Answering Hard Questions (1): The problem of suffering

Scripture reading: 1 Peter 3:15-16

1 Peter 3:15–16 ESV

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

For the next four weeks, we will have a series on cultural apologetics. What are cultural apologetics? Apologetics is not about apologizing, but it is a combination of two words, apo (away), and logos (word). It means when a word comes your way, you can hit it back like a tennis ball. And in the modern day, we Christians often find a lot of tennis balls coming our way from atheists and people of other faiths. And so this month we will be brushing up our strokes, as the Apostle Peter commends us in today’s passage. He tells us to always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you and me for a reason for the hope that is in us.

And so this afternoon, standing across the tennis court is the Roger Federer of the atheists. It’s the problem of suffering, and it has a very strong serve. So a person comes up to you, ‘Hey, I heard you’re a Christian, and you believe that God is all good and all powerful. But if that’s the case, why is there so much suffering and evil in this world?’ So here’s the question.

The question: If God is all-good and all-powerful, why is there evil and suffering?

An Atheist takes this question and answers it in four steps.

1: If God is all-good, He would desire to prevent evil.

2: If God is all-powerful, He would be able to prevent evil.

3: If God is all-good and all-powerful, there would be no evil.

4: God therefore either doesn't exist, is not all-good, or is not all-powerful.

Colossians 2:8 ESV

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Now, there is a popular saying in American Football: the best defense is a good offense. If someone’s trying to attack you, you have to disarm them first. And so, being the kind and courteous Christians we are, we can go on the offense, and as we do, we can destroy their arguments and drag their rationalizations to bow at the throne of Christ.

2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

So here’s our strategy. First, we’ll go on the offense and sow the seeds of doubt into the heart of the Atheist. And then we’ll show the beauty of Jesus Christ and win their hearts over to God. Amen?

Offense 1: If God is out of the picture, is it a better picture?

Many people see the evil and suffering going on in the world, and they think, ‘God must not exist, or else He would have done something about this.’ And so they remove God from the equation. But the reality is that evil and suffering still exists, and taking God out of the picture doesn’t help to answer the question.

In fact, if you take God out of the picture, you cannot even ask the question. If God doesn’t exist, then to whom are you addressing the question? The only answer is that there is no why. There is no reason. Atheists have no answer for the harshness of reality. All they can do is grit their teeth in silence. How is that any better? Disbelieving in God doesn’t actually make it easier to live in a world of evil and suffering.

Offense 2: What do you mean by evil?

Next, we can ask the Atheist, ‘What do you mean by evil?’ Because a world without God is a world without any solid foundation for judging between good and evil.

What do we mean by this? The point of morality is that there is a specific way that human beings ought to live. There is a specific way that human beings ought to treat each other. There is a specific way that human beings ought to treat the environment.

And the only context in which all human beings ought to follow a universal standard of right and wrong is if there is a greater being who deserves the obedience of all humankind. And that greater being deserves our obedience because we, in some way, belong to it.

Now the problem is that without God in the picture, the next highest source we can think of for moral guidance are ourselves, human beings. And this is the part where it gets impossible, because without a higher objective standard of morality, it’s all about the moral feelings and moral convictions that you’re brought up with. Your culture, then, dictates how you feel about certain things being good and certain things being evil.

Here’s an example. There once was a man in Britain, a thousand years ago, who had two desires within him. The first was a desire to vent his rage and kill another person. The second was a lust for another man. But he was brought up to think that it’s okay to kill another person in rage, and that a man shouldn’t lust for another man.

Now there’s another man in modern day Britain who has the same two desires. But now the culture’s telling a different story. It’s wrong to kill another person, but he should act on his lust and desires.

See, anyone can say, “I feel this is the right thing to do.” The story of their culture guides their actions. But in that case, how can you say to anyone else, “I feel this is the right thing for you to do”? They will just tell you to leave them alone, because they decide for themselves what is good or evil. And this applies to cultures as well. Who are we to tell the Taliban and other terrible groups that they are wrong if all we can say is ‘I feel that what you’re doing is evil’?

There was once a woman who didn’t believe in God. She witnessed cases of female genital mutilation in Africa, and she felt it was absolutely wrong. But she realized that she had no way of saying to another culture, “You ought to stop doing this because it’s immoral.” She realized that she had no intellectual basis to tell them to listen to her version of what’s right and wrong.

Under what basis can we say to Putin, 'Stop invading Ukraine'?

See, Atheists believe that the universe was not created on purpose. They say that the universe was an accident, and that the ultimate reality is not a personal God, but an impersonal force. And so if everything came about by accident, then it’s free game when it comes to what’s right and wrong.

In fact, that is the exact temptation that the serpent used in the garden of Eden. Look at what the serpent said to Eve.

Genesis 3:5 ESV

For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The serpent wants people to depend on themselves, not God, to decide what’s good and evil, right and wrong. Nowadays, people feel moral outrage if you even call them a pronoun they did not decide for themselves.

But as we’ve seen, without God, you can have moral feelings. You can have moral convictions. But what you cannot have is an objective standard of good and evil. Those words lose their very substance the moment God is out of the picture. All you’re left with are moral feelings, and your argument that God therefore cannot exist is all over the floor. So the final argument of the Atheist must therefore be rephrased accordingly:

If God is all-good and all-powerful, why is there evil? (according to what I think is evil, even though other people don’t agree with me)

And in conclusion of our offense, we need to address one final thing. Some people might say, ‘But good and evil should be measured in terms of their consequences. So if the consequences of an action are beneficial, it’s a good thing.’ This is called consequentialism.

