Sunday, November 27, 2005

Why a Good God Should Allow Suffering

There's a lot of rubbish spoken about the idea that God is infinitely good being incompatible with the truth that there's suffering in the world. There are a lot of good anaswers to it from a Christian point of view; the best ones centre on Jesus.

That's not what I'm trying to do here. I'm going to try to show why it's plausible that the idea of an inifinitely good God should lead to an expectation that there will be suffering in the world. I'm not saying these arguments are watertight - it's just to get people thinking. Oh, and they're mostly working from the writings of John Piper.

A) An infinitely good God would want others to appreciate his goodness, power, etc. to the greatest possible extent If God is infinitely good, then he will want people to have an accurate view of things, including his own nature, so that they can enjoy him.

B)God's goodness is most visible when you can also see the absence of goodness You can only see how good things are by comparing them. I used to think the school I went to was ok. It was only when I went into other schools that I appreciated how good it was.

A) and B) imply that a good God should permit the existence of things that are not good.

C) God's power and sovereignty are more visible in him working through and despite evil rather than just working in good. Makes sense. How awesome a god would be who could use even people and actions opposed to him for his purposes!

A) and C) imply that people appreciate God better when seeing him working though evil, and hence that an inifinitely good God should be seen to work even though evil events.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

But isn't this just a defence for someone who's already made their mind up? Isn't it possible to argue anything that way? Given the evidence, isn't some other alternative more logical and likely?

John said...

As I said at the start, I don't think it's necessarily a clinching argument. I think it's a decent plausibility argument to show that even the a priori case isn't as cut and dried as it's often portrayed.

John said...

I've received an e-mail about this, and am replying here as it might be of interest to others. My correspondant's words are in italics.

A question about your suggestion about why we should expect evil if God is good: how do your reasons apply to Heaven? They would tend to suggest that Heaven isn't perfectly good as we couldn't appreciate God's goodness properly since there's no suffering in Heaven? Or do you think that that problem is sorted because we retain memories of our earthly
suffering?


I think that's part of it. Being able to look back on the whole history of human suffering and praising God for working in and through it to bring us out of it.

But then what about babies that die in infancy and so don't retain any memories of earthly suffering?

I lean towards thinking we're omniscient in heaven (e.g. 1 Cor 13:12). And I'm undecided about what happens to babies who die in infancy, but am more than happy to trust God.

Or maybe we get our appeciation of God from seeing the suffering in Hell? But then the question arises as to why *we* must suffer in this life rather than just watching the sufferings of others.

Partly that the world is currently under God's wrath. Partly to point forwards to the fact that there is much better to come. Partly because part of sharing in Christ is sharing in his sufferings.

And why do we suffer differing amounts in this life? Do these correlate with differing degrees of appreciation of God's goodness? If not, it would suggest that some
of our suffering in this life is gratuitous?


I'm more than happy to trust that God knows exactly what he is doing, that though there is often pain, God will not let it be more than we can endure, that he will keep us through it and use it to refine our faith and our trust in him.

In God's economy, nothing is wasted. There is a point to everything, even if we can't see it.

Steven Carr said...

'In God's economy, nothing is wasted. There is a point to everything, even if we can't see it.'

That is what I keep telling people.

There is a point to abortion, even if we can't see it.

The fact that we are not clever enough to know why God allows abortion is a stupid reason to doubt the wisdom of God in permitting abortion.

John said...

I completely agree. God allows abortion just the same as he allows other kinds of murder. He allows us corporately to suffer the consequences of our own actions.

Steven Carr said...

If God allows abortion, who are we to try to ban it?

God always does the moral thing, so allowing abortion is the moral thing to do.

Steven Carr said...

'I'm more than happy to trust that God knows exactly what he is doing, that though there is often pain, God will not let it be more than we can endure...'

God will not allow any more abortions than we can endure.

So clearly we are nowhere near that limit yet.

Or else God would have acted, and not just pass by on the other side when a baby is in trouble.

Steven Carr said...

Would God allow errors in the Bible?

He seems to allow pretty much everything else.

John said...

"God always does the moral thing, so allowing abortion is the moral thing to do."

Glaring error here. The moral thing for an omnipotent deity is not necessarily also the moral thing for people. In this case, God allows people to choose how they use their abilities and advises us to use them for good.

For what it's worth, most Christians I know do much the same when it comes to abortion. We don't actively prevent it, but we advise strongly against it.

John said...

Hey steven - how about you post comments on the posts to which they are relevant?