When you stop for a moment and think of the millions upon millions of people who have endured unspeakable suffering due to famine, war and disaster, it simply staggers the imagination. Where is God in that? As Arthur Custance writes,
"At such times, thoughtful men do not become atheists because they find it irrational to believe in a spiritual world which is above and beyond demonstration by ordinary means; rather, because of emotional insult, the feeling that if God is really such a Being as we His children claim Him to be, He could not possibly remain silent. He would have to act manifestly, mercifully, savingly, publicly."
How could an all-powerful and loving God allow such suffering? This question is often posed in the form of an argument for or against God's existence. On the one side are believers who attempt to justify God's actions (some pointing to explanations of freewill, others appealing to some higher plan). On the other side are unbelievers who see this as proof that there is no God. The problem with both of these approaches however is that they attempt to address this from a safe theoretical distance. But these are not abstract concepts, they are issues that touch us at the core of our being. Disappointment, doubt and suffering are common to us all. We all need to know how to deal with the reality of suffering in our world so we are not crushed by it: How can we continue to have hope in a broken world? How do you believe in love in a world filled with so much hurt? These are questions we all need to wrestle with.
As long as the discussion remains on a detached intellectual level, both the religious and atheistic responses are inadequate. This is not an intellectual puzzle to be solved, it is a cry of pain, "I cry to you God but you do not answer. I stand before you, and you don't even bother to look!" screams Job in desperation. The answers we seek in our pain are not so much ones of explanation, but of relief. When we cry "Why, God?" what we really mean is "Make it stop!"
C.S. Lewis once commented that we live in a universe which contains much that is bad and apparently meaningless, but at the same time contains creatures like ourselves who somehow know that it is bad and meaningless. God has created us as creatures that recognize the injustice and emptiness and long for something more. God did not have to make us this way. God could have made us like fish -- just swimming around and not noticing much of anything -- but he didn't. Why is that?
Lewis suggests that the outrage we naturally feel at injustice, that cry that wells up inside us, has been put there by God. The only reason we recognize injustice at all is that we have been created with a God-inherited need for justice, just as we have an inborn need for love and meaning. In other words, these are primarily God's questions inside of us. God has placed these questions in our hearts because God wants us to ask them.
That means that doubt is not opposed to faith; rather, doubt is an expression of a healthy faith. Questioning is not an immature phase to get out of our system, it is the hallmark of a mature faith. When we attempt to explain away these questions we shut off that part of us that cries out for compassion and justice, and when we do that we shut off a big part of what it means to be human.
We cannot ever stop asking these questions on this side of eternity. As soon as we stop asking why, as soon as we stop yearning for justice, yearning for God to step in and heal and restore, as soon as we accept the darkness, as soon as we justify suffering and Hell, there will be something very wrong with us.
Instead, we need to learn how to live with these questions -- how to live in the tension of being in a fallen world, full of pain and injustice, but having hope and trust in a good God. So let's have the courage to be honest together about our struggles and pain. Let's make room for questions and doubt as a healthy part of our faith, and in so doing, work toward ending suffering rather than just explaining it. Let's learn to have a questioning faith.
Follow Derek Flood on Twitter: www.twitter.com/therebelgod
Bart D. Ehrman: What Didn't Make It Into The Bible?
Can it really be true? Questioning faith and Christianity - The ...
Does Doubt Belong to Faith? | First Things
Christianity : Pictures, Videos, Breaking News - Huffington Post
We use the existence of suffering when arguing against the concept that God, if he indeed exists, is good and just. The fictional character God is evil and sadistic.
Most Christians' concept of God is an all powerful being. Everything goes according to his will. We argue that since he is all powerful and everything happens according to his will, he is ultimately responsible for everything and anything, which makes him evil.
If clicking the links does not launch the blog, copying and pasting the URLs into the browser address bar might. If the blog still does not load, trying at a later point might yield better results. In addition, text copied from HuffingtonPost.com comment posts appears to potentially contain additional hyphens that might cause “Page Not Found” errors if located in a URL. Comparing the copied URL to the original might reveal such errors.
On the other hand, humankind appears to have been given the freedom of choice to disregard said restrictions. Some disregard them, experience both harm and hurt and perceive God to be either non-existent or uncaring.
God appears to be considered simultaneously too protective and insufficiently protective. I would be grateful for perspectives to the contrary.
pray hard for good weather. and we often prayed for Notre Dame to beat SMU. these prayers were
often not answered as we hoped. when we complained to the Sisters, they would tell us that God
answered, "he just said no." not a very pleasing reply to 10 year-olds, and we could be excused for developing some cynicism about all this prayer stuff. why God would let SMU beat Notre Dame was simply beyond explaining. of course Doak Walker had something to do with it, but that didn't hold water with us. in my time in Japan, i read a book titled CHINMOKU by a great Catholic author named ENDO SHUSAKU. the English title is "SILENCE". it seriously probes this issue of God's silence in the face of human suffering. i strongly suggest it as required reading if anyone is interested in this subject. it isn't an easy one to handle for Christians. viewpoint or response to human suffering
"Trample, trample! It is to be trampled on by you that I am here."
If God looks like Jesus, then that tells a lot about God's priorities as "the trampled one," and what it looks like for us to be faithful to a God like that.
I'd propose however that the real question is not whether or not one believes in God, but rather: What will you do with that pain? Or perhaps better: What will you let that pain do to you? Will you find a way to love and hope in the middle of that pain? Or will you let it drag you down with it?
Looking at most of the comments here, I'm afraid many have taken their legitimate feelings of pain, and used them as an excuse for intolerance, judgmentalism, and contempt expressed towards anyone of faith. Again, the question is not whether you believe in God or not. It is what will you allow your pain to make you become? Our response to that is not seen in any kind of theoretical answer, but in how we treat others. I hope we all (believers and nonbelievers alike) could learn to respond with love, despite the pain and darkness, and I hope we could show that to each other. That’s my hope against hope.
One could argue that there are plenty of opportunities for pain in this world. To attribute them to a god would seem to only make matters worse. I mean, what's the point of going on if god is going to smite you or allow you to be smitten and that you have no way out, nowhere to hide; alive or dead?
Wouldn't it be better to imagine no god?
This thread is mostly the same sentiment over and over: reality consists solely of things that can be proven, and everything else is a moronic delusion. In short, truth equals facts. We don't worry about what can't be observed or proved because Science and Logic and Reason didn't mean for us to to do so. Reality consists of two aspects: fact and fantasy. And, apparently, it's possible to swear allegiance to one or the other--to hop on the Fact Train, as it were, and shout nasty things at people who regard humans of old as anything but defective dorks stumbling around, lost and frightened, but for the light of microchips, live images from Mars, "Apps," and stilted, best-selling secularist platitudes.
And the reason? When sin entered the world, death and decay came with it as creation itself was changed.
"For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time." Romans 8:20-22
And that's why there is pain and suffering in life, Charlie Brown. Along with our own penchant for sin.
Why does God allow evil? Because He loves you. If He didn't, you would never have been born.
I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld your son from me
Genesis 22:16
so why was it OK for the god of abraham to test him in such a manner, which manner
would be illegal and immoral in our world?
I know we agree about the subject of a god, but to give it a sex is to give it too much credit, to give people who believe in it too much credit.
ck out my blog and the links if you like contraversial truths which bother people.