When someone asks me, “If there’s a God, and he’s good, why does he allow so much suffering in the world?” it is usually as a challenge, a “gotcha!” question that they expect has never occurred to my simple Christian brain. The question often comes from a person who, if asked, believes that man is basically good and can redeem himself through some vaguely defined evolution to social maturity.
That is not to dismiss the question, which is a very good one. But if coming from a person who believes in the essential goodness of man, then there is a question which naturally precedes it, which is, “If there is only man, and he is good, why does he allow so much suffering in the world?”
Because the fact is, aside from natural catastrophes (which are generally “catastrophic” because people build in areas prone to catastrophe), man is the cause of the majority of human suffering. From the obvious examples of victimization – murder, rape, armed robbery, eminent domain, etc. – to the more ubiquitous manifestations seen in the quiet hostilities daily played out between family members or office staff, man is central to the generation of his own woes. Despite the cacophony of false prophets who proclaim man’s evolution to an increasingly higher moral stature, any simpleton with eyes in his head can see society plunging headlong down the toilet.
Which brings us back to the original question since “evolving” man needs someone to blame for this: “Why does God allow so much suffering in the world?”
Well, suppose he didn’t?
What if he just steered us around by remote control, holding our arms to our sides when we wanted to swing, forcing happy words from our mouths, making the world like one big, never-ending Barney marathon. Is that what we really want, to have our every word and movement forced into conformation with his will – against our own? Unfortunately, that’s what it would take.
God allows suffering because he allows us to choose the behaviors that lead to it. It is the dark side of our free will -- the collision of myriad individual wills, resisting the unity of his.
But not to over-simplify a very troubling subject. Why, for instance, if God has the power, does he not rescue the helpless child from the hands of a brutal predator? Why not heal the cancer-ridden young mother? Why allow an entire society to starve and go homeless because of the criminal excesses of its government? What about terrible accidents? And so on.
I can only speculate, but maybe the answer is that he doesn’t intervene so that we will be continually reminded of what we are: weak and infinitely fallible, imperiled by our own evil; helpless to control anyone or anything but ourselves – and sometimes, not even that.
Outrage and terror, grief and frustration, these are motivators. They motivate us to ask the original question, “Why, God?,” but it is a pointless question unless the asker is willing to meditate on the breadth and depth of the answer.
The scripture says that “all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose” (Romans ). If we define “good” as what makes us feel good, or safe, then few things in life will work together towards that end, especially since we all die after a very short existence in which there is too little time to clean up our messes. But if we carry the definition of “good” through the second half of that verse – for those who love God and are called according to his purpose – it becomes clearer that the nature of true “good” is only ever within the ultimate purposes of God, and specifically for those who love him. The ultimate purpose is rarely the immediate purpose, but rather, that which will manifest itself in some wider context of time and events.
It is interesting that the evolutionist has no problem believing that life and perfection evolve over billions of years from random gases swirling in space; but when it comes to the proposition that all things work over the course of history according to the plan of God toward an ultimate good end -- which may not be manifested during his own brief life -- he responds with sneers and ridicule. He is usually the one most bitter at the course of unfortunate events.
The apostle Peter, writing about the end of days, said “[God] is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). If suffering leads to repentance for what we have done and what we have become through our own devices, then his “allowing” it is for the higher purpose of leading us to a revelation of his salvation. What then grows (or should) from that seedbed of loss and redemption is compassion, patience, self-control, and so on – the fruits of the spirit, the “life” that is promised to those who look to the Messiah for restoration through his sacrifice – those very qualities that, if practiced individually, make for the peaceable co-existence of a citizenry and a nation.
In the last several generations, we have witnessed the gradual dismissal of Biblical precepts from government, an absence which has manifested itself in schools, the media and the family by disunity and moral disintegration. By turning the job of establishing morality and salvation over to ourselves, determining that God is not an external being, but existent only within the imagination of unenlightened humanity, we have (predictably) found ourselves in moral chaos: “Every man for himself!” Interestingly, now that our enlightenment has pushed us to the precipice of a new dark age, that of Islamic oppression, we have a growing surge of American outrage – aimed at those who uphold the Bible as the standard of morality and government. Could it be that, despite our rebellion against the allegedly non-existent God, there is a fresh anger directed at him, for “allowing” our impending destruction?
No comments:
Post a Comment