How can a good God allow suffering?

© IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, used under a Creative Commons licence

© Christiaan Triebert, used under a Creative Commons licence

© Giro 555 SHO, used under a Creative Commons licence

© Oxfam International

© Marco Dormino: The United Nations, used under a Creative Commons licence

© United Nation, used under a Creative Commons licence

The problem

• A good, all-powerful God would not want people to suffer and would be able to prevent them from suffering.

• Suffering exists.

• Therefore, God lacks either goodness or power, or both – the good, all-powerful God of the Bible does not exist.

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As for those who believe in an all-good, all-powerful agent-God, we've seen that they face a question that remains pressing after all these centuries, and which is now horribly underscored by the horrors in Haiti. If a deity exists, why didn't he prevent this?

David Bain, BBC News Magazine

Suffering only makes any sense within a Christian

framework

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There will be no major solution to the suffering of mankind until we reach some understanding of who we are, what the purpose of creation was, what happens after death . . . Until these questions are resolved we are caught.

Woody Allen

Naturalistic perspectives

suffering / evil = meaningless

Monistic perspectives

bad karma

illusion

Christian perspectives

Suffering is a consequence

of human freedom

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‘Thoroughly good people aren't robots, so why couldn't God have created only people like them, people who quite freely live good lives?’

David Bain, BBC News Magazine

free will ⇒ do good or evil

all suffering results from the Fall

some actions cause suffering

some actions compound suffering

But couldn’t God prevent suffering?

over-riding free will

destroying evil

God may have good reasons

to allow suffering

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who knows what will be good in the long run?

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As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Isaiah 55.9

suffering = context for the highest human values

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The God of the Bible is not compelled to answer questions. He loves us, yes, but with a white hot intensity, with the hot breath of a lion. Like Aslan of Narnia, He is not a tame lion. His love may be the most dangerous thing about Him, because He swears to love us literally to the death of ourselves.

Faith Hopler, Relevant magazine

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Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

Lamentations 3.31–33

God works through suffering

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God whispers in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience but shouts in our pain. It is his megaphone in a deaf world.

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

ultimate purpose of life

not to be happy

to know God

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What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know that he is good?’ Have they never been to a dentist?

C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

God suffers too

crucifixion ⇒ there are bigger

things than suffering

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‘There cannot be a God of love,’ men say, ‘because if there was, and he looked down upon the world his heart would break.’ The church points to the cross and says, ‘It did break.’ . . .

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‘It is God who made the world;’ men say, ‘it is he who should bear the load.’ The church points to the cross and says, ‘He did bear it.’

William Temple

God will eventually end suffering

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I have nothing to say that makes sense of this horror – all I know is that the message of the death and resurrection of Jesus is that he is with us. John Sentamu, Today Programme

resurrection ⇒ God will deal

with suffering evil

new heavens & new earth