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20: Responding to Questions: Evil and Suffering · Finding God at Work

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, I'm Chris.
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This is Finding God at Work.
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Our current series is Gentle Witnesses, sharing the
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good news at work in a way that
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actually makes sense.
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We're talking about what do we do when
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we have a friend, a coworker, someone else
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in our lives who is actively seeking after
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God, trying to get answers.
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And so we've been looking at some of
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the common questions or tripping points that people
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may face on the way towards faith, and
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how looking at those questions, rather than being
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a problem or a barrier to faith, can
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actually be an opportunity for connecting with Jesus
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more closely, for helping people see the beauty
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of Jesus more clearly.
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And so we've looked at a couple of
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those questions, like the doctrine of hell, the
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question of other religions in a pluralist society.
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I want to look at what I think
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of as the major objection to Christian faith,
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and that's the problem of evil.
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How can God be good when there is
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so much evil and suffering in the world?
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Now this is a personal question for me,
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not because I have had a whole lot
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of suffering in my life, but because I
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have more than I used to.
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So, I used to read passages like this,
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like from James, chapter 1, verse 2, Count
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it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when
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you meet trials of various kinds, for you
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know that the testing of your faith produces
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steadfastness, and lets steadfastness have its full effect,
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that you may be perfect and complete, lacking
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in nothing.
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And I would just feel like, I wish
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the Bible didn't say that.
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I would like a life without lots of
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trials and without lots of suffering, and up
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through my teenage years, my life really was
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like that.
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I was born into a family that always
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had enough food on the table.
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My basic needs were always met.
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I was loved by my parents.
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I had family members who cared for me.
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I had a great experience in school.
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I was protected and sheltered in many, many
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ways throughout my childhood and my teenage years.
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But then when I turned 18, I began
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to experience my journey with depression.
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A lot of complexity to that journey, more
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than I can get into here.
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But I realized, wow, I am definitely not
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going to have a trial-free life.
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I am not going to have a life
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free from pain.
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There is this big, dark, difficult thing that's
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part of my experience now.
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What am I going to do about it?
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And for me, being a follower of Jesus,
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what brought the most healing was realizing that
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I could be in the middle of that
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experience with Jesus.
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That Jesus could be present to me in
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my suffering.
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Now, I start there from that standpoint because
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everybody who asks this question, how could a
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good God allow so much evil and suffering
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in the world?
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They're asking that question at least at two
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different levels.
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One is that kind of intellectual level of
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is there any way to make moral sense
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of this?
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But the other is a personal level.
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Every human being has known pain in some
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way.
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And one of the greatest pains we know
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is when a loved one goes through pain
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even greater than our own.
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So one of the spokespersons for this problem
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of evil question, but I think is the
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most eloquent is the comedian and actor Stephen
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Fry.
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He's English.
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He became famous along with Hugh Laurie in
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a show called Jesus and Wooster.
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He's been on a lot of things.
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One of the things he's been in recently
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is an Apple TV plus show called The
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Morning Show, but he was interviewed in 2015
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and the journalist asked him, you know, if
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you had a chance to talk with God,
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what would you say?
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And Stephen Fry said, bone cancer in children.
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What's that about?
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How dare you?
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How dare you create a world where there
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is such misery?
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That's not our fault.
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It's utterly, utterly evil.
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Why should I respect a capricious, mean minded,
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stupid God who creates a world which is
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so full of injustice and pain?
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Now, after that interview was published, it really
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took off on the internet.
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It racked up millions and millions of views.
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It really resonated with people.
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And it resonates with people not just because
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of the moral or logical side of it,
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but because of the emotional side of it
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that we've known pain.
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We've known children who have gone through pain.
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We've known grief.
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We've known injustices of many kinds.
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And so it's always an intrinsically personal problem.
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Sometimes Christians give glib answers to questions like
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this.
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And I think that's one of the worst
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things you can possibly do.
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Statements like there's a reason for everything or
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God was testing their faith or fill in
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the blank.
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These kinds of thoughtless answers do much more
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harm than good.
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Even if they're well intentioned, they can really
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damage our capacity to speak wisely of the
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things of God to other people.
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And for this reason, I think it's a
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really important question to grapple with.
