As you look around the world you can collect evidence of so much that is wrong: wars, injustice, oppression.., the list is endless. Certainly at times the world can appear to be a very dark place. How could a loving God have created such a world?
The Bible does not formulate a theory to explain where all this darkness comes from. Instead, it tells a story known as “The Fall”. The origin or reason for suffering is traced back to the beginning. The first chapters of the Bible present a story of how a perfect world created by God was spoiled.
The story of God creating a world that is good is told in the first two chapters of Genesis: 'In the beginning God created...and God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.' However, chapter three describes the darker side of the picture: people rebel against God's creative authority and are forced to bear the consequences.
A number of important things emerge from these stories:
- God designed and made a world that was perfect.
- God created men and women with free will - the ability to choose. He did not want them to be senseless robots.
- Mankind chose to rebel-they wanted their own way, not God's.
- The price was conflict, suffering and death - a spoiling of the relationship between God and humankind which had fatal consequences for the whole of creation.
David Watson wrote 'Fear No Evi'l during the last year of his life. As he lay dying of cancer he attempted to write of his beliefs in an attempt to explain why he had to suffer:
“God can do anything, and theoretically could have programmed us as robots, impervious to pain and unable to inflict it on others. Had he done so, life might have been simpler, but there would also have been no feeling, no freedom, no relationships, no love, nothing of those human qualities which make life worth living. Instead, God has made us with a genuine freedom of choice to go his way or ours; and because we have all naturally gone our way instead of his, we live in a fallen world which is still often staggeringly beautiful but which is sadly marred by sin, suffering and death. God has therefore entered our world in Christ and suffers with us.”
Jayne Grayshon – a young woman with a family – has had twenty operations in the last fourteen years. She asks in her book “Encounter” Is it wise to trust in a loving God?”
“I sometimes feel that maybe God has asked me to be prepared to go through the suffering to show that when we do have very bad times it doesn’t mean that God has deserted us, but that it’s part of the fact that we are on earth and not in heaven.”
These quotations speak of what it is like living in a spoiled world. However, the consequence of the Fall is more far-reaching than individual suffering. This spoiling has three strands;
- Broken relationships between humanity and God. Instead of living in harmony with God, men and women are only too aware of their alienation from him- often aware of an attraction towards God and yet feeling a chasm of separation. This relationship could be restored only when God himself stepped into human history in the person of his Son, ]esus Christ (something we’ll look at again). So people often feel as ff God is hidden from them, and that they are offered only hints and glimpses of his presence. No longer do they walk together through the Garden (Genesis 3:8).
- Broken relationships between people. Instead of living as one family, people have become rivals and enemies.
- A spoiled relationship with the good earth. The harmony which God planned has been shattered. Instead of being stewards of the earth we abuse it, pollute it and threaten to destroy it!
On one level it is correct to say that these are the consequences of humanity rebelling against God, illustrating their ability to choose freely. However, to leave the explanation at this level would be to miss out part of the total picture. According to the biblical story, it was Satan, a rebellious angel from God, who prompted human rebellion.
THINKING IT THROUGH
Evelyn Underhill , in her book “Letters” questions the free-will argument in the following way:
“We can't, I think, attribute all the evil and pain of creation to man's rebellious will. Its far reaching results, the suffering of innocent nature, the imperfection and corruption that penetrate all life, seem to forbid that. The horrors of inherited insanity, mental agonies, the whole economy of disease, especially animal disease, seem to point beyond man to some fundamental disharmony between creation and God. I sympathise a good deal with the listener who replied to every argument on the love of God by the simple question, 'What about cancer in fish?'”
Questions:
1. How well do you think the argument from free will explains all forms of suffering?
2. In view of mankind's free will, how are we to picture God? Can God really be omnipotent? (All powerful)
WHY DOESN'T GOD STOP WAR?
Why doesn't God stop war? How?
What options are open to Him?
He's tried reasoning with mankind!
He even said once “Come, let us reason together!'
He has tried law and order, introducing laws such as 'Thou shalt not kill', and 'Love your enemies'.
Has mankind taken any notice?
So, what other options are open to God?
Two? Exterminate all persons responsible for war,
or turn mankind into a race of robots?
God could only stop war this way by stopping people, and he'd have to exterminate us all.
Or, God could turn us all into computerized beings, capable only of doing what is good and right. He could rob each of us of our freedom to choose to do wrong. After all people do choose to make war! God's big problem, however, is that He loves us! Despite what mankind is, despite all that we have done, God loves us too much to take up either of these two options.
So, He continues to try gentle persuasion.
He sent Jesus to show mankind that it is possible to love one's enemies! Jesus forgave and prayed for the men who were putting Him to death!
Our problem is that we think we can solve our problems without God's help.
But history, especially recent history, tells us just how well we are doing - YUK!