a means to spiritual growth. Long gone are the Middle Ages, when the
faithful typically viewed human trials as a divinely given process of
perfection and a holy pathway to the next world.

Christians in America today tend to pay a hollow lip service to others'
misery - to hold it at arm's length rather than live and minister among
those in the midst of it, says Elaine Heath, director of the Center for
the Advanced Study and Practice of Evangelism at Southern Methodist
University in Dallas.

"When we start living what we're saying about God - that God is with
you, God loves you - then people will believe it, and a whole lot of
people will want to know the God that we serve," says Dr. Heath.

When discussing human suffering and God's relation to it, stakes are
high for church leaders and laity alike. They must decide whether to say
a tragic event is a) God's doing, b) something God could have stopped
but didn't, c) beyond God's realm of power, or d) unknown to God. Any
answer is likely to speak volumes about a person's concept of God - and
potentially cause a rift with those who see God differently.

Brad Kay of Vero Beach, Fla., knows the stakes well. A retired
microbiologist, Mr. Kay protested when his former pastor said in a
prayer after the Virginia Tech shootings, "O God, you ordained it."

"That really set a cascade of thoughts and issues flowing in my mind,"
Kay recalled in a phone interview. "I said to this fella, 'I don't
believe that's the attitude God has. I don't believe He ordained that
[even though] He allowed it.... I had to determine, 'Can I stay in this
church? No, I can't stay in this church.' "

To refine, or perhaps reconsider, their standard responses, pastors here
heard heady lectures, ate leisurely meals at long tables, and prayed. It
was a time for refreshment, but also for mental wrestling.

For some, it was occasion to be daring. Asked why someone should believe
in an almighty and loving God amid evidence of suffering, Magill backed
off traditional doctrine. "I give up the 'almighty' part," she answered.
"God is as powerful as those who believe in Him or Her and who let God
guide them.... But we don't always do that, so God becomes less
powerful."

Unprepared to cope?

Death and disease have been accepted facets of life for most of
Christian history, but in modern times Western Christians have ceased to
assume "that life is fleeting," says David Bentley Hart, an Eastern
Orthodox theologian at Providence College in Rhode Island and the
colloquy's keynote speaker. "Actual confrontation with suffering and
death - for modern, Western human beings in industrial societies - comes
as a kind of cosmic enormity, a kind of abomination."

Congregants who generally expect that their children will outlive them
and that tragedy will otherwise be kept at bay may need to be shaken
from spiritual complacency, says Dr. Hart. "It might be necessary for a
pastor forcibly to remind people just how terrible" death and suffering
are.

No one at the colloquy had pat explanations, and the mysteriousness of
God's tolerance for suffering remained, for many, a mystery.

"We don't have easy answers," says Barbara Herber, pastor of First
United Methodist Church in North Andover, Mass. "Our primary job is to
sit with people in their suffering because it's really lousy to sit
alone."

Still, pastors tried to articulate comprehensive theologies for people
experiencing pain.

The Rev. Mr. Coleman recalled leading a memorial service earlier in the
summer for an animal lover in her early 20s who died on her morning
commute when she swerved her car to avoid hitting a deer. His aim at the
time was to comfort her family, but here on the Cape he sought to
clarify the logic behind his words then.

"Every death is unnatural and is contrary to the will of God," he said.
"But there is not anything that can come between us and the love of God.
We have hope that we'll all be raised in the last days."

[Guest]

Great point. It isn't a matter of if He can, He already would have. That is a false dichotomy. It is a matter *when*. He will do away with evil...when we have all had the opportunity to choose Him. Not before.
D.

[Guest]

The problem of suffering is doubtless the #1 philosophical and theological problem of the ages. It is an important problem to address in this forum, where thinking people can share their views. I don't think we are going to completely solve the problem, since none have yet done so to the general satisfaction of thinkers everywhere. Yet we may be able to gain, as well as share, some insights.

Budd, your suggestion that God would have to destroy everyone in order to eliminate suffering is an interesting idea. But it sems to imply that all suffering is a direct result of man's sin against his fellow man. This is clearly not the case. Even if all people were destroyed, animal suffering would continue. For example, deer, cattle, buffalo, and many others would continue to suffer agonizing deaths as predators would slowly tear them apart as they would eat their flesh.

I recall that I used to say that if God eliminated suffering, He would have to eliminate free will (since man would be prevented from hurting his fellow man). However, man also suffers, not only from other men, but from disease, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, etc. So we could also ask why God allows these "natural disasters" to cause suffering. Does he do it to punish, as some claim? I don't think so. Those who suffer from such disasters are "no worse sinners" than anyone else as Jesus said. [Luke 12:4]

I recall talking to a Jewish man about Christ while I was studying at the University of Manitoba. He said, "Well, Paidion, I am just about ripe for conversion. The only thing that prevents me is toothaches ---- useless, tormenting toothaches."