But the problem with this theory of consequentialism is that we don’t even know the outcomes of certain things. How can we decide if our actions are objectively beneficial or not?

Let me tell you a story.

One upon a time, there was an old Chinese farmer. He had one old horse that he used to plough his fields. One day, the horse ran away into the hills. Everyone said, ‘We are so sorry for your bad luck.’

The old man replied, ‘Bad luck, good luck, who knows?’

A week later, the horse returned with a herd of wild horses that now belonged to the old man. Everyone said, ‘We are so happy for your good luck!’

The old man replied, ‘Good luck, bad luck, who knows?’

While his only son was riding one of the wild horses, he fell off and broke his leg. Everyone said, ‘What bad luck!’

The old man replied, ‘Bad luck, good luck, who knows?’

One day, the army came to the village, and took all the strong young men to be soldiers for the emperor. Only the old farmer’s son was spared because he could not fight with a broken leg. Everyone said, ‘What good luck!’

The old man replied, ‘Good luck, bad luck, who knows?’

So the idea of finding an objective standard of good and evil using consequences doesn’t help the atheist’s case at all.

Now that we’ve gone on the offense, it’s time to go on defense. As Christians, how should we think about the reality of evil and suffering in our world?

Defense 1: We live in a fallen world

The Christian story is a drama with four acts.

Act 1: Creation

Act 2: Fall

Act 3: Redemption

Act 4: Consummation

In the first act, there is no pain and suffering. Adam and Eve are happily in the garden of the Lord. In the second act, the serpent deceives Eve and both Adam and Eve sin against God. In the third act, God works to redeem His people, and that reaches its climax in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And now we are living in the time period between the third and fourth acts, waiting for Jesus to return and bring an end to all evil and suffering. In fact, not only are the saints of God earnestly awaiting for the end of suffering, but even the whole creation groans in pain. It is a cosmic suffering brought about because of sin.

Romans 8:22 ESV

For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.

And so Christianity points out the reason why there is evil and suffering in the world: the human race has rejected God’s idea of what is good and evil, and in doing so has ushered in sin and death, evil and suffering.

Romans 5:12 ESV

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

See, the Bible doesn’t hold back when it talks about the sinfulness of humanity. In fact, it explains why human beings are so evil. In our spiriual brokenness and detachment from God, we are like beasts living according to Darwin’s law of natural selection. The law of natural selection says that it’s about the survival of the fittest, where the strong prey on the weak. This explains why human beings are capable of such evil the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Polpot, and events of 9-11.

Mark 7:21 ESV

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

Psalm 49:20 ESV

Man in his pomp yet without understanding is like the beasts that perish.

And so what the Bible does is that it takes suffering and places it within a wider context of the history of redemption.

The 20th century was the bloodiest century of human history, with about 231 million people having been killed or allowed to die, in wars and conflicts.

The atheist’s story says that evil is the result of evolutionary biology. The Christian story says that evil is the result of sin, spiritual brokenness, and being separated from God. And it was Jesus who taught us to pray, ‘Deliver us from evil’ (Matt. 6:13).

When placed side by side, the story of Christianity makes much more sense than the story of Darwin.

If God is all-good and all-powerful, why is there evil and suffering?

There is evil and suffering because humanity rejected the God who is all-good and all-powerful.

Defense 2: God is all-good. God is not morally indifferent, nor morally wicked

The Christian story also tells us two things about God. First, the all-good and all-powerful God is not morally indifferent. First, in His all-goodness, He saw our pitiful state of suffering and did something about it. And so we can say that God is not morally indifferent. He cares for humanity. But second, God is not morally wicked. He saw the debt of sin, and He paid the price of sin. The justice of God requires death for sin, and God doesn’t compromise one inch on justice. He is absolutely just. He is not morally wicked. And so the Christian story is the story of the crucified Savior.

Jesus’ death on the cross shows that God is willing to give even Himself to death in order to save us. That is not a God who is morally indifferent, nor morally wicked. God is all-good.

What this tells us is that whatever reason there might be for our sufferings, we can know what the reason is not: It cannot be that God doesn’t love us. It cannot be that God isn’t all-good.

And so we can develop our response to the main question further.

If God is all-good and all-powerful, why is there evil and suffering?

There is evil and suffering because humanity rejected the God who is all-good and all-powerful, but He has signaled the end of evil and suffering through the cross.

Revelation 21:4 ESV

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Conclusion: God is all-good and all-powerful

C.S. Lewis wrote two books on suffering. In the first book, entitled ‘The Problem of Pain’, he wrote that pain was “God’s megaphone to a deaf world.” He saw pain as a tool which God used to awaken people to their need for Him. It was an intellectual answer to the reality of suffering. But he published a second book two decades later, entitled ‘A Grief Observed’, in which he recounts his wife’s slow and painful death from cancer.

And throughout his wife’s longdrawn suffering, he earnestly wished with all his heart to alleviate some of her pain by taking it onto himself. He didn’t have the goodness to wish to die in her place, nor did he have the power to take her suffering upon himself. But through that event, he realized that this was precisely what Jesus did when He went to the cross. God is all-good, and all-powerful.

C.S. Lewis: ‘I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen – not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else.’