The Problem of Evil and Suffering- Gospel answers

Q-How can an all-powerful and all-good God allow evil and suffering in His world?

INTRODUCTION

This question has a long history. It is a question that is not asked in academia alone, but increasingly the man on the street is aware of this problem and is either seeking an answer out of genuine curiosity, or is using this problem as a way to bolster their reasoning for disbelief in the Christian God.

As we come to this problem and attempt to consider whether or not a solution is possible, let’s do so from a couple of different perspectives. Since this is as much a personal problem as it is a professional academic one, we should strive to understand how to handle this question from both angles.

We need to think of this problem at the level of the philosopher as well as a Christian or counselor. For me to give you tips and hints to disarm someone from a philosophical perspective without addressing this issue as a pastor or counselor who is seeking to reach the person is not only damaging, but has no warrant Scripturally.

I will try my best to deal honestly with the problem intellectually, but I have to confess that I can not detach myself from the calling of lovingly shepherding anyone who is struggling under the weight of this question. Most often our intellectual questions are driven from personal experience, so it’s important that we attempt to reach the heart of the person who may be wounded in a deep and profound way through the experience of evil and suffering in their own life.

The fact there is evil and suffering in the world is a major reason for why many refuse to believe in the Christian God.

Evil and suffering work at two levels: our intellect and our heart. There is a rational way in which someone may object to the existence of the Christian God because of this problem and there is an emotional impact that isn’t necessarily an argument but a feeling of injustice or wrongness in the idea of a good God allowing appalling evil and pain in this world. This emotional response goes right to the heart and can cause great distrust in the idea of God being good.

If you attempt to answer someone who is personally hurting from this emotional outrage of God claiming His goodness while evil and pain is still experienced, you will probably loose the person even if you win the argument. For them, it isn’t something that is primarily intellectual, even though it sounds like it. Also, you would be cruel to deal with someone with such little sympathy.

Yet we still have to answer the problem to see if this problem is a credible problem to deny God’s existence. We’ll start with the philosophical or intellectual problem first.

Let’s define the problem:

The Problem

The classical statement of the problem is the most popular as articulated by the skeptic David Hume the Scottish philosopher.

In his dialogues concerning natural religion, Hume argues against God’s existence in this way:

“Epicurius question still remains unanswered. Is He [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?”

It could also be stated logically:
1. A good God would destroy evil.
2. An all powerful God could destroy evil.
3. Evil is not destroyed.
4. Therefore, there cannot possibly be such a good and powerful God.

Hume believed that if God was good he should or would destroy evil, and if God was all powerful he should or would destroy all evil. Since evil is still among us, God must not be all powerful or all good, if he is only one of these, he is not the God of Scripture.

One of the most notable proponents of this argument today is a professor at Oxford by the name of John Mackie. Mackie states it this way:

1. If God exists, there couldn’t be evil unless he would have a reason for justifying his permitting it.

This is important because when people say that they don’t see why God would allow evil, what they’re saying is that they can’t think of a reason for why God would allow evil and suffering.

2. Evil exists all around
3. There is no reason we can discern for God justifying his permitting of evil.
4. Therefore, God must not exist.

Now, if you being to penetrate this argument, you’ll begin to find it is based primarily upon the failure of a person to think of a good reason for the existence of evil. The assumption is that God doesn’t have a reason because they can’t think of one. Obviously you see the problem with this type of argument.

Over the years, Christian theists have attempted to come up with answers to this question called a “theodicy.” A theodicy is a God-defense. The hope is that if we come up with a good reason for God’s allowing evil and suffering, some greater good, we can justify its existence along with the existence of an all-powerful and all-good God.

Let’s look at two of the most popular theodicies used in most Christian circles, and see how they fail to give a fully satisfactory answer to this problem.

TWO THEODICIES

1. The Punishment Theodicy

The reason God allows evil and suffering is because we rebelled and therefore our suffering is our punishment. This sounds rough, and as I said neither of these two are THE answer but this one is helpful.

When someone says that they just can’t believe that God would allow evil and suffering, one of the ways to respond is simply by asking “what do you think the human race deserves in this life?”

You notice that they’ve slipped in an assumption that is pretty hard for them to defend. They are presupposing we deserve a better life than what they have. Anyone who thinks this is essentially making the claim that God should give them a better life.

