NO BETTER ANSWER

NO BETTER ANSWER

Of all the challenges thrown at Christianity in modern times, perhaps the most difficult is explaining the problem of suffering.

How can a loving God allow suffering to continue in the world which He created?

Scottish Philosopher David Hume puts it this way:

“Were a stranger to drop suddenly into this world, I would show him as a specimen of its ills a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a filed strewn with carcasses, a fleet floundering in the ocean, nation languishing under tyranny, famine or pestilence. Honestly I don’t see how you can possibly square with an ultimate purpose of love.”

As a counterpoint, here is GK Chesterton, English Philosopher, and lay Theologian:

“When belief in God is difficult, the tendency is to turn away from Him; but in Heaven’s name to what?”

To the Christian believer, he cannot deny that a meaningful answer can be found. But has the one who denies God found a better answer to his own question?

The point is this: if we remove God and affirm that he does not exist because he couldn’t do anything about it why blame him? It is pointless to discuss the morality of suffering or evil or talk about right and wrong or what is good and bad in this world if God did not exist. If everything simply happened by chance then everything is neither good nor evil; we just have to take things as it is and coast along this fatalistic void, for there is no point in making sense out of it. It is irrational for one to cry out for love, sympathy, mercy or justice if one views life as a mere chance occurrence or the product of happenstance. All he could do, is do what he thinks is right in his own eyes.     

Christian theism is, in fact, the only worldview which can consistently make sense of the problem of evil and suffering. Christians serve a God who has lived on this earth and endured trauma, temptation, bereavement, torture, hunger, thirst, persecution and even execution.

The cross of Christ can be regarded as the ultimate manifestation of God’s justice. When asked how much God cares about the problem of evil and suffering, the Christian God can point to the cross and say, “That much.” Christ experienced physical pain as well as feelings of rejection and abandonment. He experienced the same suffering as many people today who know the bitterness of isolation, pain, and anguish.