Eureka Christian Church

Reflecting Christ's Light from Our Doorsteps to the Ends of the Earth

Questions about Suffering

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If heaven is our destination, why do we have this time on earth?

With heaven being eternal, why must we endure this time on earth? With heaven being our destination…why?

One way of thinking about the question would be to phrase it this way: Why does God put people through the aches and pains of living on planet earth, if, in the end, God has already destined people for eternal life with God? Couldn’t God have created heaven on earth – or earth in heaven – in the first place? Did God really need to go through the trouble of creating humans like you and me (people with the capacity to inflict and endure suffering) in a world fraught with danger and risk when God could have just launched life 2.0 from the start?

Theologian John Hick answers a similar question in his response to the problem of evil. The problem of evil in Christian theology refers to the apparent contradiction between the goodness and omnipotence of God and the reality of evil and suffering in the world. If God exists and God is wholly good, then why does God permit evil in the world? Why does God fashion a world in the first place with the capacity for injury and suffering? Is this really the best of all possible worlds God could have made? Why didn’t God create the world as a heavenly paradise from the start? No stubbed toes. No getting old. No sickness or disease. No injustice or discrimination. Just bliss. If God can’t do this, then God isn’t all powerful. If God chose not to do this, then God isn’t wholly good or loving.

John Hick says that one possible answer to this question might be found in how we think about what it means to be a person. Part of what it might mean to be a person, is that we are “free and responsive beings,” capable of engaging our environment and the people with whom we share life. He argues that freedom and responsiveness are essential components of what it means to be a person. Both of these too (freedom and responsiveness) are essential to love. Love is not coerced; love is a gift freely expressed. According to his argument, a world without risk and responsibility, or one in which people were coerced by God to “freely” avoid evil, or one where pain and suffering did not exist (or never existed), would logically rule out any real possibility for humans to grow as persons, to cultivate virtues like trust, hope, and faithfulness, sacrifice, vulnerability, courage, wisdom, patience, and others.

We don’t know why – in the infinite expanse of God’s eternal life and love – God creates a world so fraught and fleeting. There’s a mystery at the crux of life’s impermanence and God’s eternal nature. Maybe it’s the only possible world suitable for human beings to grow, develop, learn, play, feel joy, suffer loss, wrestle with anxiety, and anticipate with hope the possibility of future joy.

In the Genesis stories, when God creates the world, God calls it good. God rests in its shade and walks among its hills. God strolls in the garden in the cool of the evening. God delights in its streams and valleys. Maybe ours is to do the same, to delight in the gift of life and time and space – and the infinite promise it holds – as long as we have breath in our lungs.

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Where was God when I was suffering?

Why was God or an angel not there when I was bleeding and beaten on the floor?  I had to get the help [on my own].  Why did I have to suffer for so long and so young?  I didn’t sin or hurt people—if anything, me being abused was protecting the others.  But why?  Why was there no one to save or to help me?  

Editor’s Note:  Because of the depth of pain in this question, two members of the Response Team have offered their perspectives.

Response One: I am so sorry you had these experiences. It hurts my heart to know this kind of thing happens, and that this happened to you.

To answer this is difficult, and there are not satisfying answers. An early church teacher, Irenaeus, spoke of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God allowing evil as a way of soul-making—that the existence of evil would help us be more aware of and draw us closer to God. There is a whole branch of theology devoted to this dilemma, called theodicy. However, it is wholly inadequate for addressing many of the horrors in this life, including those you experienced.

The best understanding I have of why situations like yours occur without God’s direct intervention is that God chose to create a world in which we were given free will—free will to choose God or not to choose God.  Part of this free will means we have the freedom to hurt others. I am sure this hurts God, too. However, it seems there is something about redemption and salvation that requires us to respond directly and personally to God, and that it would somehow be ruined if God forced us to follow him. I am a parent, and think of the love of my children. I want them to choose to love me, I do not want to make them love me—and I cannot. The downside of this freedom is that we are also free to do great harm.

Response Two: I am so very sorry that this happened to you. The trauma you experienced at such a young age is heartbreaking. I join with you in weeping for the pain your younger self endured and the scars that linger still today. People are often capable of terrible actions toward each other. Call it sin. Call it evil.  Either way it is an unmistakable sign of brokenness. The person who abused you was/is broken. I am so very sorry that you bore the brunt of that brokenness.

Sometimes people think that bad things happen to them because God is punishing them. Personally, I do not believe this, but the idea is definitely out there. “If you are suffering, it means you have done something wrong.” This is not a helpful response to the question of why we suffer, as you even point out in your question. “Why did I have to suffer?” you asked, “I didn’t sin or hurt people.” Exactly. The abuse you endured wasn’t because you did anything, and it wasn’t God punishing you. It was the abuser taking advantage of the power he or she had over you and causing you deep pain. In other words, the brokenness belonged to the abuser, not to you.

Why do bad things happen to good people? This is a huge question. People have been asking this question probably since the beginning of time. There are many, many books on the topic—one, in fact, called When Bad Things Happen to Good People. We have received several questions about the problem of suffering through this Questions Ministry too. You can find some other responses here.   

