New Creation Family Church
Family Service ☻ How can a good God allow suffering?
Sunday Morning Service: Courageous Conversations Part 4
Locations & Times
New Creation Family Church
3 Gemsbok Rd, Robin Hills, Randburg, 2194, South Africa
Sunday 9:00 AM
Question: How can God allow so much evil and suffering in the world?
Everyone experiences suffering of one kind or another.
Poor physical health or the death of loved ones, economic hardship or political oppression. Every day on the news
There is war, murder, rape, and persecution happening all over the world. Sometimes, we only see the suffering from a distance. When it strikes closer to home, suffering can change your perspective.
Everyone experiences suffering of one kind or another.
Poor physical health or the death of loved ones, economic hardship or political oppression. Every day on the news
There is war, murder, rape, and persecution happening all over the world. Sometimes, we only see the suffering from a distance. When it strikes closer to home, suffering can change your perspective.
Atheists, skeptics and other critics of Christianity often argue against God on the basis of the reality of evil and suffering. Or perhaps God exists, but He is a weak god, an incompetent one or even an evil one!
But do evil and suffering really mean that God does not exist? Some Christians have responded by turning the skeptic’s argument on its head. They do this by asking on what basis is something deemed evil? If there is some moral standard the critic is basing their position on, then the problem of evil becomes an argument for not against the reality of God.
CS Lewis explains in Mere Christianity, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”
Our desire to end suffering is a glimpse of the good God who created people to reflect His loving nature by caring for one another.
But do evil and suffering really mean that God does not exist? Some Christians have responded by turning the skeptic’s argument on its head. They do this by asking on what basis is something deemed evil? If there is some moral standard the critic is basing their position on, then the problem of evil becomes an argument for not against the reality of God.
CS Lewis explains in Mere Christianity, “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?”
Our desire to end suffering is a glimpse of the good God who created people to reflect His loving nature by caring for one another.
Different approaches for someone who has experienced loss vs someone wanting a theological debate.
In a conversation with an unbeliever:
Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows first-hand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture and imprisonment. On the cross he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours.
Conversation with a believer:
Before we can attempt to answer this question, we need to first talk about "the sovereignty of God."
Everybody in orthodox Christianity agrees that God is sovereign. But nobody agrees to what extent.
There is a spectrum of beliefs:
Some will know preachers who would say that God is in control of every single thing that happens in your life. Good, bad, major, minor.
The Calvinistic doctrine of divine providence:
God is meticulously sovereign in that “everything down to the minutest details of history and individual lives, including persons’ thoughts and actions, are foreordained and rendered certain by God. Even evil thoughts and actions are planned and brought about such that God ‘sees to it’ that they happen to carry out his will. Nothing at all, whatever, falls outside God’s predestining plan and activity”
Arminianism – God doesn't cause evil but God does allow it.
Arminians cannot escape the conclusion that if God determines all human actions, then God is the author of evil; indeed, God would then be the first and only sinner ‘.
Arminians believe in free will because of their understanding of God ‘s goodness. Arminianism begins with God ‘s goodness and ends by affirming free will.
Arminians believe God has absolute power over all creation, but that he also has the power to give his creatures (human beings) freedom to make some real choices, without threatening his overall plan and purpose for the world.
“Open theism,” also known as “openness theology,” the “openness of God,” and “free will theism,” is an attempt to explain the foreknowledge of God in relationship to the free will of man. The argument of open theism is essentially this: human beings are truly free; if God absolutely knew the future, human beings could not truly be free. Therefore, God does not know absolutely everything about the future. Open theism holds that the future is not knowable. Therefore, God knows everything that can be known, but He does not know the future.
When I read the New Testament is read that God is at war with evil, not in collusion with it.
Yes, God is all-powerful and all good. But, I would argue that God does not always get His way.
You have to factor in the reality that human beings and spiritual beings have free will to either partner with God for all that is good and beautiful and true, or to rebel and rage against God.