How can we be so sure we deserve a better life than the one we have? How dare someone make such a claim? How dare someone think they know what we all deserve and push their opinion upon us?

Perhaps we should be asking why it is that God allows so much happiness. Maybe if God allowed less happiness and more suffering, we wouldn’t come to demand happiness. How about the problem of good? This seems as much a problem as the problem of evil. How could a just and righteous God allow so much happiness?

This is helpful, but it doesn’t cover the entire problem.

The problem of distribution

Why does God allow the distribution of evil and suffering in the way he does? If evil and suffering is punishment for our rebellion against God, the question we should ask is why the punishment seems so random. Why do some people who live relatively good lives get so much pain and why do some people who live such bad lives get so much happiness? The punishment theodicy doesn’t really answer this. The next answer to the problem of evil is the most common in Christian circles.

2. The Free-Will Theodicy

The free will theodicy teaches us that if God wanted us to freely choose the good, we would have to be free to choose evil. For God to have given us a choice means that the choice was real and we could have chosen against good. Evil, in this view, exists because God’s greater good is man’s free-will. Therefore, evil exists and God is still good.

What is helpful about this is that we don’t believe that humans are robots. We do believe that man has a will, makes choices, and is held morally responsible and accountable for his decisions.

The first problem with this view is the same as above:

The problem of distribution

There isn’t an even distribution of evil and suffering. There are many that make relatively good choices and yet experience great evil, and there are some that make very bad choices and receive great happiness. This answer simply isn’t sufficient.

I have a 9 year old daughter who has heard from my lips a hundred times that she should look both ways before crossing the street. If she makes a bad choice and crosses the street in front of me without looking both ways, do I do nothing because I don’t want intrude upon her free-will? Of course not! I intrude upon her will and save her. At the point of her peril, her free-will isn’t all that important.

Free-will isn’t a good enough reason or explanation for the problem of evil.

Most suffering doesn’t happen in an orderly way, according to bad choices, though this isn’t always the case.

Theodicies help, but they don’t fully deal with the variables of every argument. They are not comprehensive, therefore, we should exercise caution when trying to give a general answer to this problem or we might further exasperate the issue.

As an intellectual problem and as a Christian friend or counselor, we should be very careful in making sweeping answers as if you have discovered THE one reason God allows evil and suffering in this world.

Alvin Plantinga

Plantinga is a professor at the University of Notre Dame and has written a great little book called God, Freedom, and Evil in which he gives us the same warning.

Plantinga says we should be very careful when attempting to give general or specific answers to the problem of evil when we are not God and at best can only give a rough sketch since Scripture doesn’t give us a specific treatment of the subject.

However, even though it is dangerous to try to give such an answer to the problem of evil, it is irrational to claim there can’t be an answer to this problem. In other words, it is a philosophical mistake to make such a bold claim that there is no rational reason for the existence of evil and suffering.

One way to say this is- “do you realize when you say that because you can’t think of a reason for evil to exist God must not exist, you are jumping to a conclusion?”

One of the ways Plantinga makes his case is by what we expect to see vs. that which we are probably not able to see. Like this example: It is the difference between elephants and Carbon 14 atoms in this regard and can be explained as follows. Consider the sentence:

If there were any [elephants or Carbon 14 atoms] in the room, we would probably know it.

The sentence is true when it is about elephants and it is false when it is about Carbon 14 atoms. If there were a live elephant in this room we would probably know it.

Now is a good reason God might have for allowing some evil more like an elephant or a carbon 14 atom? Is it more reasonable to believe that I would be able to figure it out if it is there or that I would not be able to figure it out? Is the following true:

If God had a reason to allow this particular case of evil, we would probably know what it is.

Since God’s knowledge and wisdom is so far beyond ours, it is eminently reasonable to suppose that He will have reasons which we cannot grasp for allowing evils in our lives. It is not that we cannot figure out some of the reasons God has for some evils. In fact we can figure out at least plausible reasons for most evil. There will still be some evil, the reason for which, we cannot discern. This is exactly what we should expect if there is a God. It cannot be counted as evidence against God.

So even though it might seem, at first glance, that there are no good reasons to allow certain evils we see, this does not provide strong evidence that these evils are really unjustified. Evil, then, is not strong evidence against the existence of God.