For me, I think bad things just happen. Sometimes unspeakably bad things happen—as you experienced when you were young. We can’t get away from pain and suffering because they just are. They are a part of living in these mortal bodies (for example, the suffering that comes from disease), and they are part of living in a world where people struggle with their own brokenness (for example, the person who abused you). Pain and suffering just are.     

So what do we do with the pain and suffering we experience? Well, when we are in the moment of crisis, we put all our strength into surviving. Making it through. Doing what we have to do to keep going through the valley of shadows. But then, once we are on the other side of the pain—once we are safe and on the road to healing—we can look back and say to ourselves, “Look at that! I made it through. I am strong. I am resilient. I am me—wholly and fabulously me!” And, once we are safe and on the road to healing, we can look around with eyes more attuned to see the struggles that others are going through. Then we do what we can to help them because we’ve been there, and we know what it takes to survive.

Where is God in all this? The answer I have received through my faith and my personal experience is that God is right beside me. Right there always. Weeping with me when I am weeping. Comforting me. Mourning with me. Giving me the strength to make it through. And, healing me when I’m on the other side of the pain. 

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” Psalm 23 says, “I fear no evil, for You, O God, are with me.” Notice the way that is phrased: even though.  In other words, the valleys will come. The suffering will come. The pain will come. Even though I walk in all those difficult places, the psalm says, God is walking there too, never abandoning me to the pain. In my experience, I have felt God as a presence within me—rather than a bodily presence coming to my aid in the way you describe in your question. But that’s just my experience; others may have the experience of a bodily presence.

I think I hear in your question that you felt abandoned by God in your greatest moment of need. I am sorry for that too. And it makes me think of Jesus’ own prayer from the cross. When he was in his greatest moment of need, he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). In other words, why have you abandoned me? He was praying the words of Psalm 22 in that moment. If you are looking for God in the memories of your painful experiences, perhaps this might be a pathway to discover where God was in those awful times. 

You might want to spend some time with Psalm 22. You can even say what Jesus did out loud, “My God, my God, why did you abandon me?” (I mean, if Jesus can pray such a prayer, then surely we can!) “My God, my God, why did you abandon me?” Say it as many times as you need to, as many times as you want to. Shout it. Whisper it. Write it down in a prayer journal. “My God, my God, why did you abandon me?” And then wait. Wait and see what thoughts come to your mind, what images rise up. 

When I pray like this, I begin to realize that new thoughts come into my mind. Things I never realized before, things I never saw before. I believe these are messages from God. Sometimes we call this the “still, small voice of God” (1 Kings 19:12); sometimes we call it the “peace that passes understanding” (Philippians 4:7). But either way, it has helped me to recognize that God was actually there for me, even though I didn’t see it at the time. I was not as alone as I had thought. Maybe this will be of help to you as you continue your healing journey. My prayers will be with you.

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How can I have hope when life seems so overwhelming?

How can I have hope when life seems so overwhelming?

Hope is about positive expectations regarding future outcomes.  Life is hard, and can often seem overwhelming.  It is important to develop goals—the more overwhelmed we are, the smaller the goals should be—and to work toward them.  When we have the flu, a major accomplishment might be taking a shower, for example. As we accomplish goals, we should allow ourselves to appreciate them (“Hey, that was something”). If we do this repeatedly, over time we can look back and see a number of accomplishments.

The reason for our hope is important, too.  When our hope is in transient things or empty things, then it will be difficult to sustain it. We see this in the movie Snow White, when the wicked stepmother, whose hope has been in her own beauty, is no longer the most beautiful in the kingdom—Snow White is.  She then seeks to have her killed.  When we are seeking after God we become aware of more lasting things—such as love—which make it easier to sustain hope.

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What about evil and suffering?

Editor’s Note: Three questions were submitted that are closely related to one another:

  1. How can evil exist when God is all powerful, all loving, all knowing?
  2. Why does God allow so much evil in our world?
  3. What’s the point of all this suffering?

These questions — and others like them — are the subject of a branch of theology called theodicy, which roughly means the effort to defend God’s goodness and justice in the face of the existence of evil.

The necessity of that effort grows, in large part, from the belief in God’s omnipotence — i.e., that God is all-powerful. If, indeed, God is all powerful, all loving, all knowing, then the presence of evil or suffering is perplexing and troubling. And the anguished cry of humans is likely to be something like: “God, why are you allowing this?”

But many theologians have suggested perhaps God is not all powerful in the sense of having all the power. Perhaps God’s creatures have some power and the freedom to exercise that power.

It could be, these theologians have proposed, that God seeks to guide and persuade God’s creatures to behave in a certain way, to make actual God’s will for them. But the creatures possess some power and some freedom. In a misuse of their freedom, the creatures to some degree or another reject God’s guidance. When the divine guidance is rejected to some degree or another, the result often takes the form of the suffering and the evil that we see in the world.

I have found this understanding of the relation of God to God’s creatures to be helpful. It preserves the belief in God’s power and love; it serves as a vindication of God’s justice; and it acknowledges the freedom of God’s creatures. It also provides a deeper and more profound meaning to the admonition to pray, “not my will, but thine be done.”

For a fuller and more systematic exploration of the concept of “divine persuasion,” you might try reading this book by Lewis Ford. It’s available online at: https://www.religion-online.org/book/the-lure-of-god-a-biblical-background-for-process-theism/