HOW CAN
A GOOD GOD ALLOW INNOCENT SUFFERING?
C
DeSalvo
Is God Evil to Allow Suffering?
One of the most potent arguments
against the existence of God can be phrased as follows: Our world contains an
unnecessary amount of horrible suffering, both physical and psychological,
placed upon innocent persons. Since God, if God exists, created and controls
the universe, how can a good God allow or create such suffering? This is beyond
human understanding! All persons, except for a few sadistic defects, would never
deliberately inflict agony upon anyone. In fact, many humans (physicians,
nurses, other health care workers, pharmaceutical companies and workers,
government agencies, charities, churches, philanthropists, private
organizations, etc.) do their best to heal and eliminate human misery. How can
a supposedly loving, merciful God, ignore, tolerate, even create such misery?
Billions of people suffer from diseases like leprosy, autism, malaria, cancer,
diabetes, and hundreds more, from starvation, malnutrition, poverty, inhuman
living conditions, filthy drinking water, discrimination and abuse, poisonous
snakes, insects and lizards, from crippling injuries, psychological disorders,
mental illness, birth abnormalities, DNA defects such as sickle cell anemia, tumors,
Down's syndrome, etc., from natural catastrophes such as floods, typhoons,
freezing weather, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, etc., from
flesh-eating animals such as sharks, lions and wolves, from the human cruelty
of wars, rapes, slavery, abuse, murders, etc. The preceding long list is far
from inclusive.
Only a depraved, barbarous person would deliberately create and permit innocent
babies to suffer horrible birth deformities and crippling diseases. How can a
good God tolerate such things? Many persons have abandoned, or refused to even
consider, a God who is indifferent to or responsible for such evil.
Some defenders of God suggest that God permits and inflicts suffering to
"build a person's character" or "to teach empathy" or “God
permits evil only to draw a greater good from it.” Those excuses aren't convincing. Why doesn’t God do good without the need for evil? What does evil add? Another explanation says that
ignorance, death and suffering were all the direct result of Original Sin. Even
if true, the ultimate cause of ignorance, death and suffering is still God.
What Is Suffering?
What do we mean by suffering? Suffering is unnecessary mental anguish or
physical pain. In our world, some level of worry and pain is necessary. We need
to somehow learn when we are injured or ill, thirsty or hungry, too hot or too
cold, so that we can take corrective action to preserve ourselves. Pain does
that. We should worry about future potential harm to us and to others so that
we can avoid potential disasters. Mental distress does that. Some level of
physical and mental pain is important to human survival. But few will dispute
that the quantity of suffering that exists in this world is far more than what
is necessary to maintain our health.
Suffering can be caused by living things (e.g. humans, animals, plants) and
non-living things (e.g. hurricanes, earthquakes). Justified suffering is
punishment for improper behavior that may be imposed by some governmental
authority or organization or even a parent. Both humans and other animals can
suffer, but this article focuses on human suffering.
Unjustified human suffering has two primary causes and each has two sub-causes:
Why Does God Allow Suffering?
If in your mind the greatest good is the alleviation of suffering, you need to
consider that is not necessarily the greatest good in God's mind. You also need
to accept that God's intelligence is far greater than that of any human.
Biblical historical writings (two examples are Job and the Crucifixion) suggest
that suffering is important to God. But no human can explain why, because
humans do not fully understand God and likely never will. Can an ant understand
a human? When Job complained to God about his unjustified suffering, God did
not answer the question. God only reminded Job of the difference in their
powers. To me this implies that
Job’s intellect was too small for him to understand any explanation God could
have given. Job accepted God’s
statement because he knew that God was real and loved him.
Consider the "evil" father who forces his tiny child to suffer an
operation, painful treatments, injections, debilitating medicines and much
other pain that the child cannot understand why such torture is being inflicted
on her. She doesn't comprehend her father's explanation that the suffering is
necessary to cure or heal her. Is the father evil to cause such suffering to
his child? No, and neither is God evil because of the suffering of human
innocents. God loves His created humans as parents love their children. God
also suffers in concert with suffering humans, just as a good parent does.