In short, God would have a good reason to allow suffering and evil if he were all-powerful and all-good. Philosophers form David Hume to John Mackie have been making the mistake of assuming there are no possible reasons which God would have. This is a non-sequitur and simply does not logically follow.
In fact, even atheist Philosophers do not support this kind of argument any more. William Rowe has written:
Some philosophers have contended that the existence of evil is logically inconsistent with the existence of the theistic God. No one, I think, has succeeded in establishing such an extravagant claim. Indeed, granted incompatibilism, there is a fairly compelling argument for the view that the existence of evil is logically consistent with the existence of the theistic God. (”The Problem of Evil and Some Varieties of Atheism,” APQ 16 (1979) footnote 1, p. 335)

The Boomerang Effect

Whenever we discuss the problem of evil, we need to show that the problem of evil is at least as tough of a problem for the non-theist as it is for the theist. Here are a few good questions to consider.
A. How can we call anything evil if there is no God?
This is by far the most challenging response to the non-theists view of the problem of evil. Dostoyevski wrote, “If there is no God, everything is permitted.” The question is , “How can the non-theist justify his moral indignation?” If there is no absolute standard of morality, how can I call racism wrong? To call anything wrong, by the definition of the word, implies that it falls short of a given moral standard. If there is no God, by what standard can we judge actions such as racism and the Holocaust? If we say there is no standard then all we can say about these actions is that we don’t like them or they are inconvenient or that the majority of people probably don’t like them.
Harry Blamires wrote, “Unless we presuppose a good God at the back of the universe, the question ‘Why suffering?’ is on a par with the question ‘Why cabbages?’” Evil is bad, in any absolute sense, only if God exists. If He doesn’t, then evil has no moral weight at all.

B. Moral evil in the world destroys my faith in Human Nature, not God.

This seems so obvious but people rarely question the prevalent assumption that human nature is morally blameless when they are confronted with evil. God’s nature is so flippantly called into question. All moral evil is directly caused by humans beings. Sometimes I ask someone who states that human nature is innocent, “Do you keep your doors locked? If so, why?” I should ask in this context, “Is it because you think God will rip you off or some person may do it? If you lock your doors to protect yourself from others, why do you blame God and not humans for moral evil?”

C. God HAS ALREADY defeated evil at its root!

This is where the primary and central theme of Christianity relates to the problem of evil. God has gotten involved! He has defeated evil. The Atonement, in Christian Theology, was the event in history where God Himself, in the person of Jesus Christ, took upon Himself all of the eternal results and penalty of our moral evil. As a result, we can be freed from our just penalty and we can have forgiveness. In addition, by accepting His offer of this forgiveness we are adopted into a relationship with the all loving, all powerful God and He gives us His power (Spirit) to overcome the evil in our lives.

D. God WILL IN THE FUTURE defeat evil in its entirety.

Another central theme in Christian Theology is that God will step again into history and bring evil to a close. The promise is that He will judge all people with absolute justice. Every moral evil will be judged. There will not be one act of exploitation or even unkindness that will escape His notice. When we stand before Him we will know that we have no excuse.

Consider Alvin Plantinga’s comments on these matters:

…it is indeed true that suffering and evil can occasion spiritual perplexity and discouragement; and of all the anti-theistic arguments, only the argument from evil deserves to be taken really seriously. But I also believe, paradoxically enough, that there is a theistic argument from evil; and it is at least as strong as the antitheistic argument from evil. (Here I can only sketch the argument and leave it at an intuitive level.) What is so deeply disturbing about horrifying kinds of evil? The most appalling kinds of evil involve human cruelty and wickedness: Stalin and Pol Pot, Hitler and his henchmen, and the thousands of small vignettes of evil that make up such a whole.

What is genuinely abhorrent is the callousness and perversion and cruelty of the concentration camp guard, taking pleasure in the sufferings of others; what is really odious is taking advantage of one’s position of trust (as a parent or counselor, perhaps) in order to betray and corrupt someone: what is genuinely appalling, in other words, is not really human suffering as such so much as human wickedness. This wickedness strikes us as deeply perverse, wholly wrong, warranting not just quarantine and the attempt to overcome it, but blame and punishment.

