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In a recent national survey, Americans were asked this question: “If you could ask God only one question and you knew he would give you an answer, what would you ask?” The most common response was this: “Why is there pain and suffering in the world?”
The tragic shooting last week in Parkland, Florida and similar events cause many people to ask why an all-powerful and all-loving God would allow such things. This problem-the problem of pain, suffering and evil (PSE) is something that affects us all and requires a careful answer. Here are four answers to this problem:
- PSE is painfully real. Christianity is not an escapist religion.
- PSE is proof of God. The innate knowledge that an tragic event like a school shooting is evil requires a moral absolute.
- PSE pushes us toward our potential. The purpose of life is purpose, not pleasure. We often succeed in our lives because of PSE rather than in spite of it.
- PSE will perish. Christianity teaches that evil will be judged, pain will end, suffering will be banished and death itself will die.
Key takeaways.
- The story of Esther is a great example of PSE. Her people are taken captive, her parents die, she is raised by a cousin and she ends up marrying a king in an ancient version of the Bachelor. Would she have chosen that pain? Maybe not. But, there is no question that the PSE in her life propelled her to her ultimate purpose-saving her people.
- The ultimately bad thing happened to the ultimately good Person.
- The point of an all-powerful and all-loving God not just allowing PSE but suffering PSE is to allow us the opportunity to enter a relationship and an eternity with Him.
- The best possible world is one in which love exists and ultimately wins.
- Great quote from the Brothers Karamazov, “I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, for the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, for all the blood that they’ve shed; that it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify all that has happened.”
How do you answer the problem of pain, suffering and evil? What examples or stories have helped you deal with this personally and minister to others?