Problem of Suffering.

At Elevate on Sunday we did our second to last lesson on Jesus Among Other Gods by Ravi Zacharias. I have to admit it was a little heavy and took some concentration to make sure we understood Ravi's points. That being said I have found a couple short commentaries on the problem of suffering that supplement our lesson well.

These articles were taken from www.preachingtoday.com
This is the first part of an article that was from:
Dinesh D'Souza, "Why We Need Earthquakes," ChristianityToday.com (4-28-09)

The problem of theodicy—why bad things happen to good people—predates Christianity. Writing around 300 BC, the Greek philosopher Epicurus framed the problem this way: God is believed by most people to be infinite in his power and also in his goodness and compassion. Now evil exists in the world and seems always to have existed. If God is unable to remove evil, he lacks omnipotence. If God is able to remove evil but doesn't, he lacks goodness and compassion. So clearly the all-powerful, compassionate God that most people pray to does not exist.

This old critique has been revived by [theologian] Bart Ehrman in God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer. Theologians over the centuries have responded to questions about the existence of evil by pointing out that man, not God, is the author of moral evil. Evil in this view refers to the bad things that people do to each other. Moral evil is the necessary price that God pays for granting humans moral autonomy.

Yet while human freedom may account for moral evil, it cannot account for natural evil, or more accurately, natural suffering. Ehrman's book is full of examples, to which we can add recent tragedies such as the earthquake in China last spring and the 2004 tsunami that killed tens of thousands in Southeast Asia. (And obviously the earthquake in Haiti recently.)

Christian apologists such as C. S. Lewis have attempted to account for natural disasters by showing how they draw people together, or how they provide moral instruction to the survivors, or how they turn our eyes to God. Ehrman asks, but couldn't God have found better ways to achieve these worthy objectives? Rejecting as implausible and offensive the usual responses to innocent suffering, Ehrman has stopped calling himself a Christian.

Another person who is not a believer is Richard Dawkins. Lets take a quick look at how he deals with the problem of suffering and evil.

In his book River out of Eden, renowned scientist and leading atheist Richard Dawkins recalls a bus crash in England that claimed the lives of several children. A London newspaper asked a priest to explain why God would allow such a thing to happen. The priest replied, "The simple answer is that we do not know why there should be a God who lets these awful things happen. But the horror of the crash, to a Christian, confirms the fact that we live in a world of real values: positive and negative. If the universe was just electrons, there would be no problem of evil or suffering." When Dawkins read those words, he scoffed. He writes:

"On the contrary, if the universe were just electrons and selfish genes…blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference."

In Richard Dawkins godless worldview he is not allowed to get upset over evil and suffering because all we are is electrons and DNA who some get lucky and some don't. If someone totally embraced that philosophy then they would go crazy. We may not see people totally embrace and live it out but there are many many people and Christians included who reject God because of suffering and believe they are better living for themselves than living for God.

We may not understand totally the mysteries of evil and suffering but do remember this important truth from Augustine. "God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist." We need to remember that God is the starting point, he is the author, he wrote the script to our lives and history and our purpose is to worship him. (Mans chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever) Jesus came not to make bad people good but to make dead people alive. We were dead in sins without Christs work on the cross. And it was on the cross that ultimate goodness and ultimate evil played out. Jesus suffered more than we can ever imagine and he is our great high priest who can be there for us when we go through suffering. If we draw near to him then he will draw near to us. And tragedies, evils and sufferings can help bring us back to God.