|
A.W. Tozer wrote, “All the problems of heaven and earth, though
they were to confront us…at once, would be nothing compared with the
overwhelming problem that we have with God.” I believe, based on what I have
observed in my 30 years on earth, that one of the greatest sources of our
offense towards God is rooted in a inability to reconcile the atrocities of
human suffering with the perception of a “just and loving God.” Just within the
lifetime of the past couple generations we have witnessed the perils of two
World Wars, the latter of which struck down fifty-five million people in just
six years, including Jewish holocaust victims innocently slaughtered for their
heritage. We have also witnessed the Vietnam debacle, the outbreak of Aids and
other killer diseases currently pillaging Africa like a devouring fire,
unprecedented famine, and genocide in Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia, and Cambodia. Many
of us experienced 9/11 and have seen first hand the rise of global terrorism. We
have heard of the indescribable acts of sexual abuse committed systematically
against women and children in the clutches of modern day slavery. We have seen
the turbulence of violent people, gangs, organized crime groups, and nations
rage unimpeded. The world has been shaken by natural disasters of biblical
proportions. Euthanasia has had its place. And the legalization of abortion has
subtly invoked a modern day holocaust. These and many other injustices and
examples of gross human suffering confront us with the fundamental questions of
what we believe about God and why we believe it.
We must confront the tension we feel in our hearts concerning
the seeming contradiction between a world filled with evil and the promises of a
God who is “just and loving.” The Apostle Peter encouraged the first century
believers to give an answer for the hope that was in them (1 Pet. 3:15). The
world we are currently living in demands a response from those who claim to know
and worship the only true God, Yahweh, Creator of heaven and earth. It demands a
response that reaches beyond the typically glib Christian reply; “God must have
a reason for this… Praise the Lord brother!” May it be our noble pursuit to pull
up the bootstraps of the foundational theological underpinnings of our faith to
answer the great need of this hour – a world angry with God and
without answers. In this article I will seek to develop what I believe is
a biblical understanding of the suffering of man in light of the knowledge of
God.
Original Intent – The most natural place to begin in
processing this subject is with understanding God’s original plan for
mankind. When we look back to the creation account recorded in Genesis 1-2 it is
stunning to discover the profound destiny God intended for us. He created humans
as the only beings in all of the created order capable of experiencing a love
relationship with Him. The Garden of Eden was a pleasure filled context in which
God dwelt with man. When He realized that man’s appetite for love was still not
fully satisfied, he put Adam to sleep, and basically told him, “I’ve got a
surprise for you!” He then brought forth a woman for Adam from his very
side. Just before Adam wakes to discover his beautiful bride, I imagine the
Father looking to Jesus and saying, “watch this!” It is critical for us to see
the drama unfold in the creation account because it gives us a clue into our
ultimate destiny.
All of Human history began with a man and a woman in a garden
having a wedding (Gen. 2). All of human history, in this age, ends with a man
and His bride in a garden having a wedding (Rev. 19). God’s greatest
desires for us can be summarized in the two greatest commandments:
that we would love God and love each other with all our heart. This gives us a
glimpse into the heart of a God filled with love and passion for people. His
original design was for us to live in unbroken communion, enjoyment, and
fascination with Him forever. This plan of God will be fully realized at the end
of this age when He will restore the earth to Garden of Eden conditions and
demolishes death and all human suffering for all eternity (Rev. 21; 1 Cor.
15).
What went wrong? If God is sovereign and had the power
to create the earth by the word of His mouth, how is it possible that this world
could degenerate into such chaos? God bestowed upon Adam and Eve the dignity of
a freewill because He desired voluntary lovers, rather than mere robots
of empty affection. In their capacity to choose, Adam and Eve made a choice
against the revealed will of God, thus breaking fellowship with Him in their
self-centered independence. At that moment two things happened: 1) Sin entered
the equation of their experience, bringing forth their mortality and introducing
suffering to man. 2) The keys of authority over the earth were handed to Satan,
giving him legal access to exert His influence over the created order. Adam and
Eve no longer had the ability to pass on to their children what they themselves
did not possess, namely sinless perfection and eternal life. Since that time we
have witnessed the destructive and insidious nature of sin at work in our world
destroying the righteous fabric of God’s original design.
Who is responsible for suffering? Our automatic
assumption is that if God exists and He is good, He would intervene in the
suffering of man and put an end to injustice. And because He seemingly doesn’t,
He must not be good, and because He isn’t good, He must not be trustworthy, and
because He can’t be trusted, many live lives of practical atheism masked by a
cloak of religious rhetoric and false piety. My suggestion is that instead of
calling God into question we should see the evil and suffering in this world as
the horrific outrage of our sin. The terrible injustices of this present
age have been forged in the fires of demonic oppression and the sinful passions
of men.
|