Dr. Gerry Breshears puts it this way:
"Evil is the result of the morally significant, free actions of God's creatures. Meaning evil is not the result of God at all. Evil is the result of the freedom that God built into the fabric of the universe."
In a conversation with an unbeliever:
Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows first-hand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture and imprisonment. On the cross he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours.
Conversation with a believer:
Before we can attempt to answer this question, we need to first talk about "the sovereignty of God."
Everybody in orthodox Christianity agrees that God is sovereign. But nobody agrees to what extent.
There is a spectrum of beliefs:
Some will know preachers who would say that God is in control of every single thing that happens in your life. Good, bad, major, minor.
The Calvinistic doctrine of divine providence:
God is meticulously sovereign in that “everything down to the minutest details of history and individual lives, including persons’ thoughts and actions, are foreordained and rendered certain by God. Even evil thoughts and actions are planned and brought about such that God ‘sees to it’ that they happen to carry out his will. Nothing at all, whatever, falls outside God’s predestining plan and activity”
Arminianism – God doesn't cause evil but God does allow it.
Arminians cannot escape the conclusion that if God determines all human actions, then God is the author of evil; indeed, God would then be the first and only sinner ‘.
Arminians believe in free will because of their understanding of God ‘s goodness. Arminianism begins with God ‘s goodness and ends by affirming free will.
Arminians believe God has absolute power over all creation, but that he also has the power to give his creatures (human beings) freedom to make some real choices, without threatening his overall plan and purpose for the world.
“Open theism,” also known as “openness theology,” the “openness of God,” and “free will theism,” is an attempt to explain the foreknowledge of God in relationship to the free will of man. The argument of open theism is essentially this: human beings are truly free; if God absolutely knew the future, human beings could not truly be free. Therefore, God does not know absolutely everything about the future. Open theism holds that the future is not knowable. Therefore, God knows everything that can be known, but He does not know the future.
When I read the New Testament is read that God is at war with evil, not in collusion with it.
Yes, God is all-powerful and all good. But, I would argue that God does not always get His way.
You have to factor in the reality that human beings and spiritual beings have free will to either partner with God for all that is good and beautiful and true, or to rebel and rage against God.
Dr. Gerry Breshears puts it this way:
"Evil is the result of the morally significant, free actions of God's creatures. Meaning evil is not the result of God at all. Evil is the result of the freedom that God built into the fabric of the universe."
Look at Jesus
Jesus is the true revelation of God, and that if we want to see God, we should look to Jesus.
- Did Jesus go around kidnapping children?
- Did he orchestrate murder?
- Did he give cancer to people?
- Did he start earthquakes that wiped out parts of countries?
- Did he cause marriages to fail? Did he ever condone any of it or not act to stop these things?
We can see from the Gospels that Jesus acted against suffering in many different ways.
Let’s look at Jesus' prayer. So, we say it all the time. "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
So, just think about that for just a moment, because we say that all the time. "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth."
Notice that Jesus assumes something in that prayer. He assumes that right now God's will is not done on earth.
On earth, there are other wills at play. There are at least five that I'm aware of:
1. God's will
2. My will
3. Other people's will
4. Satan and the powers
5. Natural calamities
A lot of times you can look to a bad event in your life and you can say, "That was God. That was me. That was my own stupidity and immaturity. That was somebody else who said this about me. That was Satan. I really believe that was just life."
But, a lot of the time, it's not like that. It's complex and it's messy and it's ambiguous.
We need to learn how to embrace mystery.
What about Job?
Job demanded an audience with God and an opportunity to pose questions about his great suffering and to lament his anguish to God, and God gave him that opportunity. In response to Job, God did not offer specific explanations. He reminded Job that there was much about the world that he did not understand, and yet he was nevertheless able to accept those limitations and continue trusting God on the basis of what he did know about God.
