Doesn't Suffering Disprove God?

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We’re in a sermon series called ‘The Big Questions’ and tonight’s is, ‘Doesn’t suffering disprove God?’ Well, listen to what the writer George Bernard Shaw said:

How are atheists produced? In probably nine times out of ten, like this: A beloved wife, or husband, or child or sweetheart is gnawed to death by cancer or strangled by diphtheria, and the looker-on, after praying vainly to God to refrain from such cruelty, indignantly repudiates his faith in the divine monster and becomes not merely indifferent and sceptical, but fiercely hostile to religion.

Ie, suffering does disprove God, because if there was one, he wouldn’t let it happen. Here’s how C.S. Lewis sums up the problem in his book, The Problem of Pain:If God were good, he would wish to make his creatures happy and if God were almighty he would be able to do what he wished, but the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness or power, or both. That is the problem of pain in its simplest form.

But before seeing how the Bible speaks to that problem, let me turn the tables and say: if you don’t believe in God, suffering is still a big problem for you. And I don’t just mean you still have to live with it. I mean you have a big intellectual problem, too. So my first heading is:


First, THE PROBLEM FOR UNBELIEVERS

I think, for example, of the times I watch the TV news with friends who’d say they don’t believe in God. It’s the usual catalogue of suffering: a terrorist bomb here, an earthquake there, a murder here, a sex-crime there. And each of them reacts out loud: ‘That’s so awful. That’s so evil.’

Now what’s going on there? It’s a deep, instinctive reaction that suffering is an evil, that’s it’s something that ought not to be, that the world should be different. But where does that reaction come from? You see, if you believe there’s no God, and that this universe is just the product of chance and time, then you have no reason to think it should be any different, and no basis for saying some things ought to happen and some things ought not, that some things are good and some things are evil. Because only if there’s a good and personal God behind this universe do we have any basis for expecting it to be good, or for defining some things as good and others as evil. So if you’re not yet a believer in the God of the Bible, your big intellectual problem is that you can’t call the terrorist bomb or the earthquake or the murder or the sex-crime ‘evil.’ And nor can you explain your reaction to those things. Because your worldview says, ‘Suffering isn’t an evil – there’s no such thing. Suffering’s just a fact. And why did you expect things to be any different in a universe kicked up by chance and time?’ And yet I guess you do call those things evil, and you do have that deep, instinctive reaction that the world ‘ought’ not to be like this. But that word ‘ought’ can only come from the existence of a good and personal God behind it.

So that’s the first thing to say: unbelievers have a big intellectual problem, too. And, far from suffering disproving God, our instinctive reaction to it points the other way – to the existence of God.

OK, back to the problem for those of us who do believe in the God of the Bible. So, my second heading is:


Second, THE PROBLEM FOR BELIEVERS

And at this point, would you turn in the Bibles to p3, Genesis 1. So look down to Genesis 1 and vv1-3:

1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light [and so on].

So Genesis 1 tells us that, from nothing, God created everything that exists and therefore has complete control over it. And that complete control – where nothing happens without him willing it or allowing it – is what Christians call God’s sovereignty.

Now turn over to Genesis 1.31. God has created the stage of the earth and then placed on it the leading actor, mankind. And, look at v31:

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

And it was good because God is good. So the Bible says: God is both good and sovereign. Yet our experience of suffering seems to say he can’t be. That’s the problem for believers. So what do we go with – what the Bible says, or what experience seems to say? Well, onto my third heading:


Third, WHY DO WE BELIEVE IN GOD’S GOODNESS AND SOVEREIGNTY?

And the answer is not because we can read them straightforwardly and unambiguously off our experience. For example, at 9.30am on 15th January this year, as I looked at my newborn twin daughters lying in a warming incubator, it was overwhelmingly clear to me that God was good and sovereign – that although I’d been a pro-creator, these little lives didn’t ultimately come from me, but like the Psalm says, were ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ by someone else. But what about friends who’ve had babies with Downs syndrome, or miscarriages, or infertility? What do you read off those experiences? The fact is: experience in this fallen world is far too ambiguous for us to read.

