God, Where Are You?
God’s Perspective on Suffering and the Problem of Evil
Written by Aaron Miller | Pastor of Equipping
Let’s not pretend it isn’t a problem. It always has been. The carnage that evil creates is all around us. And its endless media presence has lulled us into accepting a new norm. We are only jolted awake when an outdated version of evil is replaced with fresh depictions of a new travesty. Once again, sober thoughts fill the room as we’re reminded of life’s frailty—the history log of unspeakable evil receiving an update. In modern history, we have seen evil migrate from Hitler to the holocaust, from the Cold War to social disillusionment: school shootings, ethnic hatred, abortion, domestic and global terrorism, and back to nations at war again. The cycle continues. Again, it’s a problem. So, imagine the audacity of the Christian Worldview standing amid this cosmic storm and declaring hope for the future.
In his book reflecting on the problem of evil, C.S. Lewis summarized it this way: “If God were good, he would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore, God either lacks goodness, or power, or both. This is the problem of pain in its simplest form.”(1) The famous utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill dealt with the matter philosophically: “Evil casts a shadow over God’s love and power. This is no small dilemma, and answers to it are exceedingly difficult.”(2) Solutions have been offered throughout history, but none come close to satisfying the question of gratuitous evil. Here are some of the attempts
Evil is an Illusion
Evil simply isn’t real. This view of evil springs from Eastern Mysticism, and since evil is just an illusion, the way to overcome it is mind over matter. This doesn’t take long to fall flat on its face with human experience. Try, if you can, to muscle through mind over matter at the loss of a child. Moreover, this doesn’t exactly answer why God would allow an illusion to overtake us if it were true. We’re back to the same dilemma.
Evil is Good in Disguise
People who hold this view might even use Scripture to argue it. After all, from God’s perspective, all things are good, even though they may seem bad from our point of view (Romans 8:28). The problems with this view aren’t far out of reach. Firstly, Romans 8:28 does not say that all things are good; it only says that all things will work together for the good of the elect of God. Evil, out of which God brings good, is still real evil. From the betrayal of Judas comes the redemptive act of the cross, but that in no way minimizes the wickedness of Judas’ act. The idea that “evil is good” fails because it obscures the real difference between good and evil, which is an implicit denial of the reality of evil.
Dualism: God vs. Satan
According to dualism, God wants good, but Satan thwarts his purposes and wants evil. There exist two ultimate and opposing forces, which are equal in power and eternality. This view lets God off the hook by making the existence of evil eternally independent of Him. Again, this doesn’t align with how the Bible declares God’s sovereign rule: “The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all” (Psalm 103:19). God is not in true conflict with Satan because Satan is not equal in power to God. He is subject to God (Psalm 115:3, 135:6; Job 1:9-12). Moreover, this excludes the possibility of redemption of evil; if evil is equal in power to God, God has no way to overcome it.
We Must Have Evil to Appreciate Good
To appreciate health, we must first understand sickness. To appreciate righteousness, we must first understand evil. On the surface, it appears that this works since we do experience the intensity of appreciation by way of contrasting experiences. Indeed, we do appreciate health after we’ve been dangerously ill. However, if this were true, it would stand to reason that if the experience is necessary to appreciate good, God would also have to experience evil to appreciate good, which, again, is biblically untrue.
Evil is Relative
This view doesn’t seek to justify God – it seeks to eliminate him. In other words, there is no such thing as good and evil; only how you feel about it matters. This is the view of post-modernity. And there are many foundational problems with the premise. For instance, what does it mean that it “matters” how you feel about something? When discussing what “matters,” we imply good or evil, right or wrong. Would we feel comfortable teaching that terrorism, mass murder, genocide, infanticide, mass gassing of humans, and bombings are all morally neutral because they are just a matter of perspective?
Open Theism
Open theism attempts to explain God’s Sovereignty and man’s choice. God created the world but didn’t know or determine all the outcomes. God does not know the future but exists in time and reality. He can only “predict” the future since he knows people intimately. However, Scripture stands in the face of this view. Jesus was God’s plan from before all time (Ephesians 1:11, 2 Timothy 1:8-9), and there is clear teaching that God has everything in his hands (Psalm 42:1-2).
All these attempts to explain the problem of evil fall apart in various ways. So, what is the solution, for the problem remains: how could evil originate with a good God who created the world?
In one sense, there certainly are answers in the Bible about this, but in another sense, there is not a crisp single-sentence answer tied up with a bow. We just do not have a perfect resolution to this issue as Christians.
“Ultimately, Christians must concede that the problem of evil rests in the lap of God, as he created all things, including creatures that had the potential and capacity for evil.”
