Objections to Christianity 1 – Evil and suffering

I’m going to take common objections for why people don’t believe Christianity is true and examine them. I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind by this but I hope at least to prompt some to examine their reasons and beliefs more carefully. In this post I will look at the problem of evil and suffering.

“Earthquakes, tsunamis, famine, war, evil tyrannical leaders who torture anyone who dares disagree with them, sickness and disease. How can I believe in a God who allows such suffering?” So runs a common objection to Christianity. Another version of this objection is less personal and more philosophical. It may be stated like this: “The Bible says that God is all-powerful and all-loving. Yet, God allows evil and suffering in the world therefore God cannot be all-good or he cannot be all-powerful. Either way, the God of the Bible cannot exist.”

This does seem like a compelling argument doesn’t it? It is not an easy one to answer because God doesn’t give us reasons for all pain and suffering. Nevertheless it needs to be seen that this argument relies on some hidden assumptions:
Firstly it assumes that suffering doesn’t serve a good purpose. In other words that it is pointless. But just because something appears pointless to us doesn’t make it pointless. That is a fallacy. It assumes we know everything there is to be known. Just because we cannot think of a reason doesn’t mean there isn’t one. In fact, the person making this assumption is exercising faith. Faith in themselves, for, without any plausible reason for doing so, they have assumed that if there were a grand reason for suffering that made it worthwhile they would know what it is! That’s actually quite a leap of faith!
This argument doesn’t even line up with our experience for many of us can testify of having experienced difficulties which made no sense to us at the time and yet which ultimately worked out for good. As Tim Keller argues in The Reason for God, “with time and perspective most of us can see some good reasons for at least some of the tragedy and pain that occurs in life. Why couldn’t it be possible that, from God’s vantage point, there are good reasons for all of them?” Some might argue that no future bliss could be worth the worst kind of unspeakable suffering, but what does the man who wants nothing to do with God know of God’s promises? As C. S. Lewis effectively argued, such an argument does not understand that even the greatest kind of suffering will be turned backwards into an even greater glory.

Secondly this argument assumes that there is a standard against which things may be judged to be wrong and unfair. But where does this standard come from? If we reject God then we are left with natural selection in which the ‘fittest’ survive and where death and violence and the triumph of the strong over the weak are perfectly natural. So we find that the atheist has no basis for assuming that people shouldn’t suffer. After all, in their worldview suffering is inevitable! Yet wasn’t this their very reason for objecting to God? How contradictory. So, the problem of suffering is just as much of a problem for the atheist. If anything, an argument against suffering and injustice is an argument for God.

Of course, these arguments may make logical sense but they are of little comfort when we ourselves are in the midst of great suffering or difficulty. If God seems distant to us then our suffering will seem far more real. But the one thing we cannot do is assume that God doesn’t care about the problem of evil and suffering. For, in Jesus Christ, God Himself came to earth and shared in our suffering. He was beaten and crucified by evil men even though he had done nothing wrong. He experienced despair, pain, rejection, loneliness, torture and imprisonment. And he did it for you and me. God who was rich in every way became poor for our sakes. He chose to identify with the poor and lowly, the abandoned and forgotten and with those who suffer. He suffered for our sins, that is, for our rejection of and rebellion against God. He did it because He loves us that much. So, sure, we don’t always know the reason for hardship and suffering in this life, but one thing we do know is that it can’t be that God doesn’t care about us. He cares enough to share in our suffering and, ultimately, to rescue us from it, if we believe in Him.

Not only does God share in our humanity and suffering, he gives us hope that it is not in vain. We may not always see in this life the good that results from having suffered but we do know that the day is coming when He shall return again and make all things new (John 14:3; Rev. 21:5). This is not just consolation (e.g. Rev. 21:3-4) for what we have suffered in this life but a glorious restoration and re-making of all things. As Dostoevsky wrote:
“I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.”

To borrow a phrase from the Lord of the Rings ”everything sad will become untrue”. What greater consolation could there be in this life?