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Now, it may be a question that somebody
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grapples with while they're in that seeking stage,
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right?
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While they're trying to figure out what do
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I really believe and why?
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The question of their own pain and suffering
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or just of pain and suffering in the
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world may come to the forefront during that
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conversation.
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This is also a question that often people
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return to at later stages of faith.
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When you go through a new experience of
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grief or a new experience of loss, or
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you're diagnosed with a condition or something changes
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in your community, suddenly then the question has
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renewed relevance for you.
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So this is something we can think about,
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pray about, feel about, lean into as we're
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helping friends who may be in that seeking
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stage and need good answers to really raw,
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honest questions.
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And it may be something that we ourselves
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need to come back to later in our
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walk of faith.
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One thing that I think is really important
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is to not take the question as disrespectful.
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Obviously now, Stephen Fry in his very popular
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interview said that it was a precious, mean
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-spirited, stupid God.
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So in as much as Stephen Fry imagines
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God, he was being disrespectful towards God.
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He was calling God stupid.
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But the question is a legitimate one.
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The question, if there really is a being
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out there who could have prevented all of
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the insanity of human pain and evil that
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people have experienced, why didn't that being do
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so?
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That is a really legitimate question.
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That is not a disrespectful question.
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That is not a question that reflects bad
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faith.
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That is an honest question that people are
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asking.
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So just as we've had this posture of
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listening to people, taking them throughout the journey
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of faith, we also want to meet people
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where they're at with this particular question to
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be able to say back to them in
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their own words what they're saying to us,
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to be able to say, it sounds like
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you're saying if there was a God, there's
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no way that God could be both good
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and powerful because there's just so much evil
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that's happened.
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That's unfair.
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That's unjust.
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That's unexplainable.
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That's one thing is many people have never
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heard somebody who genuinely believes in God or
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somebody who's a committed follower of Jesus actually
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even take that question seriously.
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And that's part of the reason why there's
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so much damage.
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Trust is if all that anybody has heard
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is that kind of glib response, the response
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that doesn't take the question seriously or that
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is use it as somehow intrinsically blasphemous or
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disrespectful, then of course, they're not going to
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make any headway in questioning the premises of
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their question.
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But if they're taken seriously, somebody says, I
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hear you.
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I hear that question, then maybe a conversation
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can open up.
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OK, in terms of the question itself, I
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think that it is helpful to engage the
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intellectual question if the other person is doing
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so.
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Sometimes people it's like an emotional sense of
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like, there's just so much pain.
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How could God be good?
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But it's not really articulated in an intellectual
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framework where they're trying to actually reason things
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through.
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And if that's the case, you know, getting
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into the weeds of, you know, logical structures
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may not be helpful.
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But if the other person really is like,
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no, seriously, I just don't think it could
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logically be true that God could be all
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good and all powerful and the evil could
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still exist.
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One thing that can be helpful to appeal
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to is how anger itself is a moral
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emotion.
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So when people really get into the problem
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of evil, this idea of suffering in the
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world, what are they feeling?
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They're feeling anger.
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Well, what does it mean to feel angry?
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Well, it means that that you believe that
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somebody else has somehow violated a valid norm.
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There is a valid norm.
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There's something that's right.
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And that other person has broken it.
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So you're angry at them, right?
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Now, people can get angry for other reasons,
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right?
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Like sometimes a baby is crying and a
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parent who's totally fried gets angry at the
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baby for crying.
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But that is not the baby breaking a
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valid norm.
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Like that is the way the baby communicates,
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right?
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So even if the anger is present, the
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anger is not valid.
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Right.
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So there can be an emotional experience of
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anger, of that incredibly frustrated parent.
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But any parent who has genuine empathy for
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their child would recognize like, oh, it doesn't
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make sense for me to be angry.
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This isn't justified.
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Anger is only justified and generally can only
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be maintained psychologically when we really believe that
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a norm has been violated that's legitimate.
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So when we feel anger at this God
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that we're imagining, what we're saying is if
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this God exists, this God has violated a
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norm which is legitimate.
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This God has violated a norm which is
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good.
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And this leaves us with the question, where
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does that norm come from?
