How can a God allow such suffering in our world? Wars are undertaken for a particular gain without seeking to estimate the cost of the damage to our world, our humanity. I recall calculating ‘collateral damage‘ impacts in the Iraqi War in 2003. Mathematical expressions denoting the percentage of innocent people killed in bombing raids. Plagues have ravaged our world throughout time: so God allows suffering?
Individual
How do we suffer today? It isn’t always through war. One way is through old age and loneliness, which may be hidden away in Care Homes. Why does God permit dementia etc? We may focus upon how we treat illnesses, but not identify with the reality of the ongoing life of that person. As a society, we may have kept the spotlight from mental illness. When someone dies, we may cover up our suffering by employing people to clean, dress, embalm and add makeup to the body. [1]
More of the background to this discussion is available….
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Where else may we suffer?
We are aware of the damage that drug and/or alcohol abuse can inflict on people, families. But there are also gambling, sexual, shopping addictions, pursuance of cosmetic surgery, even the endless desire to reconstruct ourselves on social media. Anything than to admit that we are suffering.
Suffering can be defined as a state of severe distress associated with events that threaten the intactness of the person. Suffering never affects only one part of a person but it affects the whole being; i.e. physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and social aspects.
Eric Cassel
Where does God fit in?
One response is to decry God, to suggest that we have misunderstood throughout civilisation that God was never there in the first place.
“God is a human construct, and somebody needs to send god back to rewrite.”
The Atlantic
Whereas the Greek gods were petty, arbitrary, powerful and mean-spirited, they seem to actually fit the world we live in. But Christians, Muslims and Jews all describe a God that is benevolent, just, omnipotent, and omniscient—which doesn’t fit our world one bit.
This may go back to our understanding of God. Is God one of love or an almighty figure? Can they be both?
Original Sin or Blessing
Many people believe in Original Sin, a formation from St Augustine in the 4th Century. While the early church talked about sin as an action or an illness, Augustine and others shifted language to an inborn sin nature. In our birth, God allows suffering? We might like to ponder whether Jesus believed in original sin. Our understanding may have developed from how we have processed the crucifixion.
Baptisms can occur early in our lives generally. Due to the sin of Adam, sin is naturally part of humanity. Therefore, baptism can wash away original sin, and is necessary for salvation. Or is it?
Original Blessing
Danielle Shroyer, a leading proponent of Original Blessing, writes:
Original blessing wisely reminds us we are all capable of both remarkable good and horrifying evil. It reminds us to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. You could say it’s a grace-filled view of humanity, but I wouldn’t call that optimistic. I’d call it the good news.
Danielle Shroyer
But God is more than that
At the funeral of Rachel Held-Evans, a theologian and writer, in May 2019, the minister said:
While there are those who would reduce the Christian Faith to moralism and delusional positivity – we know that the God we worship is not a shiny-toothed motivational speaker churning out cheerful memes in times of suffering. Because the God we worship is a crucified and risen God. Which is to say, we worship a God that is not unfamiliar with darkness:
Nadia Bolz-Weber
a God who comes close to those who mourn;
a God who comes close to those who stand outside of tombs; and
a God who is not far off, but who is as close as the choppy breath that falters in your weeping.
I’m reminded that in Todmorden we have held a Blue Christmas service, one in which the grief, however, that is expressed, is recognised, accepted and permitted to pour out.
A quote from the film ‘Collateral Beauty’ where a character who portrays love responds to a Father, beside himself with the loss of his child. Love is there, in the dark times as well as the good times.
From my perspective, that lady could have portrayed God. In this moment of great sadness, there was God, not running away, not shielded, but standing with us, crying with us, holding us.
It is one perspective.
What’s the outcome?
For compassion brings healing, although this can become drowned in hatred, anger and desire for revenge, rather than a simple assessment of the need for real justice. We are so influenced by cries of outrage in the media, that we are unable to discern the whole picture, and justly identify the real origins of evil. Suffering is a two edged sword: we need to be careful.
For some who ask this question it is a theoretical or theological question. But for others, and perhaps for you, suffering is not a problem to solve but an experience to endure and live with.
Suffering is a necessary feature of life?