And Christian faith doesn’t rest on deductions from experience. It rests on the fact that God has revealed himself to us. Now that’s the big question next week – ‘Why doesn’t God show himself?’ So all I’m going to say for now is that we believe God has revealed himself – supremely in sending his Son into this world as a man, the man Jesus: who really lived 2,000 years ago, who really died on a cross to pay for our forgiveness, and who really rose from the dead and returned to his Father in heaven. So if Beth or Ellie had been disabled, and you’d asked me, ‘Don’t you find it harder, now, to believe in God’s goodness and sovereignty?’ I might well have said, ‘Yes, harder.’ But faith is anchored in the unchanging facts of the death and resurrection of Jesus. And I trust the Lord would have enabled me to say, ‘But I do still believe he’s good, because he gave his Son to die for my forgiveness on the cross. And I do still believe he’s sovereign, because Jesus rose from the dead and is ruling in control over everything.’

And if we’re believers, we need to avoid misreading our experience. And we need to read off the Lord’s death and resurrection his unchanging goodness and sovereignty, whatever is going on in our lives right now. We may not be able to understand how he’s being good to us in the things he’s allowing, but we need to keep trusting that he’s being good to us.
So onto my fourth heading:


Fourth, WHY, THEN, IS THERE SUFFERING IN THE WORLD?

The Bible’s foundational answer to that is Genesis chapter 3, but to understand it, we need to look at chapter 2. So look on in the Bibles to Genesis chapter 2 and vv16-17:

16And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.

Now ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ stands for who has the right to define what is good and evil, who has the wisdom to draw that moral line. And God is saying to man: ‘You don’t. You’re free, but you’re not free to draw the line between good and evil for yourself. You’re to live under my wisdom and authority.’ That’s how we were meant to live. And at the end of v17, God says, ‘If you won’t live like that, if you rebel against me, then (end of v17), ‘you will surely die.’ And that is what happens to Adam and Eve. And just as a prime minister declaring war on another country drags his whole country into war, so Adam and Eve declaring war on God – rebelling against God – dragged us all into rebellion. So you and I were not born like Adam and Eve were created – namely, good and flawless. We were born like Adam and Eve became – namely, rebellious and fallen. So look on to chapter 3, vv1-6:

1Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. [The Bible later says: the serpent represents Satan, the devil (see Revelation 12.9) – a spiritual being who rebelled against God and subsequently enticed mankind to.] He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?" [Ie, ‘How restrictive of God. Wouldn’t you rather be totally free?’]2The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' " 4"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman. [ie, ‘You can rebel without bad consequences.’] 5"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." [Ie, ‘Don’t you want to be like God, deciding for yourself how to live?’]6When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom [ie, gaining for herself the right to define what’s good and evil] she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

So they became rebels against God (or sinners, to use the precise Bible word), and that sin has been transmitted down our race ever since. And how serious you understand that rebellion to be will determine your reaction to the rest of this chapter. Because the rest of Genesis 3 says that suffering is the consequence of sin which God both allows and imposes. And he does that partly as a judgement on the utter wrongness of refusing to treat him as God; and partly as a mercy – as a ‘wake-up’ call to turn back to him. And if you see rebellion against God as just a small thing, you’ll be offended by the rest of this chapter.

But just think what rebellion against God really is – and what we’re doing whenever we sin. It means saying to God, ‘I’m the centre of the universe, and you’re not.’ It means saying to God, ‘I’ll take the life you’ve given me, but now keep out of it.’ And just think where that rebellion, which lies in the hearts of each one of us, came most clearly to the surface in human history: think of how we nailed the Son of God to a cross, to say as strongly as we could, ‘We don’t want you to be God over us.’ If we have even an inkling of how offensive our rebellion looks to God, we won’t be offended by the rest of this chapter. But nor will we find it easy to hear.

