Over the last couple of months, we’ve talked at great length about the existence of God and the reliability of the Bible, which tells us who God is and what He says. One common question people ask when they are either struggling with the existence of God or with trusting God is this: “If God is real, then why is there pain in the world?”
This isn’t an uncommon discussion, one that many, including those who have served Jesus for many years, have asked at some point. Especially after confronting a terrible situation, whether personal or global.
CS Lewis, famous author and theologian, framed the thought process behind this question as “If God were good, He would wish to make his creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what he wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore, God lacks either goodness or power or both.” To simplify, if God is good, He’d want us to be happy. If he’s powerful, He’d make us happy. Since we aren’t always happy, people think God is either mean or weak.”
The statement requires us to consider two attributes of God: His omnipotence (all-powerful) and His omnibenevolence (all-good).
All Powerful
Question: What do we mean when we say God is “all-powerful?’
Generally, when we say God is all-powerful, we mean that God can do anything meaningful and possible, which makes sense. Meaning God is NOT going to do something that is a contradiction. Example: God can’t make a square circle. Nor can He make a silent shout. CS Lewis points out that when bringing this definition into focus, some push back, saying, “I thought God is supposed to be able to do anything.”
The problem they are running into is not that we are setting limits to the power of God. What they are presenting are simply nonsensical things that don’t exist. CS Lewis once said, “Meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prefix them to the two other words’ God can.” So what does this have to do with the issue of pain and evil?
The fact is that God created humans with what is called “free will.” This is the ability to choose what you will and will not do. But with the option to choose comes the ability to choose right and wrong. It would be a contradiction for God to create a being who has free will, yet remove the possibility for them to choose right and wrong. For the choice to be real, the alternative has to be a real possibility.
Some push back and say that it was wrong for God to put the tree in the garden because He knew that Adam and Eve would disobey Him. But the reality is that a choice with only one possible outcome isn’t a choice at all; it’s a script. Without the tree, Adam and Eve wouldn’t be partners in arelationship; they would be characters in a simulation. If God removed the option to disobey and forced people to do only what He wants, they wouldn’t truly love Him; they’d just be His puppets.
Think about it this way. If I program an AI robot to say ‘I love you,’ does it actually love me? No. It’s just code. For love to be real, the person has to have the ability to say, ‘I don’t love you.’ Otherwise, the ‘I love you’ is a logical contradiction; it’s forced freedom.
Evil exists because humans took the power of choice God gave them and used it to walk away from Him.
The second aspect is God’s omnibenevolence.
All Good
This conversation about what is good and not often feels subjective. But it also relies on a central idea… For me to say something isn’t fair, or good, then there has to be an absolute moral standard for me to point back to as being good. A few weeks ago, we talked about this when we discussed how the existence of morality suggests there’s a central moral or lawgiver. That ultimate being must have knowledge and power well beyond our own. As CS Lewis put it, “…if God is wiser than we, His judgement must differ from ours on many things, not the least on good and evil.”
Look at it this way. A parent knows that in order for a child to stay healthy, they sometimes have to go through the pain that comes with getting shots, getting blood drawn, or even medical procedures. To a child, these actions seem mean or evil because it hurts in the moment. But the parent has the bigger picture in mind and knows that this temporary pain is actually a good thing because of what it leads to.
Some of the pain and suffering that takes place, God allows for a great purpose that we don’t understand and can’t see. There are people who went through incredibly painful experiences in their youth, but those experiences led them to do incredible things for others later. Not to mention that going through these hard times often draws people closer to God.
Romans 5:3-5 says this:
We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.
Still, many struggle with the idea of Justice. If God is Good, then why do bad people get away with doing bad things? As we said a few weeks ago, God judges all people fairly and justly. He punishes the sins of the wicked. For those who feel the pain and sting of this world, Psalms 34:18 says this:
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
So what is the answer to this pain? That Psalm tells us the Lord is near to these individuals, meaning the answer to pain and suffering is Jesus. While God did not create the pain and evil in the world, He did intervene in the problem to bring relief and hope. To start, He brought forth the solution for our sin nature by having Christ die on the cross for our sins (John 3:16-17) and then sending the Holy Spirit to guide us (John 16:13).
Then, along with this, He commissions His people to be ambassadors to those in pain, as we see in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20
And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”
Pain in this world is not evidence that there’s no God. Pain is not evidence that God is not all-powerful nor that He is Good. Pain, however, is part of why He is so very present. He’s with you in your darkest moments because He genuinely loves and cares for you. There may be some pain that you’re walking through that is your fault. But He’s gracious and loving and refuses to leave your side and longs to walk you down a path of healing and restoration. Some may be suffering from pain that is not their fault, and for those, God refuses to abandon and longs to bring healing, grace, and hope.
Adventures in Student Ministry 