Suffering is part of this world, sometimes the result of our actions and desires, sometimes the result of apparently arbitrary actions or events; hence, it would seem that God allows suffering. We might ask why God doesn’t intervene in these situations.
Even in the midst of tragic events, there are often stories of compassion, kindness or humanity that move us to tears – precisely because individuals have responded to their consciences and chosen a path of self-sacrifice in such desperate circumstances. Are we looking for examples of suffering, or examples of grace?
God also uses our experience of suffering to mould us into the people he wants us to be. Suffering, to some extent, is inevitable and it is foolish to expect to escape it. It can soften or harden us, or bend, distort or even break life. It can develop the virtues such as courage, patience, obedience, determination, pity and compassion. But does God allow suffering?
Some would say God allows suffering
The Billy Graham Institute suggests there are good outcomes; and a further quote from John Piper.
“One good thing that can come from this is a return to God”
Will Graham
“The reason that suffering exists in the universe is so that Christ might display the greatness of the glory of the grace of God in himself as he suffers, by entering into it, suffering himself, that he might by grace deliver us from everlasting suffering.“
John Piper
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Old and New Testament reflections on suffering
Joseph
Do you recall the story of Joseph in the Hebrew Scriptures? He is cast aside by his brothers, sold into slavery, ending up in Egypt. Eventually he meets up with his brothers again, where he is now in a position fo power. He is able to exact revenge if he wants. In Genesis 45:6-8 we read that “God sent me” – God sent Joseph to be sold into slavery? Were his brothers all part of God’s plan?
Jesus
So was the death of Jesus the will of God?
What if Jesus hadn’t gone up against the ruling authorities, his passion for change were redirected? Recall that John the Baptist was beheaded, and soon Paul, Peter and James would also die tragically.
But what of that suffering on the cross? Did God ordain that? Or was that part of the human system of the time, for all deemed criminals? Marcus Borg writes:
“Good Friday is the collision between the passion of Jesus and the domination system of his time” [2]
Marcus Borg
Was his death the result of a battle of domination and a political rebel with a passion for God’s kingdom? The result of which can be seen God’s grace.
Discussion
This was, by far, the most difficult issue to articulate our own feelings and perspectives. Initially many moved to the argument of ‘Original Sin’ (see above) – unaware of its possible counterpart. People felt that suffering requires us to make choices which then bring consequences. As we look back we can see where God is blessing is. Nevertheless, ‘we may not see the fruits of that suffering in our lifespan‘ was one comment.
A Time of Testing
Some recalled that God will punish the sins of your fathers for up to 100 years (Leviticus 26:40-42), albeit, in context, that was addressed to people in exile. Others felt that, as Christ suffered, so would we:
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
Anecdotally cited to Teresa de Avila
However, for every suffering there was a possible opportunity. For others suffering was more clear: it was a test, one where the pass or fail highlighted our eventual destination. Nevertheless, God was with us in the test, in that messy time of suffering.
Allah burdens not a person beyond his scope.
God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it.
AYAH al-Baqarah 2:286 Message Bible 1 Corinthians 10:13
Discussing Dementia it was highlighted that the suffering may not necessarily be with the individual but the ones who look after them, the family who see the ‘suffering of the other’ – was it down to perspective? When considering the aftermath of a tsunami, for example, as we may look upon that suffering from afar, was our ‘privilege’ giving us a particular bias? Would we perceive the suffering differently if we were the ones most affected or as an onlooker?
Conclusion
Suffering was most clearly evident when looking in hindsight. The testing, seen as part of suffering, was very much an aspect of our lifetime – although we may not discern the consequences of that testing until later.
Therefore, is our attention focussed in the past when possibly we should look to the present and the future? If we believe that God is with us along our journey now, why do we continue to look over our shoulder to see where God has been?
Suffering may be relative, dependent upon whether we or others are the ones suffering. When asked “Why does God allow suffering?“, rather than quoting ‘original sin and free will’, a more truthful answer may be “I don’t know”. Our solution may be to not play a part in the suffering of others, to offer empathy to those who are suffering, and be the “hands and feet” to help others, to show that God is real.
[1] Richard Carter, The City is my Monastery, (Norwich : Canterbury Press, 2019), p. 235.
[2] Marcus Borg, Jesus, (London : SPCK, 2006, 2011), p. 274.