You remember God said, back in chapter 2 v17, ‘If you rebel, you will surely die.’ And in the Bible, death doesn’t mean the end of existence. It means a terrible change of existence, a sub-existence that’s a shadow of the one we were created to have, in relationship with God. So Adam and Eve die at chapter 3 and v7. So read on and see the living death they plunged us all into, vv7-13:

7Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. [So in comes the suffering of shame and fear. Shame, because we’re now living the way we want, not the way God wants – and deep down we know that’s wrong. And fear, because we know others living the way they want may hurt us and use us, rather than love and protect us. So we cover up, we retreat from relationship.]8Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" 10He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid." [So in comes the suffering of guilt: a bad conscience before God, and fear of God – which is why, apart from faith in Christ, people fear death, our ultimate appointment with God. v11:]11And [God] said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" 12The man said, "The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." 13Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate.

As someone put it, ‘The man blamed the woman, the woman blamed the serpent and the serpent didn’t have a leg to stand on.’ And after getting a confession from them, God passes sentence. And the most encouraging thing is who he sentences first. Look at vv14-15:

14So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. 15And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

That’s a promise that Satan, and the rebellion he’s led with all its resulting suffering, will ultimately be overthrown. How? Look at the end of v15: one of the woman’s offspring – a man, yet to be born – will crush Satan, and at the same time be struck himself. And the New Testament (NT) echoes Genesis 3.15 in verses about Jesus’ death on the cross and his coming again (see, eg, John 12.30-33, 1 John 3.8, Romans 16.20). Because in paying on the cross for our forgiveness, so we could come back into relationship with God, the Lord Jesus did defeat Satan, just as D-day in World War 2 defeated Hitler. But Hitler wasn’t overthrown until V-day, when D-day’s consequences finally worked themselves out in victory. And likewise, Satan won’t be overthrown until the risen Lord Jesus finally returns.

And meanwhile, those of us who have been forgiven back onto his side remain in a world at war with God. So we still suffer God’s blanket judgements on the human race – like sickness and death; believers are not immune to those. And we still suffer being sinned against. And we still suffer the frustration of our own ongoing sinfulness. But the good news, embedded as early in the Bible as Genesis 3, v15, is that for those trusting in Christ, evil will be brought to an end. It’ll be overthrown, as we say in the creed, when Jesus comes again to judge the living and the dead. And at the other end of the Bible, the book of Revelation says this about the sin-free new creation that believers will be raised into:

[God] will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Revelation 21.4)

So the Bible’s ultimate answer to the question of evil and suffering is not so much an explanation of how it began, but the promise that it will be brought to an end – in the sense that there will be a new creation perfectly free of evil, because evil has been confined to hell. So that means justice will finally be done on everyone – even those who escaped justice in this life. That’s something the atheist can’t say. And there will finally be a place totally free of evil. That’s something the humanist can’t say – because there’s precious little evidence that the human race is evolving to become free of evil. And it’s something the eastern religions can’t say – because they mostly say that good and evil have always been there, so presumably always will be. The Bible is unique in saying: evil and suffering had a historical beginning and will be brought to an end, when Jesus returns to wrap up history. And if we are forgiven and on the right side of him, that’s a precious truth to put our hope in.

Now look on to the sentence on mankind, vv16-19:

16To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." [Literally, ‘You will desire to dominate your husband, but he will dominate you.’ So suffering comes into motherhood, and in the form of the battle of the sexes.]17To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. 18It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. [So suffering comes in the form of the struggle even to survive in a now unruly and threatening natural environment.]19By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." [So suffering comes in the ultimate form of God imposing mortality on us.]

So suffering is the consequence of sin which God both allows and imposes. But that doesn’t mean that each specific bit of suffering is a judgement on a specific sin. Some people think like that, don’t they? Something bad happens and they ask, ‘What is God punishing me for?’ Now sometimes you can trace specific suffering back to specific sin – eg, liver failure back to alcohol abuse. But we ,i>can’t make specific connections like that for all suffering, and shouldn’t try. What we can do is to say: there would be no suffering if there had been no sin.

So why does God both allow and impose suffering?

Well, on the one hand, it’s a judgment – to show us the utter wrongness of rebelling against God; and to bring it home to us, above all through our mortality, that he is the living God and we are not, and that it’s the height of folly to think that we can enjoy life without problems or pain, while rejecting the source of life.

