This week we take a break from our Relationships in the Church series. At Faith Church this past week I gave a Q & A sermon. I asked the congregation for questions ahead of time, and then I attempted to bring biblical theology to bear on their questions. Here’s the next question:
As Christians, how do we effectively respond to the very valid question by those who say that a good and loving God would never allow all the terrible things that happen in this world?
First of all, I agree that this is a very valid question. It’s a serious question, and an important question. We Christians should treat those asking the question with great respect. We need to be careful that we don’t become jaded about people who ask this question. Frankly, in our quiet moments I think nearly all Christians wonder about this too.
Second of all, it is a very difficult question. While I believe there are some good answers, I do not believe there are any deeply satisfying answers. In other words, I think the best approach to this question is honest humility that says, “I don’t know that I will be able to give you a satisfying answer.” I don’t believe there is an answer that is so good, so helpful, so truthful that when people asking this question hear the answer they will say, “Amazing! I never thought about that! God is awesome. Jesus is the way the truth and the life, and I am a Christian now. Thank you for sharing that with me. You’ve changed my life.” If there was an answer that good, we would have heard about it already.
There is no home run answer like that. There are, however, options. After saying to the questioner, “I don’t know,” I think we can say, “I believe it is possible to believe in both a loving, all-powerful God and the presence of evil in the world.” How so? Here’s where my answer is going to become very dissatisfying.
Let me bring up a theological word: Theodicy. Theodicy is a word that refers to an attempt to defend the concept of a loving, all-powerful God at the same time as there is evil and suffering in the world. Some people say you cannot have both. If God is loving and all-powerful, by definition, they say there cannot be evil or suffering. Because there is obviously evil and suffering in the world, by definition God cannot be loving and all-powerful. Something has to give, they say. Maybe God is loving, but not all-powerful. Or maybe God is all-powerful, but not loving. Or maybe there is no God.
Theodicy is an attempt to solve this very thorny problem. We Christians declare that it is entirely logically consistent to believe in an all-powerful, loving God while there is evil and suffering in the world, and many people in the world hear that and think we are out of our minds. Theodicy says “No, we’re not out of our minds, and here’s why.”
There are numerous theodicies, but the one I find most plausible is based on Free Will. Free will theodicy says that God, in his desire to have real loving relationships with humans, created us in his image to have some level of agency, choice, free will. Remove free will and humans are basically like robots following their programming or like animals following instinct. No real choice, no real love. But God wanted real loving relationships with us, so he created humanity with free will. Hear the beauty in that: God wants a real relationship with us, real relationship that involves conversation, choice, interaction, us choosing him.
This was risky, however, on God’s part. The risk was that his created humans could use their free will to choose to do what he did not want them to do. We could choose to do very bad things to each other and to our world. But unless God wanted to make robots, then God would have to open the door to the possibility of evil and suffering. Free will suggests that it was God’s love that opened the door to real relationships and at the same time it opened the door to suffering. Free will says there is no other way.
You might think, that makes sense. God in his love wanted loving relationships. That desire for loving relationships is so good, so valuable, that it is worth the possibility of evil and suffering in the world. Problem solved.
Problem not solved. Why? Because there is so, so much evil and suffering in the world, and it is awful. It is horribly, horribly, horrible. The free will problem can make God, then, seem like he unleashed a nuclear chain reaction of radioactive waves that would ravage the world, just so he could have a loving relationship with people. That sounds monstrous. I don’t like it. I don’t know what to do about it. I think free will theodicy is one of the best answers we’ve got, and I also think it is brutal.
And I haven’t even mentioned the related issues. Stories like the Flood where God destroys nearly the whole world. Stories like the Israelite conquest passages where God commands his people to destroy not just enemy soldiers, but every man, woman, child, and even animals. Stories like the interpretation of hell as a place where God sends people to experience conscious torment for eternity. You can see how people can have a major problem with God. That’s why I started by suggesting that this is an important question we need to think about.
What then do we do with all the evil, pain, hurt and suffering in the world? Let’s pause and stare at Jesus. I simply have to say that I don’t know how to give a good, deeply satisfying answer to the problem of evil. But I can point people to Jesus. Loving, merciful, gracious, selfless Jesus. Jesus is God who enters into our pain, lives in the pain and experiences evil and wickedness on his body, to the point of death. Why? Just to say “I now know what you are going through?” No, to defeat sin, death and the devil through his resurrection. To give us new life hope of both eternal life with him in heaven where there will be no more pain, sorrow or tears, and also to give us his Spirit to live with us, so that we can experience and promote abundant flourishing life in the here and now.
Let’s look to the promise that within the evil and pain of this world, God promises to never leave us alone. He is with us. My own family has experienced God’s peace that passes understanding in the midst of pain and hardship. I suspect you could say the same. God created us to live in community, with one another, and when we are living like that, we embody him and his love and his heart to one another.
I think a loving, all-powerful God is real. I think free will is real. That means there will be sin and suffering. But praise God that Jesus is real, his birth, life, death and resurrection are real, and there is hope of new life for all.
Photo by Joice Kelly on Unsplash
Engaging Scripture 