January 11, 2004, Number 1 of 7 in the Series: FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

The question before us this morning, is this: "If God is good, why do bad things happen?" Or, to put it another way: "How can I believe in the goodness of God, the love of God, when so many bad things happen in this world?"

Whenever we talk about "bad things," we are really talking about things which cause "suffering" . . . human suffering . . . your suffering . . . my suffering. And, it must be said, that the sum total of human suffering, even for just a day, is almost beyond anyone's ability to bear.

Our lives, in these United States, at the dawn of the 21st century, are amazingly insulated from the reality of human suffering. Never in human history has a society been so isolated from human pain and suffering. But human suffering is a reality and the question it raises is very often cited as an impediment to faith.

The question is always framed in this way: "If God is good, then God is not all powerful. If God is all powerful, then God is not good."

My answer is that God is all good and all powerful, but that God's power and goodness, and the world in which they operate, are far more complex than the question assumes.

If the world that God created was analogous to a machine, and the purpose of the machine is the dispensing of unadulterated good, then, I grant you, God is a very poor creator.

But the world that God created has a power and a dynamism and it is in a state of continuing creative evolution. The cosmos is evolving, the earth is evolving, and the relationship between God and humanity is evolving.

Some human suffering is the result of the fact that we are creatures and we live in a created world.

1. To say that we are creatures is to say that we were created; we are of the earth. We are born, we grow, we love, we reproduce, we suffer and we die. We are mortal. Life is precious, mainly because we don't have it forever.


2. To say we live in a created world is to say that we live in a world in which God continues to create; that the world is in a constant state of evolution. As we speak, stars are dying, mountains are being worn down by erosion, volcanic eruptions are creating new land masses. The earth quakes, volcanoes explode, rivers flood and every year thousands of people die in their wake.

But some suffering is very clearly the result of human behavior. We are creatures capable of making choices for ourselves, and some of those decisions will be harmful to ourselves and hurtful to others. Our choices have consequences.

One of the most meaningful ways in which we are invited to imagine God is as a loving parent. All of us have had parents, a mother and a father, or at least some loving caregiver who took responsibility for us when we were children. Many of us find it helpful to think of God as a loving parent, who is both father and mother of us all.

Yet we would readily admit that even with the most loving and protective parents, bad things still happen to families, children and people everywhere.

If we imagine God as a grand puppeteer with dangling strings, controlling the circumstances of every person's life, we are seriously mistaken.

Like any good parent, God does not want mindless obedience and conformity. God does not want a perfect performance from us, if it means we loose our ability to choose and to act responsibly, to grow and evolve.

As I read the Scriptures it is apparent to me that what God desires most from us is a relationship; a relationship of love, of joy, and of trust; and a relationship always requires freedom to choose.

God has given us the right to make choices in life which determine our future, but those choices come with consequences for ourselves and others. Sometimes those decisions cause pain. God does not cause the pain, nor does God abandon us.

• Some people make a decision to smoke for years and then suffer from lung cancer.
• Some people may decide to drive on icy roads that cause terrible car wrecks.
• Some make the decision to leave a loaded gun in the house where a child finds it.
• Some people live is ways that diminish life for others.

If you closely examine the news of tragedy and crisis, you will often find that somebody made a decision of their own free choice that set in motion circumstances which ended in pain.

God can not and will not intervene in every moment of every human life. To do that would completely eliminate our ability to reason, to judge right from wrong, and to freely choose our paths and our actions.

And, we must admit that few of us would give up our freedom of choice; our freedom to make decisions and shape our lives. We would not concede that, even to a loving parent.

To take away such freedom would create a world of mindless beings with no sense of responsibility, accountability or learning from their actions, and with no ability to meaningfully relate to others or to God.

When we experience such suffering, we desperately seek to find a "why;" as if discovering a reason will enable us to cope with the situation. But it won't. No reason will satisfy, no reason will silence our outrage at suffering that is too terrible, too random, too senseless.

That's when faith is the only possibility. In the face of such human suffering, human reason is silent. Only faith is able to speak; faith in the form of the cross of Jesus Christ. We worship a God who revealed himself most fully in the life of one who was abandoned and suffered unto death. Jesus did not try to explain suffering, he endured it. He endured it to the bitter end, trusting that God would be present with him in and through the experience of suffering and death.

God does not provide us with a risk free envelope in which to live our lives. But what God does promise is that whatever happens in this life, God will be with us. We do not have to endure the suffering of this life alone. When bad things happen, God cries with us. God celebrates our victories and mourns our sorrows. When life breaks apart, God is there to help us pull the pieces together.

In the words of the prophet Isaiah:

In my experience, the times I have seen human suffering at its greatest, I have seen faith at its greatest and most noble. Human suffering, and I don't mean talking about it in the abstract, but the brutal reality of it, does not smother genuine faith, it ignites it. Genuine faith is forged on the anvil of human suffering.

How can I believe in a good and loving God when I see such suffering in our world? I would reverse that, and say that it is only with a belief in a loving and good God, that we can bear to see the suffering of this world and dare to hope in the face of all the human suffering. And hope empowers us to work for a better, more caring, a more compassionate, and a more loving world. That is what God offers us in Christ the crucified. Thanks be to God! AMEN.

Eldon J. Simpson, Pastor