Christianity Questions 04
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How could a good God allow suffering? This question is one which bothers everyone especially people who are suffering themselves. Before we look at the question there are two things which Christians would say. First, the way the universe is now, is not the way God originally created it. He made a world with no suffering. It was because human beings turned away from him that death and suffering intruded. Second, God himself has suffered in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, and the purpose of his suffering was that he might open the door to a future world of no more suffering. However, having said those things, we need to see that the question itself has a problem of its own. The problem is that it makes a moral judgement in order to dismiss God, but if there is no God who determines what is moral, what is right or wrong? It was the logical problem with this argument which bothered C. S. Lewis, the Oxford professor who wrote the Narnia stories, before he became a Christian. Here is what he says about it. 'My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man doesn't call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such a violent reaction against it? A man feels wet when he falls into water, because a man isn't a water animal; a fish wouldn't feel wet. Of course I could have given up my idea of justice by saying that it was nothing but a private idea of my own. But if I did that then my argument against God collapsed too - for the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust; not that it just didn't happen to please my private fancies. Thus in the very act of trying to prove God didn't exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. Consequently, atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning; just as if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes we should never have known it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.' More info: See the classic discussion of this question in The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis, published by Harper Collins. |
