Play

We’ve been going through a series on objections to the Christian faith and the God of the Bible, and today we’re going to wrestle with probably the biggest one, the one that affects believers and skeptics alike – how can an all-powerful, benevolent God allow suffering and evil?  How do you reconcile the Biblical picture of a God who is loving and powerful with all the pointless evil and suffering we see every day?  Why would a loving God allow a tsunami, or a baby to die in his crib, or refuse to answer the prayers of his children who cry out to Him day and night for healing?

This is what I’d like to deal with for the next eight hours…

Just kidding.  But really, I am fully aware that I will never do this subject justice in a 35 minute sermon.  I know that most people sitting here have experience evil and suffering so personal and devastating in its own unique way that to offer pat answers would be an affront to your faith and experience.  So, while I want to do my best to bring the Biblical story to bear on your story this morning, I firmly believe that you will not leave here with all of your questions answered or doubts satisfied.  But I’m okay with that, because frankly I don’t think the Bible is concerned with answering all of your questions.

There are a couple of ways to address this question, as I see it.  The first is on a purely philosophical level.  The problem of evil is a classic philosophical conundrum, and perhaps there are some of you who look at the world on a strictly intellectual level and say “there can not be a God.”  The philosophical problem of evil goes something like this:

• A good God would not allow the presence of evil and suffering
• And all-powerful God would have the power to prevent all evil and suffering
• There is evil and suffering in the world
• Therefore, if there is a God, he is either not entirely good, or He is not all-powerful

The philosopher looks at evil and suffering in the world and says that either there is no God, or, if there is a God, it is not the God of the Bible, who is supposed to be loving, benevolent, and all-powerful.  Perhaps it is an impotent God, or an evil God, but not the God of the Bible.

Sam Harris put it this way, in Letter to a Christian Nation: “Somewhere in the world a man has abducted a little girl.  Soon he will rape, torture, and kill her.  If an atrocity of this kind is not occurring precisely at this moment, it will happen in a few hours, or days at most.  Such is the confidence we can draw from the statistical laws that govern the lives of six billion human beings.  The same statistics also suggest that this girl’s parents believe – as you believe – that an all-powerful and all-loving God is watching over them and their family.  Are they right to believe this?  Is it good that they believe this?  No.” According to Harris and Templeton, if people would just face the grim reality, they would quickly jettison their belief in the God of the Bible.