Pay attention here; this is not the same as saying that God is morally responsible for evil. The Bible clearly teaches that people have moral freedom and are culpable for every action. It might seem like I’m splitting hairs here, but this is the line the Scriptures give us to walk. Consider this example: A father is teaching his 5-year-old child to ride a bicycle without training wheels for the first time. He removes the training wheels, puts his child on the bicycle (not without securing the helmet first, of course), and begins walking alongside the bicycle with the child on the seat. As the child peddles, the father has one hand on the handlebar while the other is on the back of the seat. The father gains speed and is in a light jog. At the right time, he lets go of the bicycle and shouts, “Peddle, peddle, peddle!”
Now, when the child inevitably falls and skins their knee because that potential is what comes with learning to ride a bicycle, is the father responsible? In one sense, yes, but in another sense, absolutely no. It is true that the father took off the training wheels. It is also true that he put his child on the bicycle and removed his hands from keeping the bicycle stable. However, let’s not pretend that’s the same as picking his child up over his head and slamming them onto the concrete. It’s been said that analogies are like old paintings; pick at the old dry paint long enough, the canvas breaks apart, and the picture is distorted. This analogy is not meant to be an airtight illustration but only helps us acknowledge our limitation in assessing God’s eternal perspective. However, that does not mean we’ve not been given a perspective on the “problem.”
Unsurprisingly, Christianity is rooted in what God has revealed in the Bible. We can trust the Bible, which was written to give us hope. What is hope—any hope—but a feeling, a sense in the heart that the future is bright. Worldly hopes are often dashed because they have no foundation in real information about the future but only in good wishes and sweet dreams. As the Bible tells us, “We don’t know what will happen tomorrow” (James 4:14). But Christian hope is radically different because Christianity is different than every other religion and philosophy in the world. It is eternally founded on the words of God, revealed to prophets who wrote down what he said about the future.
The God of the Bible is eternal and infinitely above the unfolding of time. He is the “Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (Rev. 22:13). He wrote the complex story of human history before the world began. And he has revealed everything we need to know about the future in the prophecies of Scripture. No other religion in the world predicts the future. God challenged the idols and false gods to that very duel—“Tell us what the future holds, so that we may know you are gods” (Isa. 41:23). They failed in Isaiah’s day, and they will always fail. For God is the King of the future, and he alone decides what will happen. In the future, in the new heavens and new earth, there will be no more death, mourning, crying, or pain (Rev. 21:4). With this revealed, Christians know exactly where to place hope —an unshakeable conviction that the future is indescribably bright. The world is “without hope and without God” (Eph. 2:14).
“So when the world is asking, “Where is God in all this?” Christians know exactly where he is and radiate hope. The world notices and asks for the reason for that hope (1 Pet. 3:15), and Christians lean in.”
But what of the tragic details of history? What about evil? Christianity offers the proper stance for those as well. The Bible perfectly harmonizes rational explanation with heartfelt compassion, even lament. And no chapter in the Bible displays this harmony better than John 11.
In John 11, the reader encounters the following questions.
1) Why did God allow Lazarus to become sick?
2) Why did Jesus delay coming to his sick friend’s side in a timely fashion?
3) If Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus and could have healed him, why did he let him die?
4) Why did Jesus weep?
The narrative offers clear answers to all these questions, often from the lips of Jesus himself.
Answer to #1: “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory, that God’s Son may be glorified through it” (Jn. 11:4).
Answer to #2: “Jesus loved Martha and her sister, and Lazarus. Therefore when he heard Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days” (Jn. 11:5-6). And Jesus said to his disciples, “Lazarus is dead. And for your sakes, I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe” (Jn. 11:14-15). The delay was intentional by Jesus to bring his loved ones to a much stronger faith in his resurrecting power.
Answer to #3: Jesus allowed Lazarus to die to put this powerful truth on display for all time: “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die” (Jn. 11:25-26).
But why did Jesus weep?
These questions become all the more highlighted when we realize that Jesus knew full well he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead. But he knows that Death is the final enemy (1 Cor. 15:26) and that his enemy, Death, will cost his people immeasurable anguish over the centuries yet to come. So, Jesus laments with deep compassion for the temporary suffering of his people. Yes, temporary, because moments after Jesus wept, he said, “Lazarus, come forth!” and the dead man was raised to life! So rational explanations and lamentations ultimately give way to Jesus’ resurrection power.
And when all his believing people are resurrected in glorious bodies like his, I believe God will allow us to look back over the tapestry of redemptive history, with all its dark and light threads, and see the wisdom in God’s timing and providence. For God’s redeemed, no amount of suffering ever ended ultimately in death, but all of them were for God’s glory, that God’s Son might be glorified in them all. And God is not willing that we shall be eternally in the dark about his intentions. Jesus said, “I no longer call you servants because a servant does not know his Master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends because everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (Jn. 15:15). God is not going to hide his purposes from his children forever. And though we may never know in this life the full dimensions of God’s purposes in suffering, in heaven, all will be made clear.