Questions from an atheist part 9

August 1, 6:06 PMSt. Louis Presbyterian ExaminerAlicia Donathan

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"Job" by Bonnat

Templeton's previous question highlights the problem of evil and suffering.  This perennial problem presents us with at least four challenges, which will wrap up this part of the discussion.  

#1.  The existence of evil and suffering challenge us first, to recognize that this is not a logical problem.  Though classically known as The Problem of Evil, it is important to note that suffering is included under the term, "evil," as something wrong, something that ought not to be.  The Problem of Evil (and suffering), therefore, is essentially stated something like this:

1. There is evil and suffering in the world.

2. If God is willing to prevent evil (and suffering), but not able, then He is not omnipotent.

3. If God is able to prevent evil (and suffering), but unwilling, then He is not good.

The atheist will usually go on to draw the conclusion that a good God is incompatible with the existence of evil in the world.  However, to reiterate before moving on, this conclusion is invalid.  Points 1 and 2 are pretty straightforward. However, point 3 contains a non sequitur--a conclusion that does not follow from the premises.  

To say that a God who allows evil in history cannot be good, is to say that we have explored all the possibilities, and there are no reasons whatsoever which would justify the existence of the evil we see in the world. But for point 3 to be true, we would have to be omniscient. But no human being is omniscient.  So rather, the Christian confesses that he does not know all of God's reasons for the evil He allows; but the Christian also confesses that he (the Christian) doesn't know all there is to know, whether about God or the universe; therefore, the Christian confesses that the whole thing is mysterious.  To contend anything more is to claim more knowledge than any person or any people possess.  The conclusion, "God is malevolent," does not follow from the observation, "Evil and suffering exist in the world."  We don't have enough information to draw that conclusion.  The Christian admits this; the atheist needs to admit it and drop the objection.  This is not a logical problem.

The fact is, evil and suffering do offend God. He hates them; He is against them.  He has proven as much by His actions through Jesus.  That evil and suffering exist does not mean that God likes them.  The goodness of God does demand that He do something about evil and suffering.  It apparently does not demand that He prevent them from ever happening.  But it does demand that He take action against them.  And He has.  And He will.  

What would be a contradiction of God's character would be allowing evil and suffering reign indefinitely.  To allow them to corrupt and destroy His whole creation, unchecked.  To let them go on forever.  But that is the one thing God has sworn He will not do.  He will correct the situation.  Evil and suffering are temporary, though their stay already seems too long to us.  God will act, because His goodness demands it.  He will not ignore evil, or dismiss suffering.  That would be a violation of His goodness.  His goodness demands action; it demands resolution.  It does not, however, demand prevention.  Evil and suffering exist.  And God will fix it.

So the Problem of Evil and Suffering is not a logical problem.  It is, however, a pragmatic and existential problem.   It causes any honest, thinking person a good deal of pain and consternation.  But it should also cause any honest, thinking person to admit he does not have an answer.  And so, like Job, he shuts his mouth, and admits that he has no understanding (Job 40:3-5).  The existence of evil and suffering does indeed cause a great deal of anguish.  Rightly so.  God shares our anguish, and expects nothing less of us.  He also expects us to have the courage to admit our position--that we are not in a position to judge the motives of God.  Evil is supposed to incite our ire, our indignation, our vitriol; God expects us to direct that vitriol toward evil, toward suffering, toward death, Satan, and (when appropriate) toward those humans responsible for suffering and oppression.  

#2.  God is not the enemy.  The problem of evil and suffering is, after all, a practical one, not an intellectual one: how will we live?  Toward what or whom will we direct our (justified) ire?  We are wrong if we direct it toward God; He is not the enemy.  Our enemy is death itself, and sin.  The second challenge of evil in a good God's world is the challenge to keep our wrath pointed toward the appropriate object: evil itself.  When we do that, we find God is with us.  He shares our indignation, and He will fulfill His plan to remove the evil and suffering we bear.  We must remember His promises.  And we must remember, above all, that we are dust.

# 3.  The challenge of suffering and evil goes further.  It also confronts us with the perennial question:  To what extent is my trust in God conditioned by how good my life is?  Christian and atheist alike must answer this.  Job had to answer it.  He loved and served and trusted God when his life was good, when his children were with him, his household was prosperous, and his health was excellent.  But when all these were taken away, and he writhed in agony, Job had to answer the fundamental question: Would his trust in God ultimately be conditioned by how good life was in his eye?  

