The Issue of Suffering in the World

If there’s one primary issue that keeps people from accepting the faith of Christianity, it’s the issue of suffering.

In my opinion, it’s an understandable objection. After all, we Christians profess that God is both All-Powerful and loving—and loves us so much He was willing to send His only Son to the world in order to die on our behalf. Upon hearing this, many Non-Christian reply, “Well, that’s all well and good, but if God loves us so much, why doesn’t he do something about the wars, disease, brutality, and starvation that cause so much suffering? If he’s all-powerful, why doesn’t he just blink them away?”

I wish I could answer that question with a pithy bumper sticker slogan, but it can’t be done. There are, of course, brilliant men who’ve written brilliant books explaining the subject, but that doesn’t do us non-brilliant folks much good—so the end result is a very difficult question that many, many people struggle with.

During the past few years, I’ve developed some theories regarding the issue of suffering. Here they are for your review:

The “Oh, God” Analysis – In the movie Oh, God, John Denver asked George Burns the “suffering” question. George (portraying God) gave a pretty good (although incomplete) answer. He explained that you simply can’t have up without down, in without out, black without white, happiness without sadness, good without bad. In the rules governing existence, everything seems to require a counter-thing in order for it to exist. Quite frankly, that makes sense to me—especially seeing as how I can’t come up with any examples that avoid that rule.

The “Save the Day” Theorem – Is suffering “part of God’s plan?” Yes, it’s certainly possible that suffering is sometimes part of His plan, but it’s not necessarily part of His plan. For instance, I do not believe God had a thing to do with those jets crashing into the World Trade Centers—men made a conscious decision to commit murder, and no one was more saddened than the Man himself. (How can God be saddened if He didn’t stop 9/11 when He could have? Well, imagine your dog mauling the neighbor’s toddler…did you do it? Did you want it to happen? Then why didn’t you put the dog to sleep when it grew teeth?) God doesn’t just pop in with a defy-the-laws-of-physics level miracle every time there’s a catastrophe brewing. If He did, then skydiving without a parachute would be the most popular sport in the world, Russian Roulette would be a game children played for lunch money, everyone would drive Ninja 1100 motorcycles without a helmet, and we’d actually be living in heaven, not earth, wouldn’t we?

The “Where were you?” Addendum – This is the one most people don’t like to hear…because it points fingers. In short, it’s the idea that God doesn’t allow most of the world’s suffering—you and I do. Your response to this idea is probably “Bull. It’s not my fault there are starving children in Africa.”

And you’re right—starving Africans are not your fault.

But let me ask you this--Has God given you the ability to do anything about this
problem? For instance, how much money have you given to help alleviate the suffering? How many days did you spend in Africa last year helping them improve their lives? “Some money” and “zero days,” right?

Now imagine if every American citizen voluntarily gave 50% of their salary and all their vacation time to help with these problem—now make that every American citizen, plus every American business, plus every loud-mouthed liberal movie star. Even on half-salary, we’d be living like kings compared to those starving African—and together we’d wipe out Africa’s problems of hunger, poverty, and lack of education in less than ten years. (As my wife Heidi says, “Look at what Mother Teresa accomplished using just her hands and her heart!”)

Is this too much to ask?
Too much sacrifice?
Too impossible to orchestrate?

No, you and I choose not to do these things. We could, but we don’t. And that makes it our problem, not God’s. We have the tools, the money, and the expertise—we just use them to improve our own lives, instead of the lives of others.

There are many things that happen in life for no good reason: Childhood cancer, plane crashes, diseases that snatch friends and family away in their prime. Where is God in these instances?

Well, He’s God-- He was in the same place He always is, which is everywhere. He’s right there beside you, and if He doesn’t save the day (for reasons we don’t know right now), He’s there to try and help you pick up the pieces and become a stronger person.

Suffering is extremely hard to understand—but not even the most ardent atheist claims to understand everything, so what you should do is investigate the issue for yourself, and see who makes the most convincing argument.

Why should you take the time to do all this investigating? Well, let me paraphrase C.S. Lewis and the Rev. Nicky Gumble: Christianity can either be the most important thing in the world, or of no importance whatsoever. What it cannot be is mildly important.