Humans who criticize God's supposedly bad behavior exhibit enormous conceit.
Who are we to demand that God conform to our standards of behavior? How
intelligent and powerful are we to set standards for God? Did we create the
universe, space, energy, matter, time and life? What do we know of God and
God's motives? Only what God chooses to reveal. And even if God were to reveal
more, could we understand it? Can an ant understand human conversation, poetry,
music, art, reasoning, love, beauty, hope, writing, medicine, philosophy, etc.?
Should an ant be allowed to define, even demand what behavior is proper for
humans?
We humans didn't make the universe and all in it. God did and He made it His
way. Those of us who are unhappy with that situation can go speak to Satan. He
had a similar dislike for God's constructions.
Unfortunately too many of us will not accept the idea that God knows more than
we do, that we are in no position to pass judgment on God. That it's the other
way around. But many persons have failed to grasp that notion. The famous
Charles Darwin favored evolution primarily because he could not accept the
thought that an omnipotent and all-good God (his definition of God) would
create a world with so much unnecessary suffering. He couldn't accept that a
true God could deliberately cause suffering - that God is not all-good. Darwin
couldn't break free of his limited human perspective to see that, from God's
viewpoint, suffering is not always evil.
Modern Western secularists base their whole life on gaining pleasure and
avoiding suffering, even inconvenience. To such secularists the notion of a God
who prizes suffering, and who will Himself suffer greatly for His own
creations, is beyond their understanding. The notions of unselfish sacrifice
for another, humility, subservience and patience in suffering are as foreign to
them as they are to a mouse.
God so loved His human creations that He took the form of a human, lived as a
peasant, accepted ridicule, torture, a crucifixion and death. That was
suffering! God suffered on the cross to show how
much He loves us, his creations. How much would you suffer out of love
for your pet cat? Jesus didn’t just preach. His suffering on the cross was a
message to us, and an example for us to follow in our own lives.
Perhaps God wants a certain amount of suffering in the world to test how humans
react to suffering. To test someone automatically means the tester is not
all-good because those who fail the test will suffer in some way. It's
impossible to be all-just and all-good at the same time. An all-good person is
someone who will never cause harm to anyone. Do we want government judges to be
all-just or all-good?
Still one can wonder, why must there be so much suffering? In particular, why
does God allow evil people to cause pain to other humans? The answer may be
that God's test of humans involves giving them the freedom to be good or to be
bad (free will).
Perhaps God once tried to create perfect angels and failed; some rebelled
against God (Satan and other "fallen angels"). So God may have tried
another approach. God created humans and gave them free will, the ability to be
good or bad. And the humans that are good become candidates for heaven.
Unfortunately some humans choose the bad path, and they cause some of the evil
in the world. But that has to be. If God gave humans free will then that means
the freedom to be bad as well as good. If God interfered with free will to
prevent cruelty, then humans would not really be free willed. Also possibly God
wants to test the response of innocents when subjected to evil. Will they
forgive those who caused their suffering?
Believers may have difficulty accepting the level of suffering that exists in
the world, presumably created by God. One can argue some suffering caused by
humans, such as the Holocaust, is the result of humans having free will, and
the suffering caused by natural events, such as hurricanes, earthquakes,
floods, etc., might be essential to the creation and operation of the universe.
Also, God might want some suffering to exist to test the behavior of humans
when subjected to suffering. But surely all the suffering we see isn't
explained by free will, natural actions and God's tests. Did God need to create
leprosy, mosquitoes, scorpions, carnivores and many other causes of apparently
unnecessary suffering? It seems reasonable to conclude that some suffering does
not have to exist in a God-made world. So why did God create that suffering?
To a sensitive, feeling human, God's attraction to suffering appears
ridiculous. Why did Original Sin have to exist? Why did God create it? Why did
Jesus have to suffer crucifixion to redeem souls from Original Sin and other
sins? To many rational people such notions are asinine.
But perhaps we err by thinking our human minds should be able to understand
God's mind. We are wrong to demand an explanation of unnecessary suffering
before we will believe. Does a small child understand everything a parent does?