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Where does the sense of right and wrong
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ultimately come from?
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Often we just assume like, of course, there's
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things that are right and things that are
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wrong, and we kind of know what they
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are.
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But where does it actually originate?
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If not from some sort of transcendent, objective
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moral standard.
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And if there is a transcendent, objective moral
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standard, maybe that comes from God.
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So that's some of the kind of logical
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side of the problem of evil is the
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fact that we're angry at evil itself is
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a sign that we believe that there's such
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a thing as objective moral good.
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And if there's objective moral good, there has
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to be some kind of transcendent source of
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that goodness.
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And that could be God.
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OK, so that's one side is it can
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be helpful.
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A lot of people have never even gotten
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that far in their thinking to realize like,
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oh, anger is a moral emotion.
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I believe in objective morality.
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What does that mean about ultimate things?
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Right.
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So that that can be helpful.
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But then what's more important even than the
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intellectual argument is answering the cry of the
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heart, which is I know pain.
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Other people know pain.
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What is God doing about that pain?
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And as I suggested in my own journey
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with depression, what God does with that pain
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is he meets us in it.
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One of my favorite statements about this comes
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from the psychologist Stan Jones, who happens to
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be a friend of my family.
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So I know him personally, too.
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It's part of why I like this quote.
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And he's lived it out as he's faced
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a neurodegenerative disease himself and a great deal
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of really intense physical and emotional suffering.
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He writes this.
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Most of our philosophical responses to the question
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of suffering amount to various forms of taking
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God off the hook for the problem of
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suffering.
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But God doesn't seem to be interested in
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getting off the hook.
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In fact, the answer of God and Jesus
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Christ to the problem of suffering is not
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to get off the hook at all, but
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rather to impale himself on the hook of
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human suffering with us in the very midst
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of our suffering.
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The ultimate answer to the problem of evil
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is not a slam dunk airtight logical argument.
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It's the cross of Jesus Christ.
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It's God himself taking on fragile human flesh
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and dying, experiencing the depth of our suffering
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with us.
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And when I experienced Jesus being present to
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me in my suffering, I remember that he
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is not a stranger to it.
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He was called the man of sorrows, that
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he had a passion, that he was able
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to experience pain and go to the cross
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and he did so willingly.
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And somehow, mysteriously, when I experienced suffering, if
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I open my heart to him, that connects
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to his suffering on the cross and finds
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a home there.
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And somehow what Jesus accomplished on the cross
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is ministered to me in that moment.
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To me, that's a sufficient answer to the
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problem of suffering.
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Even if I can't explain every instance of
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suffering that every human being has ever gone
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through, I believe that God is real.
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And I believe that he's accomplished something in
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the presence of Jesus, in the death of
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Jesus, in the resurrection of Jesus.
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And that can unfold and even redeem our
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experiences of suffering if we let it.
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Now, for somebody who's a hardened skeptic like
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Stephen Fry, that answer may not do much.
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They may say, that doesn't answer my contention
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at all.
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But for somebody who's on the journey, for
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somebody who is genuinely seeking, connecting with the
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suffering of Jesus and allowing their own pain
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to connect with the pain of Jesus is
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an essential part of the conversion experience.
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That's part of what repentance of sin is,
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is that repentance of sin includes the pain,
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which is sorrow and remorse over the wrong
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things we've done.
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So when somebody comes to the point of
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recognizing that they need help, that they need
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forgiveness, that they need life, they're bringing their
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pain with them.
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And that pain meets the pain of Jesus
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on the cross.
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And then his healing, his forgiveness, his life
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can flood forth.
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So when every somebody begins unfolding their experience
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of pain to us, what we want to
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do is gently suggest that Jesus can be
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present to that pain and that the death
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and resurrection of Jesus has an answer for
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that pain.
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Not a logical answer, not a philosophical answer,
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but an experiential answer that we can live
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into.
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Lord Jesus, we want to be able to
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guide our friends towards you.
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Give us wisdom about these really painful and
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big questions that people ask.
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Help us to take them seriously and help
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us to take you seriously.
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Your death and resurrection, your life that you
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give us on the cross.
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Jesus, do your work in us as we
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do our work with you.
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Thanks for listening.
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