If there is a God—the God of the Bible—why would He allow suffering in a world He created “good, very good?”
This is a perfectly reasonable question to ask and sooner or later, must be faced by all people, either to deny the possibility of an intelligent, all-powerful, and all-loving God or to somehow come to understand that there is no contradiction between the God of the Bible, the one and only Christian God, and suffering in the world. Of course, given my self-imposed space restrictions I cannot go into this in any depth but will only be able to make a passing argument. Consequently, I do not expect to convince anyone of the truth of my position but if I’m able to make someone think about this, and perhaps even to explore the question further, then I will rest well satisfied.
It is important to point out right away that this issue was dealt with by the writer of Genesis in the third chapter of that book. Let me summarize for the biblically non-literate.
Chapter three opens with the serpent (Satan) tempting and deceiving Eve into disobeying God’s command not to eat of the fruit of a certain tree. She eats, believing Satan instead of God and, worse, she goes on to present the forbidden fruit to Adam who deliberately breaks God’s commandment by eating what he knew was forbidden. (Eve for her part was less blameworthy as she was tricked; not so Adam.)
Certainly, the change was drastic and immediate. Adam and Eve gain deep knowledge of good and evil but also experience shame for the first time. Their shame causes them to try to hide from God, which of course they cannot do. When God determined the truth, His first action is to blame the serpent; this he does roundly. It is best to quote the account at this point:
14 The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
So we see both Eve and then Adam are punished for their disobedience, their failure to maintain God’s plan for them, and this through Adam’s own choices freely made, with no external compunctions. This is important to remember. If blame is to be apportioned, it must fall upon the deserving, not the undeserving, party; in this case on Adam. Here is where suffering begins; right back on day seven of the creation. (In other words, there was not a long, long time before our “innocence” was lost and we gradually began to suffer. According to the Bible, it happened almost right away!).
God not only cursed Adam and Eve, but the earth also (Gen. 3:18). Why the earth? It had done no wrong, it was made “good, very good.” Why the need to curse the very ground? I am not certain, but I think it must have had something to do with the fact that Adam was created from the “dust of the ground.” There was (and still is) a connection between the earth and Adam (and therefore the entire human race). If God had not cursed the ground as well as cursing our first parents, Adam would probably not have understood the gravity and depth of his disobedience. He would not have understood the magnitude of what he had done. He would not have understood how vast was God’s anger and horror over this act of simple and prideful disobedience or sin which was directed against Himself and all that He had made. It was an affront to God’s righteousness and justice that had occurred, as well as a betrayal of His love.
In any event, the earth too was cursed as we have read. But we also read of God’s great compassion and pity on these two lonely and forlorn sinners (for so they had become, forever. Sin, in its most basic form, is simply disobedience to God’s just and righteous laws as well as His nature. It is a fundamental affront to the very person of God Himself and all that has come to be because of who God is.)
So, in His love, pity and mercy for these two sinners God decides to mitigate the very curse He had just levied upon them. This He does through another shocking act. God “made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them” (Gen. 3:21). This means God killed one or more animals in order to provide the clothing needed (for protection and modesty). Remember, all this is taking place in Paradise, the Garden of Eden, the very representation of bliss and deathless perfection. Up to this point, death was unknown by Adam and Eve. They could have had no comprehension of it. I am sure this shocking act of God did two things for Adam and Eve.
First, it demonstrated, in no uncertain terms, the magnitude of wrong that had just taken place; it proclaimed the horrible consequences of what had happened; it declared the degree of revulsion, anger and wrath that God must have experienced as a result of what Adam had done; from that moment on, the relationship of love and reverential respect that existed between man and God was forever disrupted; we were forever made to be enemies of God through this one terrible act of disobedience. When Adam was given his clothing of skin, he must have slowly started to see the “big picture.” He would have begun to realize the depth of wickedness he had sunk himself into, and not only himself, but the entire human race to come. He would have begun to understand the terrible cost of his disobedience and what toil, hardship and death would mean. He would have been given a glimpse, through the realization of the reality of death, of God’s holiness, righteousness and perfect justice. Of course a righteous God—a God of law and order; a God of justice and fair-dealing; in whom the guilty will be held accountable—could never for a moment let the awesome disobedience of Adam go unpunished. Payment (and eventual restitution) must be made for his sin against God and God’s creation.
Second, it demonstrated God’s abiding love in spite of the grave disobedience of Adam, who was God’s child in a very special and unique way; it showed them that there was hope yet, that God still loved them, pitied them and experienced compassion for their predicament, self-chosen though it was. (Would not any human parent feel the same kind of sympathy for his or her disobedient child undergoing punishment for such selfish disobedience? I know I would.)
We have seen that suffering (especially in the form of death) came into the world as a result of our disobedience (“our” in the two senses that we were represented before God by Adam as well as by virtue of the fact that we are all Adam’s “offspring”, his inheritors, and as such we have inherited his predilection to pride and wilfulness. It is, as you might say, in our “genes”, that is, in our genetic make up as human beings. This fact is critically important and if you cannot agree with it, you will never understand the nature of suffering. Our suffering is part of the just and righteous punishment God has unhappily inflicted upon us as a result of our sin of disobedience against Him and His justice, the magnitude of which is beyond our meagre comprehension.
Whether Adam understood this or not is irrelevant. He was tested by God and came up short. He may not have understood the stakes he was playing for but He knew God, knew what had been given him and that should have been sufficient for his obedience. He failed and sin and suffering entered into the world because of the proportionate justice God had to levy in order to pay for, as well as punish, the sin. Therefore, sin, death and their sister suffering had to come into the world in order that God could restore a state of justice for the evil done.
In this light, we see that the responsibility for suffering could not lie with God, but with the guilty perpetrator of the crime. Can a judge, after the court has met to try a case of say, murder, and after the jury has pronounced its decision: “Guilty”, be held responsible for the consequent suffering of the guilty party who now—as a result of the judge’s fair and honest sentence—faces many years of hard labour in prison? Of course not. Would we choose to live in a society where laws were flaunted, ignored and overturned by mere whim? I would not. We want laws that we know are fair, just, meaningful and which will not change at the drop of a hat.
So, on the one hand we have God’s perfect and eternal justice (perfect in the sense of total sufficiency or total necessity; eternal since the crime was against God and God is eternal) and on the other we have God’s abiding (perfect and eternal) love for His creation, especially for Adam and the entire human race. These seem irreconcilable and in fact would be so except for one thing alone which we will take up for discussion in Part 2 of this essay. But let me summarize so far:
- God loved Adam and Eve with a perfect and eternal love.
God (by being God) is perfectly and eternally righteous, holy, just and fair in all that He is and does. - The one who God loved perfectly, disobeyed God’s perfectly just and righteous command.
- Therefore, because of God’s perfect justice, He must punish the guilty who, it so happens, is also the one He loves perfectly and eternally.
Part of the penalty, because of the magnitude of this sin of disobedience, is that both Adam and Eve are condemned to death (both spiritual and physical) and in addition, the earth is cursed, forcing even more suffering upon the fallen sinners while they live out lives of exile in a cursed world.
The penalty, harsh though it might seem, was also perfect, (because God is perfect by virtue of His being God) that is, in perfect proportions to the crime committed.
The penalty for Adam’s (and our) sin of disobedience is what we understand as suffering.
Suffering is the perfect and just outcome of the sin of disobedience. All the sickness, pain, toil, fear and hardship that are so characteristic of this world are nothing more than the consequence of the Fall, the sin of disobedience (pride in other words). For this we have only ourselves to blame and for us to blame God is in a sense to shoot the messenger. Remember, God is perfectly just and righteous, he could not—even if He desired to—circumvent His own justice and righteousness, nor does He desire to do so.
Therefore, we will have to experience, to one degree or another, the punishment of a perfectly righteous and just judge, God Himself, and this forever, as God is forever. This paints a very depressing picture and it may seem as though I am pulling the very rug out from under the feet of those who are in most desperate need of such a rug. Nevertheless, this is not the case.
Is there a way out of suffering; of pain and misery and death? No if we think we are able to pull ourselves out of the mire of suffering; no if we think that suffering will somehow run out; will burn itself out like a raging fire, before the end of the world, so that at least the fortunate few who are alive then will be able to experience lives of perfect joy and contentment and freedom from pain. Such thinking is unbiblical; it is mere indulgence and make-believe. No, suffering is part of the created order, thanks to the sin of pride and arrogance displayed in the Garden.
What then can we say? Suffering is the lot of all people to one degree or another; not all suffer equally but all suffer nevertheless. Is there no escape then? No. The price of our crime against God and His perfect righteousness and justice must be, and will be, paid. But now I ask you to consider something quite startling. Imagine in our hypothetical court case mentioned above, that once the judge had declared the one in the dock to be guilty he suddenly came down from the bench and into the dock himself. There, he releases the guilty party, accepts the punishment on the prisoner’s behalf and newly declares the one charged to be justified, that is, found no longer GUILTY, as there is now someone else willing to take the guilty verdict and who is able to pay the entire price of the crime, to the very last penny.
The Bible’s answer to pain and suffering is simple, straightforward and staggering in its beauty. In Part 2 of our essay, we will take up the question “What is God’s solution (the Bible's answer) to the problem of suffering.”
Soli Deo Gloria
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