Perhaps we too must accept that we are vastly ignorant of God's will. Perhaps
we should behave like dutiful children and accept that what God does is for our
own good, whether it seems so or not. To do otherwise discloses our
unjustified, conceited demands that God must satisfy us before we will believe.
God has given us plenty of evidence to justify belief, and anyone who searches
diligently will find that evidence. God will not bow to demands for more
evidence.
We must accept that God doesn't just tolerate suffering, God wants it to
happen, and God even promotes it! Apparently, suffering is so important to God
that it required Jesus (the second person of the Trinity and therefore an equal
to God the Father) to come to earth and become human, to suffer indignities,
and finally to be beaten, nailed to a cross and die like a common criminal.
God, in the person of Jesus, did all that for us! It is painful to contemplate
God's stunning willingness to accept suffering for Himself. Jesus accepted
torture and a horrible death. Why? - To rescue all humans from sin – to show
how much he loves us.
Still it's natural for humans to feel compassion for all kinds of suffering
life, and most of us share the natural desire to eliminate it if we can. So
it's normal to initially disapprove of God being responsible for innocent
suffering. But some rational thought needs to be inserted here to counteract
our emotions. First, who are we to be telling God that we don't like what He
has done or does? Who are we to insist that God should behave in a way that
pleases us! Are we forgetting that it is God, not us, who makes the rules by
which we humans are to live! We may not like the existence of so much
suffering, but we must understand that it is not God who has to pass our test
of decency.
Someone may still dislike the idea that God allows innocent suffering. He needs
to get over it. God didn't make the universe and life to suit human tastes. God
makes the rules - we do not.
Consider the irony. We humans, with miniscule intellects compared to God,
criticize God's behavior because the universe that God created doesn't conform
to our desires. Do we accept criticism from our three-year old child who cannot
understand why he must suffer the pain of an inoculation against polio? Would
we accept criticism from our pet dog for neutering it?
The mystery of human suffering is not unlike other mysteries about God that
must be accepted upon faith. But not blind faith. Before faith must come
reason. It is the use of reason to observe, read, study, discuss and develop
understanding that convinces us that God exists well beyond any reasonable
doubt. Those who demand unreasonable evidence of God's existence are the most
conceited. Conceit is a huge barrier to understanding of, and belief in, God.
It may be useful to list a few other mysteries of God that humans must accept
on faith, faith grounded in reason:
Clearly God favors suffering. The Bible mentions it often,
particularly with regard to David and Job. Also, God, in the form of Jesus, was
born a human, was beaten nearly to death, was spat upon, insulted, tormented,
and finally crucified. Would you suffer the same treatment to save the life of
your child? Would you do it to save the life of your cat? God so loved us that
God suffered and died for us. We don't know precisely why that had to be, but
we can marvel that God would do such a thing for us, His creations. Obviously,
God reveres suffering - more precisely, God reveres the willingness to suffer.
We must accept that. God wants there to be some suffering, demands suffering,
and creates suffering at whatever level He deems appropriate.
So does that mean humans should seek suffering, should not bind their wounds,
should not take medicines or visit physicians, should stop medical research to
alleviate suffering? No! We should continue to work toward ways to heal, to
reduce suffering and to be merciful to all others as Jesus did. God alone will
determine when, where, to whom and the level of the suffering that should
occur. There are times when God wants suffering and other times when He does
not. It's similar to murder. Sometimes murder is justified, and other times it
is not.
In each individual life, there will be some suffering. For some, it will be
minor, for others it may be almost unbearable. Perhaps how much suffering you
receive and how you react to it influences the reward you get after death.
If you do face suffering, try to do it with humility, acceptance, without
blaming it on something or someone, without hatred for God and without a demand
to be told why. Must you know as much as God before you will believe and
accept?
So what is the message we should take from this brief note? The message is that
God wants some suffering in the universe. We don't know why. God suffered
greatly for us on the cross, and we don't know why that had to be. We are far
below God in intelligence and knowledge. We should not attempt to judge God by
human standards. As children of God, we should humbly accept whatever suffering
God gives us, and have faith that His actions are for our ultimate benefit.