Why Does God Allow Pain, Evil & Suffering?
Does suffering prove or disprove the existence and the sovereignty of God?
“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of “just and “unjust?”…What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust?… Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that, then my argument against God collapsed too— for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies…Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons to allow it to continue that you can’t know. You can’t have it both ways.”
Tim Keller, The Reason for God
Two broad categories of suffering: Physiological and psychological
“God does not keep all bad things from happening to us…Our Creator lets us remain vulnerable.”
Tish Harrison Warren, Prayer in the Night
What good can come out of suffering?
- Service
- Christlikeness
- Glory to God
“In our world of loneliness and despair, there is an enormous need for men and women who know the heart of God, a heart that forgives, cares, reaches out, and wants to heal.”
Henri J.M. Nowen, In the Name of Jesus
What comfort can we take in our suffering?
- The presence of Christ: I will be with you
- The power of Christ: Take heart, I have overcome
- The fellowship of suffering Christ has with us: We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses
“The unexpected development in the story of Psalm 23 is that the good shepherd’s path of righteousness sometimes includes the valley of the shadow of death. …The valley, the days of deep darkness, do not mean we have left the paths of righteousness; in fact, they are where the shepherd’s paths of righteousness are sometimes located…It is not possible for the sheep to have an encounter with either death or its advance shadow that is outside God’s decree and his loving, fatherly care.”
David Gibson, The Lord of Psalm 23
“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.”
Tim Keller, The Reason for God
What telos— what end is there to suffering?
“They say of some temporal suffering, “No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
“The answer of Christianity…is— yes. Everything sad is going to come untrue, and it will somehow be *greater* for having once been broken and lost.”
Tim Keller, The Reason for God
The other gods were strong; but Thou wast weak; They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne; But to our wounds only God’s wounds can speak, And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.”
Edward Shillito, Jesus of the Scars
