"Why did God let Dad's plane crash?"
Despite what a lot of people believe about God, many people have the belief, whether consciously or subconsciously, that there is a God who controls all things. This belief often erupts after some major catastrophe occurs in a person's life and they will cry out, "WHY?". As a child, Dickson held this view too, "...I still held the conviction that the Creator was meant to be responsible for keeping the world together." So, when something terrible happens, we cry out, "why, God?". This reaction is only natural. We want there to be a 'reason' in an 'unreasonable' situation.What Does the Bible Say?
In the first section of the chapter, Dickson presents a few helpful ideas about the Bible. The Bible:
- Doesn't answer all our questions
- Doesn't present a "complete and final explanation for all the evil and suffering".
- BUT does offer the best explanation, "the least incoherent one."
Dickson argues that the Bible's perspective on evil and suffering seems to be the only one that holds up against the barrage of the "why?" questions. I think it's always helpful to think about what "the Bible's perspective" is on certain issues.
Does Suffering Disprove God?
The rest of the chapter takes us on a detour dealing with the question, "Does the existence of suffering disprove the existence of an all-powerful and all-loving God?". Can God really exist when there is all this pain and suffering in the world? Surely, if there really was a God, he would not let all this evil in the world. What kind of God allows that to happen?
When we discuss the issue of pain and suffering with people, it's clear that this is the argument that we most often hear. Dickson shows us, in a very coherent manner, the logic behind this view. Evil disproves God because an all-loving, all-powerful God would not allow evil to occur. Dickson makes this clearer by separating these two views: an all-powerful God would be ABLE to end suffering and an all-loving God would DESIRE to end suffering. Interesting. Here we have the underlying issues that people struggle with when they're dealing with pain and suffering. I know that for me, the "would desire" part is the most poignant. We know that God loves us, so why would he allow bad things to happen? But, not just bad things, bad things to ME?
Dickson pulls apart the logic in these assumptions by arguing that,
"the existence of suffering could be used as evidence against God's existence only if you could first prove that an all-loving God does not have good reasons for allowing suffering to continue...Until we could show categorically that there could not be loving purposes behind the continuation of suffering, the logical force of the argument dissolves, even though its emotional force remains."
In reaching this point, Dickson alters the argument to be like this: An all-powerful and all-loving God exists - YES. Suffering exists - YES. So, "God must have loving reasons for permitting suffering" - YES? So we can understand now that the existence of suffering is not an intellectual dilemma, but it's an EMOTIONAL dilemma. When you're dealing with pain and suffering, you're approaching it from an emotional perspective, so rationality goes out the window. This is helpful to remember, especially when you're talking to someone about this. How, then, do you deal with the emotional side of this issue?
I guess at the heart of the issue, if we really delved into it further, is that we want to know what the "loving reasons" are. Will we ever know what they are? But, would that make it any easier for us to deal with suffering?
What do you think?
In relation to the point of people wanting a 'reason for the unreasonable', whilst I think that this is true in that humans are naturally curious about the hows and whys of life, I also sometimes wonder if we are not looking for somebody to blame. We humans are creatures who like control; we seek to point the finger and to claim compensation for wrongs done to us (perceived or actual). Perhaps when people ask God "why?", particularly when it comes to personal suffering as opposed to tragedies on the other side of the world, we are not only asking for the hows and whys, but also attempting to hold God to account and use it as a selfish bargaining tactic - "God, you owe me one after what you've put me through".
ReplyDeleteOn the topic of whether suffering disproves the existence of God, this reminds me of an email that did the rounds a while back. The gist of it was:
A Christian man was having his hair cut and chatting to the hairdresser when the subject of God came up. The hairdresser stated: "I don't believe in God - if He existed there wouldn't be any suffering in the world." The man could not think of an answer and changed the subject. Later, as he left the shop, he saw an unshaven man with long unkempt hair. He returned to the hairdresser and said to her, "Hairdressers don't exist - if you did, then there wouldn't be people like that man with the long dirty hair and unshaven face." Taken aback the hairdresser replied "Of course hairdressers exist - people just don't come to us!"
Now, I get that suffering is definitely not just the domain of those who don't come to the Lord, but I still like the analogy of how using the argument of suffering to disprove God is no different to using the argument that people with long, ratty hair disprove hairdressers.
On your final question Bron, I'm going to give a fence-sitting answer, sorry! Whether or not knowing the 'loving reasons' behind the suffering would help us deal with the pain of it would depend on the situation, and whether or not we (in our lack of wisdom and foresight) agreed with God's desired purpose. If we shared the desire for a particular outcome then it might make the suffering bearable - for example, knowing I was getting a baby out of labour and birth made the pain bearable. As an example for the other side of the fence, I think there are times when God lets us suffer to teach us lessons - be it patience or humility or whatever - and I think it would be easy to resent the suffering more so if we felt that His 'loving reasons' (or perhaps just the methods) were not in line with what we wanted for ourselves. A selfish and ungodly attitude, but very human, and very easy.
Interesting comments, Rae. Thanks for sharing them. I guess a lot of what comes out of our attitude to God and suffering is how we view ourselves and how we view God. If we see God as the Almighty Ruler of our lives and we trust in him, then I guess it makes it easier to trust that he has everything in his control. But, if we view him as a distant and inpersonal God, then maybe it will make it harder for use to accept the things that happen to us??
ReplyDelete