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

[Guest]

This article is a re-working and further explaining my initial posting found at :

http://www.wvss.com/forumc/viewtopic.ph ... sc&start=0

which attempted to demonstrate how the Gospel answers the age-old question about how God can be all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good if suffering exists in the world.

I thank everyone who has posted replies and comments to my article, I have found them immensely useful as I refine the article. I do not mean that I retract any of it, simply that the responses have helped me identify areas that were not adequately explained for those who do not have a good and solid understanding of the details of Christian theology. I have subsequently updated my argument with further explaination of key concepts.

I have also added a preface which was in my heart as I wrote, but which I neglected to mention in my first posting. The essence of the preface is to describe my intent. My intent was NOT to suggest that by understanding the gospel a suffering person could have their suffering releieved. Instead my article was aimed only to demonstrate that the philosophical problem of suffering is indeed addressable such that it can be shown that God is all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good.

I propose that it can be shown that God has these attributes. But I want to emphasise that knowing this does not make suffering any less real.

Anyway, my updated and revised essay is now posted below.

Thankyou everyone for your comments and criticism.

This article examines the question “How can God be good, if he created a world in which suffering exists?

This article is written because some propose that the existence of suffering by definition precludes the possibility that a God exists who is simultaneously, all knowing, all powerful AND all-good.

However, this article is NOT written to make anyone feel better.

It is written only because some would claim that that no such God can logically exist. I propose that such a God can exist, but knowing how it is possible will not make a suffering person feel any better. At best it might give the suffering person hope – hope that there will come a time when suffering ends – but it will not dry the tears of those who weep – at lest, not yet.

I write this also as someone who has experienced a certain amount of suffering first hand. To summarise that tale, I had a wife whom I loved dearly, who for our entire seven and a half years of marriage suffered with mental illnesses including major panic disorder, chronic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder. These illnesses manifested for about four months prior to our marriage [she came out of a psychiatric hospital two weeks before our wedding].

But not only did she struggle with psychiatric illnesses. She also suffered from chronic migraines, arthritis in her knees, ankles and shoulders and she also suffered several bouts of pneumonia, and to top it all off, she suffered from blood clots caused by deep vein thrombosis which caused one of her lungs to collapse.

I therefore tried for close to eight years to help her overcome these problems and to be healed and live a happy life by loving her the best I knew how. Her psychiatrist assured me, whatever else she may have been unsure of, she knew I loved her with all my heart. My repeated explanation to her of my theology on this was that God had told me to love him [God] by loving her, and that such a command from God worked just fine for me [See Ephesians 5:25]. It was my delight to love her – a commandment to love her was for me, the same as a commandment to a dog to eat a piece of prime steak. We dreamed of raising a family together, growing old together, having grand-children [she was a gifted child-care worker who took special delight in caring for children]. Though I had a reasonably good income , we were perpetually broke due to bills for medicine and doctors for all of our marriage.

I gave my heart to that woman, and, truth be told, she has it still, but after close to 8 years of suffering when she [finally] began to turn an emotional psychiatric corner in terms of being able to accept herself as a valuable person, she died overnight on 29 March 2006 [see http://www.wasp.net.au/~buddrige/LisaProgram.pdf for the her funeral service hand-out].

I do not imagine that my suffering is the worst there is – I am certain it is not – but I do think I have an appreciation of the meaning of heartache, heart-break and grief. Therefore I want to emphasize that I write this, not for those who suffer, but for those who think that suffering a-priori cancels out the possibility that a God could exist who is all-powerful, all-knowing AND all-good. I am convinced that indeed there is such a God, and that the Christian Gospel describes how that God can have all of those attributes while we who live on his earth experience suffering.

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, or
B) God is evil because he does not prevent suffering although he has the power to do so, or
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 philosophical and theological solution to this problem that maintains both God's goodness, his omnipotence and his omnipresence. The solution is as follows:

According to the world-view that maintains that the Christian Gospel is an accurate description of a true and real and living God, suffering is caused by the sins that are committed in the world.