The question meets us all:  Will we be only fair-weather friends of God?  Will we love and trust God only to the extent that life is good?  When our lives are touched with anguish--whether our own, or the mental anguish we experience when we become aware of the suffering of others--will we then abandon our loyalty to God? Satan, in the opening chapters of Job, bet that Job would turn away and curse God when suffering struck.  He bet Job's loyalty to God would turn out thin: the kind that evaporates when confronted with the reality of evil and suffering.

But the Christian answer, and Job's ultimate answer, is that we trust God even if our lives are not going well.  We trust Him when evil and suffering invade, and life is not good anymore; when we are pain free and when we are pain-filled, we trust Him.  But the atheist who takes this line of reasoning and abandons belief in God has made the opposite choice: The atheist has concluded that only when life (his life or someone else's) is good will he trust God.  The atheist takes Satan's way.  Evil and suffering become an occasion to deny God.  

But Job didn't take Satan's way.  Neither should we.  This is the third challenge of evil: that we trust God even when our lives are not going well.

#4.  Finally, the challenge of evil and suffering is the challenge to wait.  Both Christian and atheist recognize that there are evils and sorrows in this world that have no remedy.  We are not speaking of those things that can and should be fixed--criminals who ought to be punished, children who ought to be protected, sick persons who ought to be given medical treatment.  We are speaking of those sorrows that are irreparable: the crime that goes unsolved; the disease that is incurable; the death of a beloved child.  Both believer and unbeliever know that such things exist.  

But the challenge is this:  Will we trust God, who has promised to repair the irreparable?  When Jesus stands on the earth, He has promised to raise the dead, to erase sorrow and sickness and injustice and evil forever.  He has given downpayment of this by rising from the dead Himself, and by driving away death and sickness while He was here.  We can either believe and wait; or refuse to believe and abandon our belief in ultimate justice and good.  

The Christian waits.  

We cry; we suffer; we pray.  And above all, we wait.  We believe Him who promised.   The presence of evil and suffering is the great dissonance that cries for resolution; the great diminished chord that cries out to be resolved into the major root.  Nobody blames the writer of a novel or the producer of a film when bad things happen in the story; instead, the audience waits for the resolution, the happy ending.  So do we Christians.

God promises that resolution is coming.  We know it is coming, because God's perfect, good, just character demands it.  He will resolve all the wrongs we witness now.  The resolution is coming.  This is what we believe and expect and wait for.  We wait for Jesus to come.  Then He will make all the sad things come untrue.  That is our stance.  

But the atheist, in the face of these same sorrows, refuses to believe.  He will not wait for God; he will not accept a delayed resolution to the dissonance.  He does not see justice now, so he rejects the idea that there will be justice ever.  His shortsightedness and presumption drive him to reject God because of all the dissonance he sees in the world.  Refusing to live with the tension, he resolves it (perversely) by believing there is ultimately no tension.  He declares there is no God whose goodness and justice is offended by all this mess we see; there is only the universe, amoral, purposeless; and the universe doesn't care about right and wrong.  And so the only resolution atheism offers is the idea that there is no ultimate right and wrong, good and evil, justice or injustice; these things are merely the peculiar opinions of a peculiar race living on a peculiar planet in space.  They are ultimately sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Atheism fails the challenge of evil and suffering.  

And so the Problem of Evil reveals that evil and suffering really are a problem.  The Christian view embraces this wholeheartedly; the atheist's view does not.  The Christian view highlights the fact that God sees evil and suffering as a problem.  Evil and suffering are wrong; they don't belong in God's world.  And He has done something about them at the cross, executing His justice against sin; and He has done something at the empty tomb, conquering death; and He will do something about them, when Jesus returns, judging all things rightly, overthrowing death forever, and wiping away every tear from His saints' eyes.  His character demands it.

"Christian, in whom do you trust?

...I believe in Jesus Christ...He shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, and His kingdom shall have no end...And I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.  Amen."

For more info:  St. Louis Reformed Christian Examiner Brad Edwards' article on the Problem of Evil.