Lee Stronel: The Case For Faith

It is perhaps one of the most frequently asked questions of all time: if there are gods who have control over humans’ lives, why do they allow good followers to suffer? How can there be any justice in that kind of world? Philosophers and thinkers like Seneca and authors of the Bible have debated and written about these questions since ancient times. Perhaps because hardships affect every person, many people continue to debate the same topics today. Seneca writes extensively about the topic of suffering in his essay “On Providence,” which is contained in The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca. Likewise, