Be Prepared To Suffer
You aren't ready when it happens. You're not ready tackle the problem. Instead of producing conversation seasoned with salt, knowing how you ought to answer, you find you have no adequate replies to your unbelieving friend's declaration that there can't possibly be a God because there's so much suffering in this world. Instead of being rooted and established in Christ, you find yourself tossed to and fro by emotion, watching a close relative die slowly of a particularly voracious cancer. And instead of fighting the good fight and finishing the race strong in the Lord, you find yourself doubting there is a God and gradually lose your grip on Christianity.
Perhaps you should have taken the necessary precautions to be ready. After all, suffering, Jesus told us, will always be part of life—especially in our lives, as followers of him. He promised persecution, conflict and betrayal—father turning against son and mother against daughter—famine, war and rumours of war. He never said that everything would be right this side of heaven. We still suffer, sicken and die.
How, then, should we be prepared for pain?
1. Know how you ought to answer
Knowing how you ought to answer means finding out the possible answers first. Though the Bible tells us everything we need to know about God, sometimes we need a little help from the “experts” in thinking about the issue properly. There are many books on the topic of pain and God's sovereign power, but I just want to draw your attention to two: If I were God, I'd end all the pain by John Dickson and The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis.
John Dickson gives us some insight into how to deal with the question by presenting a short and simple argument about why the Bible's perspective on suffering is the “best explanation, the least incoherent one” in contrast to all the other main worldviews on offer (p. 13). He starts out by showing that the existence of suffering does not necessarily rule out the existence of God, before moving onto a brief discussion of the alternatives as spelled out in other major world religions and streams of thought—Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Atheism. All of these, he says, are intellectually satisfying in some way, but totally unlivable; despite even the most solid beliefs, the human spirit cannot help but utter that anguished cry, “Why?”
God whispers back his reply, and it is to these “whispers” that Dickson devotes the second half of his book. God's answer can be found in his justice: he is the only one who can be totally and absolutely fair in administering his judgement, and that, by necessity, involves delaying judgement until the end of the age. God's answer can also be found in his plan for universe: the destruction of the old heaven and earth and the renewal of all things, excluding all suffering and pain forever. And finally, God's answer can be found in his suffering on our behalf: the death of Jesus on the cross. Dickson writes,
In the great work of art we call the universe, I cannot always follow the hand of the Artist: some of his work just eludes me. But what the biblical narrative tells me—and, in particular, the account of Christ's passion—is that while I may not be able to trace the Artist's hand at all times, I can always trust his motives. The God who is in control of all things, who acts behind the scenes in all things, is also the God who willingly suffers. (p. 67)
Because God has suffered, he can understand our suffering. And he has also done something about it through the death and resurrection of his son. What begins as an “invitation to doubt” (p. 33) is now an “invitation to faith”; having shown that the Biblical perspective on pain is the “last one standing” (p. 13), Dickson now invites his reader to put his/her trust in Jesus.
Always readable, personal, engaging and thought-provoking, this is a useful little book to help you come up with the answers. Matthias Media have also provided a free study guide which you and a friend can use to work through the issue. But this book wasn't written primarily for Christians; it was written mostly for unbelievers who tend to throw down the question like a challenge. By all means, use it to generate discussion and raise ideas, but seek to give it away to your non-Christian friends to encourage them in their own philosophical journey.
C.S. Lewis has a completely different approach in The Problem of Pain. In order to answer the question, he seems to say, we must first understand the question. He sets out to “solve the intellectual problem raised by suffering” (p. 9) and, in his discussion, he takes the problem apart and makes the following significant points:
- The problem of pain is only a “problem” if God exists; if there is no God, there is no problem.
- It has been said that, if God was all-powerful and good, he would not allow suffering to exist. But though God is all-powerful, he often chooses to work within the framework of the universe he has created; he rarely works outside of it because that would undermine the order and stability which he created the universe to have. So the world continues to operate according to fixed laws and consequences, and human beings continue to operate within the world. But the wilful acts of sinful humans will inevitably give rise to suffering as men and women set about breaking God's laws.
- It has also been said that if God were so good, he would not want us to suffer. But our idea of “good” may not necessarily match up to God's idea of what is “good” for us. This is because we are, essentially, rebellious creatures who are totally against God. It is therefore not surprising that God's “goodness” towards us should involve some sort of corrective/remedial treatment.
The rest of the book looks at pain as God's corrective—as an element of fleshly mortification (putting to death the sinfulness of the body); as his retribution upon sin; and as his “megaphone” which “[s]hatters the creature's false self-sufficiency” (p. 81) and makes us see that everything is not well and that we are not as terrific as we think we are. In the course of his discussion, Lewis also talks about animal pain, hell and, finally, in the light of Romans 8:18, heaven.
Because it is not an easy book to read at times, I would advise reading it yourself before passing it on to anyone else. Lewis can be too theoretical at times, and his lengthy discourse can be incomprehensible to the not-so-philosophically minded. In addition, though he adequately addresses the problem of pain on an intellectual level, one cannot help but wonder what link the intellectual has with the emotional. How did Lewis live out his own philosophy? He tells us in his Preface that he did not live up to his own principles (p. 9). Later, in writing A Grief Observed after the death of his wife, his Christian faith was challenged, he doubted God's existence, he cursed God's name, and he refuted the things about God's goodness he had written about in The Problem of Pain. It seems as though head knowledge is not enough; something more is needed to shape our thinking about pain and suffering.
2. Be rooted and established
Lewis did not turn his back on God. Though he cried aloud to God and against God, his trust remained in him. D.A. Carson encourages us to do the same in How Long, O Lord?—only he wants us to be better equipped when the worst of life's storms hit.
Carson says from the outset that he is writing for Christians only, not unbelievers. He also says he is not writing for Christians who are currently suffering but for Christians who will, one day, suffer. This means it's not a very good book to give to those who are sick or distressed, but it is ideal for those whose thinking on the issue needs to be clarified. He calls his book a kind of “preventative medicine” (p. 9) and makes the following claim in his Preface:
One of the major causes of devastating grief and confusion among Christians is that our expectations are false. We do not give the subject of evil and suffering the thought it deserves until we ourselves are confronted with tragedy. If by that point our beliefs—not well thought out but deeply ingrained—are largely out of step with the God who has disclosed himself in the Bible and supremely in Jesus, then the pain from the personal tragedy may be multiplied many times over as we begin to question the foundations of our faith. (p. 9)
I think this is a very important point. How often has it been said that we turn to God in times of trouble and yet, in times of goodness, we totally forget about him? We are too complacent in our middle class houses and middle class lives. We tend to forget that pain is normal and that pleasure is not.
Carson begins by first looking at various “hard cases” which confront believers in their day-to-day lives and which give rise to the Psalmist's cry, “How Long, O Lord?” He then examines several “false steps” and points out the flaws in these wrong ways of thinking about pain and suffering. Atheism, deism and pantheism all come under the magnifying glass, as do sub-Christian ideas such as a limited God, free will, and the knowledge of evil being necessary for the knowledge of good. Carson then points out that all these streams of thought totally exclude the cross of Christ, and states that, “From any Christian perspective, our theoretical and practical approach to evil and suffering must fasten on the cross, or we are bound to take a false step.” (p. 37).
The middle section of the book is devoted to different themes on suffering which the Bible speaks about in some way—sin; social evils (eg. poverty and war) and natural disasters; God's suffering people; curses, holy wars and hell; illness, death and bereavement; eschatology and the renewal of all things; the mystery of God and faith (this chapter is a wonderful concise commentary on the book of Job); and finally, the God who suffers in the person of Jesus. Each chapter presents a “right” way of thinking about suffering in each of these contexts, drawing heavily on Biblical examples and principles of the Christian faith. For example, in the chapter about death, Carson points out that death is inevitable and therefore bereavement is inevitable. “Death is God's limit on creatures whose sin is that they want to be gods,” he says (p. 111). God, therefore, does not “owe” us a full quota of seventy years. We should not call him unjust when he chooses to take the life of someone close to us.
In the final section of the book, Carson tries to bring all the themes of the middle section together, arguing for a right way of thinking about suffering, faith and a sovereign God. His chapter on “The Mystery of Providence” is especially valuable because of his discussion of compatibilism. By “compatibilism” he means the Bible's upholding of two seemingly mutually exclusive propositions: God's sovereignty and human responsibility. Carson does not spend too much time discussing the passages which highlight compatibilism except to say that, though the Bible supports compatibilism, it never explains how compatibilism works. These things remain a mystery to us even though we seek after them with all our intellect and wisdom, and in the end we can only trust that God, who created us and loves us, always knows what he's doing.
3. Fight the good fight: finish strong
Knowing how we ought to answer and standing firm, rooted and established in the faith, are not always enough. In the words of Paul, we also need to “fight the good fight” and “finish the race” (2 Timothy 4:7). We must live out we believe in our day-to-day lives, showing again and again that our trust in God has not been misplaced. We must oppose suffering where we find it and deal firmly with our own rebellious nature. Carson writes, “[U]ltimately Christians will take refuge from their questions about evil not in proud theories that explain evil away, but in combating evil, opposing it, especially evil within themselves but also in the larger world as well.” (pp. 245-246). Knowing how we ought to answer and standing firm should give us a solid foundation on which to fight.
But we do not have to bear the weight of suffering alone. The God who suffered for us has brought us into a family of fellow sufferers who can step in and help bear the burden. We, at some other time, might in turn bear the burden for them—through intercession, prayer and practical provision. Sickness might leave us lonely but we are not alone. Grief may be isolating but we are not in isolation. The better equipped we are to face suffering, the better we will be able to help others.
On this side of heaven, in a world where suffering is inevitable, we must be prepared. We must know how to we ought to answer and we must stand firm. We must fight the good fight and finish the race. But most of all, we must be prepared—prepared to suffer.
Bibliography
Carson, D.A., How Long, O Lord?, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, 1990.
Dickson, John, If I were God, I'd end all the pain, Matthias Media, Sydney, 2001.
Lewis, C.S., The Problem of Pain, Fount, London, 1977.
Karen seems ready to face suffering but the truth is she's just widely-read.Visit her part o' the site: /karen/
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