But, on the other suffering is a mercy, designed to beg in us the question, ‘Why?’ – Why are there natural disasters? Why do people have to get sick and die? Why do we get hurt and hurt others?’ And God’s aim is to bring out in us that deep, instinctive reaction that things ought not to be this way, and to beg the underlying question, ‘What’s gone wrong?’ And the answer he wants us to come to is, ‘We have.’ And if suffering is part of what gets us to that point, where we see our need to be put right with God, then it is a mercy.

C.S.Lewis called his book The Problem of Pain. But actually, in a fallen world, the absence of pain would be an even bigger problem. Eg, we have a family friend who’s lost all sensation in her right arm. So she could accidentally put her hand on a hot electric ring and the first she’d know about it would be the smell of burning. You see, pain is good in this sense: that it warns us that something is wrong, so that we can take action.

And through suffering, God is warning the human race that the most fundamental thing – our relationship with him – is wrong, and that, if we haven’t already done so, we need to take action to receive his forgiveness and accept him as the rightful ruler of our lives, as he should have been all along. C.S Lewis puts it like this:

Error and sin both have this property: the deeper they are, the less their victims suspect their existence. They are masked evil. Pain, on the other hand, is unmasked evil... that is impossible to ignore. We can rest contentedly in our sins and our stupidities... even in our pleasures... But pain insists on being attended to: God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but he shouts in our pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. (The Problem of Pain)

So, why is there suffering – doesn’t it disprove God? The Bible doesn’t give an answer to that question which begs no further questions. You can always push it back and ask, ‘If God knew we’d rebel (which he did), and knew about all the suffering that would result (which he did), why did he go ahead and create in the first place?’ But then we’re beginning to sound like Adam blaming Eve and Eve blaming the serpent – and both of them by implication blaming God for the whole situation. And the question each of us really has to answer is this: ‘Is God to blame for the way the world is, or am I?’ I can’t answer that question for you. But which way you do answer it will determine on which side of God you ultimately stand.


POST SCRIPT

The ‘brief’ for this talk was to tackle one specific question about suffering – one which certainly occurs to believers and one which is often thrown at believers by others. But I’m conscious that for many believers, suffering doesn’t raise the question, ‘Is God really there?’ – but it does raise the question, ‘What is he up to? Why is he allowing me (or others) to go through this?’ And there are other things that believers need to hear all of which would be separate sermons in themselves. It would be another sermon to look at how God uses suffering to refine our faith in him and to develop in us more Christ-likeness of character (see, eg, 1 Peter 1.6-7, James 1.2-4, Romans 5.3-4, 8.28-30). It would be another sermon to look at the book of Job, and to learn the lesson that we will not always understand why God has allowed something (either at the time, or even in retrospect), and that sometimes the ‘answer’ is simply to keep trusting in the darkness what we knew to be true in the light. And it would be another sermon to ponder the precious truth that, when we are in the thick of suffering of any sort, the Lord Jesus can sympathise with us from within his own experience: he has been here, he has experienced the full range of human suffering and pain – even to death (see Hebrews 2.14-18, 4.14-16, 5.7-10). And he, more genuinely than any other person, can say to us, ‘I know how you feel.’

Tonight’s passage has vital things to say about how suffering entered God’s good creation. But we need these other parts of the Bible (and more) to help us not just understand (to the extent that we can) the ‘Why’ of suffering, but to continue to trust the Lord, and so find comfort in him, in the midst of our suffering.

5Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him. 6He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken. 7My salvation and my honour depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge. 8Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. (Psalm 62.5-8)


May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15.13)


3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. 5For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. (2 Corinthians 1.3-5)




FOR MORE ON THIS QUESTION...
If You Could Ask God One Question, Paul Williams, Christianity Explored Books, chapter 10 [This is the ‘book of the sermon series’, answering twelve of the questions commonly asked about the Christian faith.]
How Long, O Lord? Don Carson, IVP [This is an overview of the Bible’s teaching on suffering to help Christians face it with faith and perseverance.]
The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis, Fount/Harper Collins [A classic ‘apologetic’ book dealing with the intellectual problem of suffering.]

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