Ninth article in the series “With Good Reason”
by Keith Bassham
Bart Ehrman, whom we noted in the last apologetics article, says that God has a problem, and that problem is this: He either cannot or will not prevent suffering. I am certain Mr. Ehrman has a nice stack of letters and printed emails from thousands of believers who believe they have solved “God’s problem,” but I doubt any have done so to Mr. Ehrman’s satisfaction.
The fact is, if someone asked me today why God does not prevent innocent suffering, I could not answer the question put to me in those terms.
It is a very old problem, one that has its own name: theodicy. Philosophers usually place the question like this (take a look at these three sentences):
1. God is good.
2. God is all-powerful.
3. Bad things happen.
After placing each of these sentences on a board, the philosopher confidently tells us that all three cannot be true at the same time. If God is good, and if God is all-powerful, then bad things should not be happening. Or let’s say if God is good, and bad things happen, then this means God is not powerful enough to prevent the bad. Or, if God is powerful enough to prevent bad events and does not do so, then God is not good, but bad.
Mind you, those who are actually suffering rarely put the problem in such lofty and theoretical terms. That is because those suffering have not only a logical problem but an emotional one at the same time. Their cry is usually something like, “Why?” and they leave it at that. If my granddaughter Penny accidentally gets her finger caught in the car door and leaps into her mother’s arms, Mom is not going to begin reciting the three-phrase theodicy formula, nor is she going to be giving an extended lesson combining lectures on forces and kinetic energy with the biological basis of pain receptors and nerve endings. What Penny needs has nothing to do with the intellect. A comforting hug, a kiss, and quite probably a bandage imprinted with a fairy princess will be sufficient answer for her “problem of evil.”
I place this emotional aspect here in the study so you can sort out for yourself which type of apologetic response is appropriate when called on to defend your faith.
For instance, as I have noted before, most of us will not be called upon to give a philosophical explanation to a person such as Bart Ehrman. However, you need to have some basic idea of the logical consistency type of argument when faced with an objection to the existence of God, such as, “How could God allow the Nazis to kill so many Jews during the Holocaust?” an example Mr. Ehrman uses in his book, God’s Problem.
It did happen, and it is a vivid example of how evil humans can be. And one could even make an argument that it is an example of human free will and depravity, both of which have a biblical basis. But how would one then go on to explain a tsunami, seemingly a random occurrence with no human input? Or, if you wanted a smaller, much smaller, but equally tragic example (think Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov here), what about the death of a single child from AIDS, malaria, respiratory infections, or diarrhea in Africa — something that occurs about every three or four seconds.
This is much more difficult to answer, but there are two things to think about here. First, we live in a fallen and very imperfect world. Climate systems create deserts and marshes, ice fields and everglades. People conceivably live in all these conditions and are subject to the forces of what we would call nature. We are all carriers for various microbial life forms, some beneficial and some not. Death and disease strike all — even those we consider the “innocents.” We tire and age. Though we make strides toward overcoming the effects of the Fall (Genesis 3) through technology and chemistry, the bent of our world is toward degeneration. We know that a new creation will supplant this one, and that new creation will not be subject to the same limitations and forces we experience in this one. But this is the world we have.
You can hear in Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov’s complaint the echo of so many disappointed as he says, “It’s not that I don’t accept God, you must understand; it’s the world created by Him I don’t and cannot accept.”
The second part of my response has to do with the existence of good and evil. As Andy Naselli has written, “The problem of evil is an argument for God, not against Him. Christians must account for the problem of evil, but atheists must account for the problems of both good and evil. On what basis can atheists say that anything is inherently good or evil? If they do (and humans are universally outraged at moral and natural evils), they are borrowing from the Christian worldview.” (“What Is Evil”, Reformation 21, June 2009)
While nonbelievers may struggle with some of what I’ve written above, I think Christians do as well. We have to live with a certain amount of mystery and tension and paradox. I remember reading a passage in a Will Rogers biography in which pioneer aviator Wiley Post was explaining why pilots often crash their planes in bad weather. He explained that a disoriented pilot will start trusting intuition instead of the panel instruments before him. Instead of ascertaining a direction, pitch, and course from his instruments, he “thinks” too much and flies until he runs out of fuel.
Jesus asked, “Why?” from the Cross and received no reply (Matthew 27:46). Generations before, Job asked, “Why?” but the response consisted of God asking questions that Job could not answer (Job 42:1-6). Joseph may have been asking “Why?” in the pit and in the prison (we have no record of him doing it) but he proposes his solution to such a question years later when he says that what seemed evil at the time worked for good at the end (Genesis 50:20).
The book of Hebrews lists people of faith who were delivered from danger and death:
“Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions. Quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again…” (Hebrews 11:33-35), and yet we read, “…others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: And others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” (11:35-38)
Was God attentive to the needs of the first group, only to go on to ignore the cries of the second, though all are described as people of faith? Or is it better to humbly maintain that God is sovereign, that humanity is in need of redemption, and that God is far more than a cosmic cushion as He dispenses justice, saves sinners, and judges evil?
And perhaps natural evil is a way to get us to focus on moral evil. I am nearly always surprised by what does and does not outrage people. C. S. Lewis was probably on to something when he described pain as “God’s megaphone.” As I was writing this article a friend sent me a thought:
“I have concluded that the single hardest thing for God to do is to humble and subdue the human heart without destroying the individual. He couldn’t do it with the generation before the flood, or Pharaoh, or Belshazzar, or Judas. They wouldn’t let Him. Perhaps the single greatest ‘tool’ in God’s arsenal to subjugate in time and bring to submission the human will is suffering and pain. Suffering will break and instruct a man as nothing else can.”
Finally, I conclude with a three-part problem (thanks again to Mr. Andy Naselli):
1. God is holy and just
2. We are sinners who offend God’s holiness and deserve His just wrath
3. God forgives and justifies sinners through faith in Jesus, who endured the punishment for our own evil on the cross — “…while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
You can believe all three statements to be true, with good reason.