hinchley.net

This is the sixth part of a multi-part series. You can also read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3. Part 4 and Part 5.

The world is groaning under the weight of incomprehensible suffering. The extent of this suffering is not always obvious. It is easy to grow comfortable; to consider our present state of existence, however luxuriant, as normal, even necessary; to define suffering as the degradation of the quality of life that we have come to expect, however inconsequential the loss. A person forced to downsize to a one-bedroom flat may cry poor; another, offered a roof and a pillow after years of living rough, may cry for joy. Our perceptions of sufficiency, of necessity, are significantly shaped by our expectations of what we deserve, which in turn is shaped by the experiences we have known. And yet, not all suffering is relative. If we dare to look beyond our own immediate circumstance we will only too quickly confront the realities of objective and universal suffering.

The following is a snapshot from the World Health Organization of global maternal suffering in 2005:

• 529,000 women in the developing world die during pregnancy and childbirth each year.
• The risk of death during pregnancy and childbirth is 1 in 16 in Africa.
• More than 50% of all child deaths occur in just 6 countries.
• 2.2 million women with HIV/AIDS give birth each year.
• 3.3 million children are stillborn each year.
• 46 million children are aborted each year.

And then there is cancer; war; famine; disease; natural disasters; mental, physical, and sexual abuse. We could fill books and libraries with numbers and words that depict a world in pain. And yet at the end of the day these are just scribbles on paper. The statistics do little to portray the damage, the immense personal trauma, that befalls those that suffer.

An obvious question follows: How is this possible? How can a God that is all knowledgeable, all powerful, and all loving, allow us to suffer? This dilemma is referred to as the problem of evil or the problem of suffering.

If God knows everything, he knows our present suffering, and even before he created us, he knew of the suffering that we would endure. If God is all powerful, he could end our suffering, or he could have created us in a way that avoided suffering. And if God is all loving, he would want to keep us from suffering. The mere presence of suffering in the world suggests that at least one, and possibly all, of these claims about God are invalid.

The attempts made by christians to respond to the problem of suffering are referred to as theodicies. Perhaps the most popular theodicy is that of “free will”; the idea that God did not want us to be robots, he wanted us to have freedom, the freedom to choose or reject him, and so he gave us free will, and an unavoidable consequence of free will is that we hurt one another and hurt ourselves.

Unfortunately, this argument misunderstands the notion of free will. No one has complete free will. Sure, i can make a choice to sit or to stand, to drink water or beer, but i am not free to choose to hover. As much as i would like to hover two feet above the floor, i cannot. I cannot go without sleep for a month, run at the speed of sound, or travel backwards through time. There is much that i am not free to do, but i still consider myself to have free will. It would seem that God has created us with a subset of freedoms (i.e. i can run but i cannot fly). The point is, i could still have the freedom to love God, the freedom to choose him or reject him, without necessarily needing the freedom to inflict pain on my fellow humans. Why didn’t God leave off the freedom to hurt? For those of you not convinced by the argument, consider this: christians believe that they will freely worship God in heaven, yet they also believe that there will be no suffering in heaven. This clearly suggests that free will and suffering are not contingent; i can have one without the other. If this is possible in heaven, then why not on Earth? Finally, the argument of free will makes no attempt to explain the suffering that is experienced as a result of natural disasters: fire, flood, drought, earthquake, tornado, tsunami… how does my freedom to choose God explain why nearly 250,000 people died in the boxing day tsunami?

You may say that we deserve suffering. You may argue that natural disasters are actually a result of our rejection of God. In fact much of the old testament takes this perspective. When Israel followed God they prospered. When they turned their back on God they suffered. And yet the principle that punishment follows sin is clearly unsustainable. For our common experience tells us that suffering is not distributed fairly. Evil people do not always suffer in accordance with their deeds, nor are the loyal always blessed. Are we to suggest that the incredibly high infant mortality rate in Africa indicates that Africans are more deserving of punishment than Australians? That is absurd. Furthermore, if pain and suffering were really a direct result of God punishing us for our sinfulness, then arguably we should not try to help those in pain, for to do so would be to undermine God’s will. This is clearly absurd.

Another common theodicy is that suffering is good for us. To paraphrase a statement from C.S. Lewis: suffering is like the chisel blows of a sculpture forming a beautiful work of art. The pain refines us. It makes us better people. This argument sounds rather poetic, but try explaining that to the 3.3 million still born children each year, or the 100,000 new born babies that die of malaria. Where is the opportunity for refinement in arbitrary infant death?

You might argue that although we suffer in this life, there will come a time when God will wipe away the tears of the faithful; a time when he will banish all sickness and pain. And yet, even if true, this argument does nothing to explain present suffering. Imagine if i saw you by the side of the road, injured, bleeding, and barely conscious, only to say, hey, i’ll be passing through here again early next week, if you’re still here, i’ll stop and help you out. My promise of future compassion does nothing to address your present pain. My decision to delay assistance is not commendable, or even acceptable; it is pure evil. Shouldn’t we consider God’s behaviour in similar terms?

Although there are many other arguments raised against the problem of suffering, i’ll end this post with the typical christian “fall back” position: it’s all a mystery. In other words, yes, suffering sucks, and yes, i cannot understand it, but who am i to understand the enormous mind of God? We just need to trust him. For he loves us perfectly and we must be humble enough to admit that his plans for our lives are beyond our fickle minds. We must trust that he is constantly working in our lives to bring out the best in us. But if God is simply one big mystery; if we cannot understand his plans, his purpose, and his methods, then how can we possibly say that God is good? How can we justify his love for us? Our daily experience suggests that he does not love us. How do we know the invisible love of God so clearly and yet explain away the ever visible reality of wanton suffering as just a wonderful mystery? I guess there is no limit to the fanciful explanations used to maintain the belief in an image of God that is at complete odds with our daily experience.

So which is it? Is God not all knowledgeable? Not all powerful? Or does he really want us to suffer? There is only one other explanation: he doesn’t exist.