While it is clear and obvious that some sins such as murder and rape directly cause suffering, the world-view proposed by the Christian Gospel offers the explanation that when sin entered the world [that is, when the first sinful behaviour occurred], that act broke something fundamental about the created order of things and subsequent to that first sinful act the created order ceased to function in its previously perfect way. Therefore, the Christian Gospel proposes that the root cause of all suffering on Earth including “natural disasters” is sin. According to the Christian world-view “sin” is not some vague disembodied concept that can exist apart from human beings that commit sin – sin is the label attached to the sinful behaviour of sinners. Therefore, to remove sin from the world implies removing sinners.

Therefore, to remove suffering requires the removal of sin which implies the removal of sinners. As a result of this logic, while 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 since all human beings sin and therefore contribute to the suffering in the world].

However, according to the Christian Gospel, God loves us. God wants a perfect world but he also wants US because he loves us. Therefore because he loves us [See The Gospel of John Chapter 3, verse 16], God has found an alternative way that people who have sinned can be reformed. But it requires them to want to be reformed. The sinner must turn away from a sinful lifestyle and turn towards a lifestyle of obedience to God. [Another way of describing sin is that it is disobedience to God].

God has provided an opportunity for those who create suffering [all human beings who sin], to repent and turn away from their sins [sin 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 who also 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 who commit sin and are not interested in stopping sinning [where sin is 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.

To those who say, God knew what would happen when he created the world. He knew we would sin, and therefore create suffering, therefore he should not have created us. The question is answered with another question. Should someone like Martin Luther King be denied the chance to live, so that Joseph Stalin does not have to die? I put to you that if God refused Martin Luther King the chance to live so that Joseph Stalin does not have to die, God would not be good.

I must re-iterate, in the Christian world-view: nobody has to die. If someone dies, it is because they do not want to stop sinning. That is, if by their own choice a person refuses to turn away from their lifestyle of sin and return to a lifestyle of following God in obedience, then they cannot be allowed to partake in a perfect world. If God did allow them to do so, he would fail to be good, because he would be allowing the suffering to continue into the next world. So therefore, if someone refuses to turn away from their lifestyle of sin and return to a lifestyle of following God in obedience then they will partake in a world where God, and everything that comes from God, is entirely absent. But from God comes such things as love, joy, hope, pleasure, happiness. If you take that away, then you are left with everything that is not from God – hatred, sorrow, despair and suffering. To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, either man says to God, “thy will be done”, or God says to man “thy will be done”.

For those who do not understand the Biblical allusion, when a man or woman says “thy will be done” to God, it means that s/he is accepting God’s desire for them which is that they turn away from their sinful lifestyle and accept the forgiveness of God. On the other hand, if God says to someone who refuses to accept God - “thy will be done”, he [God] is essentially saying that if you do not want me in your life, I will withdraw myself from your life entirely. But since all of the good things of life such as love, joy, hope and pleasure all come from God, then when there is no God, there is no love, joy, hope and pleasure. This is the definition of hell.

Finally, a last note about the Christian answer to the question of suffering. The Christian Gospel’s answer to the philosophical question as to how a God who is all-powerful, all-loving and all-good could logically exist when we who live in the world experience suffering.

The Christian Gospel only answers this question completely if you take the entire Gospel. The entire Gospel includes a promise of a newly created world, and a resurrection of the dead that will happen at some time in the future. Paul the Apostle says in his Epistle to the Romans [Chapter 8, verse 18] that:

“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us”

That is, the Christian Gospel promises a future time that will be so amazingly wonderful that the suffering we experience today will seem a trivial thing – not worth comparing to how good that new creation will be.

The scriptures do not give us a completely detailed description of what that new creation look like other than to say it will be very very good. The details remain unexplained. We are asked [by the Gospel] to look at Jesus, and to what he has done and then to turn to God and hear him say:
“Trust me”.