Ok so for those of you following my blog I'm pretty sure this "Evil and
Suffering" series of posts is going to go up to like 100 parts. I have
found many things worthy of posting regarding the topic, and I have some
points on evil and suffering in the world that I wish to share based on
what my friend Chad wrote on his website http://losingmyreligion.ca/
so I hope to be able to continue posting over the coming weeks despite
my super busy schedule. Until then here is a short thought for the day
on "how can we suffer if there is a God?" So here's a thought I'll share from www.biologos.org.
The Christian Consolation: A God Who Suffers
Christians have a powerful consolation in the face of evil: the God
they worship became human and suffered like us in the historical person
of Jesus. Jesus lived a human life and experienced a physical death.
But this physical suffering was only a part of his full suffering. The
greatest agony for Jesus was the temporary loss of relationship with
God. He went from experiencing the closest possible relationship with
God to a state of total separation on the cross. This is became evident
when he cried out his final words, “My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?” (
Matthew 27:46,
Mark 15:34).
Jesus underwent this suffering out of love for humanity and obedience
to God, knowing that his terrible death could restore our relationship
to God. Keller attests to the significance of this:
"Christianity alone among the world religions claims that God became
uniquely and fully human in Jesus Christ and therefore knows firsthand
despair, rejection, loneliness, poverty, bereavement, torture, and
imprisonment. On the cross, he went beyond even the worst human
suffering and experienced cosmic rejection and pain that exceeds ours as
infinitely as his knowledge and power exceeds ours. In his death, God
suffers in love, identifying with the abandoned and godforsaken."
We cannot fully explain evil, but we can say that it is not an
indicator that God does not love us. In Jesus, God has suffered, and we
can rest assured that that God shares our pain and knows our sufferings.
The problem of evil and suffering is an argument against the existence of god. So to use the stories in the Bible - such as that of Jesus - to demonstrate that evil and suffering is okay just moves back into the age-old circular reasoning:
ReplyDelete-How do you know there's a god?
-Because the Bible says so...
-How do you know the Bible is true?
-Because it is God's word...
It seems to be the easiest way to overcome any problems - but it is based on accepting the unprovable premise that the bible is the true word of god.
This post was not saying that evil and suffering is ok and its not saying that the Bible says this therefore it is true. What it is saying, is for those who proclaim to be Christians and who believe Christ not only did exist but was also the Son of God, they don't have to suffer and wonder "why is God letting me suffer? If he loves me he wouldn't let me suffer."
ReplyDeleteI must admit the post was a deviation from the whole science, faith, and God topic and more of a "sermony" type post for people to think about.