God
and Human Suffering
Stephen
Terry
Commentary
for the October 22, 2016 Sabbath School Lesson
Those who were my enemies without cause
hunted me like a bird. They tried to end my life in a pit and threw stones at
me; the waters closed over my head, and I thought I was about to perish. I
called on your name, Lord, from the depths of the pit. You heard my plea: “Do
not close your ears to my cry for relief.” You came near when I called you, and
you said, “Do not fear.” You, Lord, took up my case; you redeemed my life. Lamentations
3:52-58, NIV
Theodicy is the struggle to understand suffering in our
world. If God is love and is all powerful, how can He allow suffering to
continue, let alone to exist? What pleasure can God take from such suffering? Or
do we not understand His true character? How many there are who have turned
away from God over the problem of suffering. They reason that is He is all
powerful and allows suffering to continue, He must be a sadist that either
delights in human suffering or is indifferent to it. While this is an important
issue, some may feel the only solution to the problem is since the Bible says
God is good, just trust Him and everything will turn out alright in the end.
Such a simplistic response hardly does justice to the
complexity of the problem. It certainly does little to empathize with those
struggling with suffering and heartache. It is a lot like those who say inane
things like “God needed another angel,” to someone who has lost a precious
loved one. Apart from the questionable theology involved, such statements
ignore the feelings of the bereaved who might just as easily ask, “But I needed
them here with me. Why would God take them away?” The problem of Theodicy is
deeply involved with an understanding of the character of God. Without
addressing that, we are more likely to be among those throwing the stones of
suffering instead of bringing compassion and healing.
Some might wish to couch suffering in a mantle of
judgment for disobedience. When they do so, they portray, through their
attitude, a God who is stern and judgmental, One who cannot wait to inflict
justice on the disobedient. Perhaps it is this train of thought that leads us
to a God who could find some perverse delight in giving people immortality just
so He can watch them suffer in the fires of an eternal Hell, a torment they
will never escape. Who could love a God like that? That would be like loving
Hitler chortling over the burning ovens of Auschwitz, while the nauseating
smell of seared flesh filled the air. Those Christians who portray God in that
manner will one day have a lot to answer for in driving many souls from the loving
arms of Jesus because of such horrible scenes of judgment and retribution.
What then is the answer to the Theodicy question? How
does the character of God play into our understanding? The Bible tells us that
God is love,[i]
and perhaps that is the crux of our problem. While the Bible tells us that, it
can at times be very hard to see that love in our world. We are inundated with
wars, floods, earthquakes, famines, and disasters of every ilk both manmade and
natural. People die by the thousands every day, many from causes that could
easily have been prevented. Jesus told us that God is conscious of a single
sparrow falling from the sky and is familiar enough with us to know the number
of the hairs on our heads.[ii] So what good is all this
knowledge if God does nothing to prevent that sparrow from falling? How can we
say God is love as long as sparrows continue to fall and die? We might even
take our concern a step further and ask why would even the judgmental God some
believe in allow the sparrow to die? The bird could hardly be guilty of disobedience.
If disobedience and suffering are “joined at the hip,” how does that explain natural
disasters that take the lives of both good and bad? Those who would believe in
such a God might try to contrive an explanation that would mesh with their
theology, but in the end it runs up against a solid brick wall. That wall is
Jesus who said that obedience and suffering are not related.[iii] Suffering is not then apparently
a function of judgment by God because of our personal disobedience.
So then does God step away from our world and become
uninvolved, or worse, uninterested in our lot? Jesus revealed that that is not
the case either, but because of unconditional love, His involvement is impartial,
for He sends His blessings on both the good and the evil.[iv] Perhaps to our way of
thinking God should reward only the obedient and punish the disobedient. This
is what the Jews were looking for two thousand years ago. They saw themselves
as righteous and obedient and looked for a Messiah who would vindicate them
before their enemies and rain burning coals down on their foes. Unfortunately,
they did not understand the method of hurling those burning coals.[v] Acts of kindness are the
most effective means of destroying an enemy, for they are most certainly destroyed
when they become your friend because of those kindnesses. Perhaps this is why
God is impartial with His blessings. He wants all of his enemies to love Him.
He did not even send Jesus to judge anyone. Instead He sent His Son to save the
world.[vi] This singular act perhaps
demonstrates God’s character more than any other. Jesus willingly gave His life
to make it possible for the love of God to reconcile all who would be
reconciled to Him. This act also lays to rest any idea that God has stepped
away from His creation or that He is indifferent to what we suffer. He has not
only actively involved Himself in what happens to us, but He has even partaken
of the same suffering we experience. He suffered the separation of death. He
suffered the physical torment inflicted upon Him by others.[vii] He suffered hunger[viii] and thirst.[ix] He suffered poverty.[x] He even suffered to the
point that He felt God had abandoned Him as well.[xi] However, we know now,
looking back through what is revealed in our Bibles that Jesus was not
abandoned and rose again to never die again.[xii] Suffering was the path
Jesus trod on our behalf that we might have salvation and restoration.
Is this possibly an answer to the issue of Theodicy? Is
life suffering, like the Buddhists tell us in their First Noble Law, and therefore
an integral part of the path to enlightenment? Perhaps, or more accurately it
is an integral part of what it means to develop the character of Christ and by definition
the character of God.[xiii] Perhaps it is through
suffering that we develop the empathy to love. It may be much harder to be
judgmental about the struggles of others if we ourselves have struggled through
suffering. We may be tempted to feel that our suffering is proof of God’s
indifference, and a flaw in His character. But His willingness to suffer with
us puts the lie to that. It is the greatest demonstration of love He could
give. It is the greatest gift any of us could give for another. Jesus told us
to love others as He loved us, and stated that if we love Him we will keep this
command.[xiv] As He partook of our
suffering even to the point of death, we are offered the privilege of partaking
in the sufferings of others in the same way.
When seen in that light, our suffering is no longer a personal suffering, but a
suffering on behalf of everyone who suffers, and is a gift to everyone who struggles
toward the light of God’s love.[xv] Because of this Christ-like
willingness to suffer on behalf of others, some Syrian Christians, who had the
opportunity to escape the terrors of the Syrian Civil War near Aleppo, decided
to stay and do what they could to minister to their Muslim brothers and
sisters. They were willing to suffer whatever was necessary to accomplish that
loving work. Yet, like our Lord Jesus experienced, some of the people they blessed
and minister to tortured and murdered them, hanging them on crosses in the public
square.[xvi] Another family of
Christians from South Africa went to Afghanistan to minister to the Muslim population
there. The Groenewalds suffered the father and two teenage children being shot
to death in a terrorist attack on their home after eleven years of service. The
mother survived only because she was away working in another location in Kabul.[xvii]
These all died believing in the resurrection to come
through Jesus. Because of that belief they saw suffering not as proof of an
uncaring and distant God, but as a privilege extended to them as well. They saw
it as an opportunity to reflect the character of Christ under trial. In that
opportunity they learned a truth that has long been rare in the church in the West.
They learned the truth of the words penned by Tertullian in the second century,
“the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.” As trouble increase on the
earth as the Parousia approaches, the truth of these words may once again gain
meaning in Western civilization. When it does, suffering may no longer produce
atheists and agnostics like today, but instead will produce a church on fire
with the loving character of God.