He was using toothaches, of course, as a paradigm of all useless suffering. But he elucidated. He spoke of hundreds of years ago, when there were no dentists and man had to endure painful toothaches ----- no "deeper purpose" ---- no purpose at all ---- just continuous, useless pain.

I have some ideas to explain why an All-loving Omnipotent God allows suffering --- ideas which I will share in a future post.

I have posted the above with the intent that we consider explanations for suffering, we might not restrict our thoughts , but deal with the whole gamut of suffering. In this way, our explanations are likely to be more complete.

[Guest]

Great point. It isn't a matter of if He can, He already would have. That is a false dichotomy. It is a matter *when*. He will do away with evil...when we have all had the opportunity to choose Him. Not before.
D.

When we have all had the opportunity? What does that mean?

[Guest]

The Christian Gospel suggests an alternative solution to this problem
that maintains both God's goodness, his omnipotence and his
omnipresence.

The solution is as follows:

God COULD stop suffering immediately, but do do so would require him to
destroy the source of suffering which in the Christian world-view, is
the human beings that sin [that is, all human beings].

But because he loves us [See The Gospel of John Chapter 3, verse 16], he
is providing an opportunity for those who create suffering [all human
beings], to repent and turn away from their sins [which is the source of
suffering]. Forgiveness is available for the sins we have committed
because Jesus has taken on himself the penalty that would otherwise fall
upon the committers of sin [all human beings], so that all who turn away
from their sin [repent] and ask for God's forgiveness can be forgiven.

I don't have time to read such a large post, but I think this is the core of the issue (correct me if I'm wrong), so I will focus on this, and I'm strictly operating on an assumption that the Christian Bible is true.

1) You state in the bolded part that the source of suffering is all human beings. You then state in the next bolded area that the source of suffering is sin. This appears to be inconsistent. If Sin is the source of suffering, and Humans are the source of suffering, then are you saying that we can equate and interchange humans with sin?

2) You stated that in order to destroy suffering, God would have to destroy humans...why?

3)
A. God loves humans.
B. All humans are the source of suffering.
C. God wants to destroy suffering.
D. God can't destroy suffering without destroying humans.
E. God IS going to destroy suffering.

Conclusion: God IS going to destroy all humans.

F. God does not want to destroy all humans (from A).
G. God has come up with a way to destroy suffering without destroying humans (as per his omnipotence).

Conclusion 2: God does not have to destroy all humans in order to destroy suffering.

So, where's the problem? If God can get rid of suffering (his omnipotence) without destroying anyone (his love for humans) then no human should necessarily have to be destroyed. To suggest that he can't get rid of suffering without destroying humans is inconsistent with his omnipotence.

[Guest]

When we have all had the opportunity? What does that mean?

God's plan has a timetable. At the point that He decides to stop this current age, whatever age you happen to believe we are in, I believe that ever person alive will have had a chance, at least one, to choose Him. All will be without excuse. It is like Romans 1 applied to civilization as a whole. It is part of God's nature of patience. He wants as many people as possible to choose Him or return back to Him. While I believe that it is wrong to suggest that all evil is caused directly by our personal choices, God can't do away with all evil without doing away with our choice to commit it. This means that our choice to choose Him is gone as well. He's not ready to do that yet, and everyone that accepts Him between when I finish this sentence and He decided time is up is grateful for that.
D.

[Guest]

dbuddridge,

Your header question implies (though veiled) that God is not good. If God were all good by any definition people normaly understand "good" to mean, then He would not have allowed evil to occur in the first place. This presumes that evil has no purpose in the "good" purposes of God. We are talking primarily of moral evil, I assume? A friend of mine asked me; "why did God put the Tree of the Knowlage of Good and Evil" there in the first place, knowing what man would ultimately do"?

This hopefully will be an interesting discussion.
Peace,
Bob

[Guest]

God can't do away with all evil without doing away with our choice to commit it. This means that our choice to choose Him is gone as well. He's not ready to do that yet, and everyone that accepts Him between when I finish this sentence and He decided time is up is grateful for that.
D.

Irrelevant, God could make a state of affairs where people do not suffer and choose good without forcing them to.

[Guest]

Irrelevant, God could make a state of affairs where people do not suffer and choose good without forcing them to.

Please explain how you really have a choice if the only choice is Godliness and nothing short of that.
D.

[Guest]

Please explain how you really have a choice if the only choice is Godliness and nothing short of that.
D.

One can still have a choice and yet have the cognitive and reasoned know-how to realize the better course of action between an evil action and a good action.