But could there really be any such thing as horrifying wickedness if naturalism were true? I don’t see how. A naturalistic way of looking at the world, so it seems to me, has no place for genuine moral obligation of any sort; a fortiori, then, it has no place for such a category as horrifying wickedness. It is hard enough, from a naturalistic perspective, to see how it could be that we human beings can be so related to propositions (contents) that we believe them; and harder yet, as I said above, to explain how that content could enter into a causal explanation of someone’s actions. But these difficulties are as nothing compared with seeing how, in a naturalistic universe, there could be such a thing as genuine and appalling wickedness.

There can be such a thing only if there is a way rational creatures are supposed to live, obliged to live; and the force of that normativity–its strength, so to speak–is such that the appalling and horrifying nature of genuine wickedness is its inverse. But naturalism cannot make room for that kind of normativity; that requires a divine lawgiver, one whose very nature it is to abhor wickedness. Naturalism can perhaps accommodate foolishness and irrationality, acting contrary to what are or what you take to be your own interests; it can’t accommodate appalling wickedness.

Accordingly, if you think there really is such a thing as horrifying wickedness (that our sense that there is, is not a mere illusion of some sort), and if you also think the main options are theism and naturalism, then you have a powerful theistic argument from evil.

-Alvin Plantinga, God, Freedom, and Evil

In other words; if you have a good God who is powerful enough to be mad at, then you also have to have a God that is great enough and wise enough to have reasons for evil and suffering which you can not discern.

If you’re mad at this kind of God, you have to admit that He might have reasons you don’t know!

A Pastoral Note

Some of you might hear this and yet still feel the effects of evil and suffering even though the arguments have been dealt with. Why? Because I’ve been working at this from the perspective of the intellect and if you’ve experienced great tragedy or suffering, this may not alleviate your pain.

Some of these arguments will clear away the rational objections which you may have, but the real problem you might be experiencing may not be rational but experiential. What do we about this?

I believe that Christianity alone has the resources to deal with these problems whether they are intellectual or experiential. Christianity is the only religion with a suffering God! Let’s turn to Plantinga again:

God does not stand idly by, coolly observing the suffering of his creatures. He enters into and shares our suffering. He endures the anguish of seeing his son, the second person of the Trinity, consigned to the bitterly cruel and shameful death of the cross.

Some theologians claim that God cannot suffer. I believe they are wrong. God’s capacity for suffering, I believe, is proportional to his greatness; it exceeds our capacity for suffering in the same measure as his capacity for knowledge exceeds ours. Christ was prepared to endure the agonies of hell itself; and God, the first being and Lord of the universe, was prepared to endure the suffering consequent upon his son’s humiliation and death. He was prepared to accept this suffering in order to overcome sin, and death, and the evils that afflict our world, and to confer on us a life more glorious than we can imagine. So we don’t know why God permits evil; we do know, however, that he was prepared to suffer on our behalf, to accept suffering of which we can form no conception.

The chief difference between Christianity and the other theistic religions lies just here: according to the Christian gospel, God is willing to enter into and share the sufferings of his creatures, in order to redeem them and his world.

Of course this doesn’t answer the question why does God permit evil? But it helps the Christian trust God as a loving father, no matter what ills befall him. Otherwise it would be easy to see God as remote and detached, permitting all these evils, himself untouched, in order to achieve ends that are no doubt exalted but have little to do with us, and little power to assuage our griefs. It would be easy to see him as cold and unfeeling-or if loving, then such that his love for us has little to do with our perception of our own welfare. But God, as Christians see him, is neither remote nor detached. His aims and goals may be beyond our understanding and may require our suffering; but he is himself prepared to accept much greater suffering in the pursuit of those ends. In this regard Christianity contains a resource for dealing with this existential problem of evil–a resource denied the other theistic religions.

Even the atheist Albert Camus once wrote the following:

“Christ came to solve two problems, evil and death, which are precisely the problems that preoccupy the rebel. His solution consisted, first, in experiencing them. The god-man suffers, too-—with patience. I might add, suffers and dies worse than any of us ever could. The night on Golgotha is so important in the history of man only because, in its shadow, the divinity abandoned its traditional privileges and drank to the last drop, despair included, the agony of death. This is the explanation of the Lama Sabachtani and the heart-rending doubt of Christ in agony. For God to be a man, he must despair”