How Could A Good God Allow Suffering? Flashcards
How could a good god allow suffering?
Response: Suffering comes from men’s freewill
Suffering is largely due to man’s decision to sin through his freewill.
God could not have created a world where people have genuine freedom but no potential of sinning. He chose to grant us that freewill so that we could love him and others because real love involves a choice.
How could a good god allow suffering?
Response: Jesus himself suffered for men
Jesus came as human and experienced despair, rejection, torture, grief like we did. More importantly, he suffered and died on the cross to take the punishments for our sins. Apart from the physical pain, he had to abandon his divine privilege and go through the cosmic pain of being cut off from the infinite love of his father.
Hence, even if we do not have an answer for suffering, we know for sure that it is not because God is indifferent to us or does not love us. He came to earth and experienced the same kind of pain we have as humans. He suffered on the cross so that we do not have to experience the ultimate suffering of eternal separation from God/being condemned to hell.
How could a good god allow suffering?
Response: Just because evil/suffering appears pointless to us does not mean that it is pointless
If we look at a cage and don’t see a bird, it is safe for us to say that there is no bird. But if we look at the cage and do not see an extremely small insect called the no-see-um, we can’t reasonably assume that it is not there just because we can’t see it. Likewise, many assume that if there are reasons for evil/suffering, they should be able to see it, but this may not always be the case.
God has the capacity to look at the world through a narrow lens or through a wide angle lens. When God looks at a painful or wicked event through his narrow lens, he sees the tragedy of sin for what it is in itself and is angered and grieved: “I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord” (Ezekiel 18:32). But when God looks at a painful or wicked event through His wide-angle lens, he see the tragedy of the sin in relation to everything else in the universe, for eternity.