"Christ's incarnation, death and resurrection reveal that, though God is not culpable for the evil in the world, He nevertheless takes responsibility for the evil in the world. And, in taking responsibility for it, He overcomes it. On the cross, God suffers at the hands of evil. And in this suffering and through His resurrection, He, in principle, destroys evil. Through the cross and resurrection, God unequivocally displays His loving character and establishes His loving purpose for the world, despite its evil resistance. He demonstrates that evil is not something God wills into existence, it is something He wills out of existence." Greg Boyd
- Did Jesus go around kidnapping children?
- Did he orchestrate murder?
- Did he give cancer to people?
- Did he start earthquakes that wiped out parts of countries?
- Did he cause marriages to fail? Did he ever condone any of it or not act to stop these things?
We can see from the Gospels that Jesus acted against suffering in many different ways.
Let’s look at Jesus' prayer. So, we say it all the time. "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
So, just think about that for just a moment, because we say that all the time. "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth."
Notice that Jesus assumes something in that prayer. He assumes that right now God's will is not done on earth.
On earth, there are other wills at play. There are at least five that I'm aware of:
1. God's will
2. My will
3. Other people's will
4. Satan and the powers
5. Natural calamities
A lot of times you can look to a bad event in your life and you can say, "That was God. That was me. That was my own stupidity and immaturity. That was somebody else who said this about me. That was Satan. I really believe that was just life."
But, a lot of the time, it's not like that. It's complex and it's messy and it's ambiguous.
We need to learn how to embrace mystery.
What about Job?
Job demanded an audience with God and an opportunity to pose questions about his great suffering and to lament his anguish to God, and God gave him that opportunity. In response to Job, God did not offer specific explanations. He reminded Job that there was much about the world that he did not understand, and yet he was nevertheless able to accept those limitations and continue trusting God on the basis of what he did know about God.
"Christ's incarnation, death and resurrection reveal that, though God is not culpable for the evil in the world, He nevertheless takes responsibility for the evil in the world. And, in taking responsibility for it, He overcomes it. On the cross, God suffers at the hands of evil. And in this suffering and through His resurrection, He, in principle, destroys evil. Through the cross and resurrection, God unequivocally displays His loving character and establishes His loving purpose for the world, despite its evil resistance. He demonstrates that evil is not something God wills into existence, it is something He wills out of existence." Greg Boyd
My answer would focus on what God has done, will do, and is doing about evil.
God gives us three gifts to ground us:
1. He shows us how he has dealt with evil and suffering in the past, which can comfort us by assuring us of God’s good character and power.
2. In the present, God gives us himself. He gives us the comfort and strength of his own presence, dwelling in us personally by his Holy Spirit and working in us through others in the church.
3. God points us toward the future with well-grounded hope that he will bring a final judgment and end to all sin and its curse throughout the whole creation (see Isaiah 25 and Revelation 21).
Sovereign vs Freedom (evil)
Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture and imprisonment. On the cross he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours. In his death, God suffers in love, identifying with the abandoned and godforsaken.
Why did he do it? The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us. Let’s see where this has brought us. If we again ask the question: ‘Why does God allow evil and suffering to continue?’ and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is. However, we now know what the answer isn’t. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us. It can’t be that he is indifferent or detached from our condition. God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.
God gives us three gifts to ground us:
1. He shows us how he has dealt with evil and suffering in the past, which can comfort us by assuring us of God’s good character and power.
2. In the present, God gives us himself. He gives us the comfort and strength of his own presence, dwelling in us personally by his Holy Spirit and working in us through others in the church.
3. God points us toward the future with well-grounded hope that he will bring a final judgment and end to all sin and its curse throughout the whole creation (see Isaiah 25 and Revelation 21).
Sovereign vs Freedom (evil)
Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture and imprisonment. On the cross he went beyond even the worst human suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours. In his death, God suffers in love, identifying with the abandoned and godforsaken.
Why did he do it? The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us. Let’s see where this has brought us. If we again ask the question: ‘Why does God allow evil and suffering to continue?’ and we look at the cross of Jesus, we still do not know what the answer is. However, we now know what the answer isn’t. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us. It can’t be that he is indifferent or detached from our condition. God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.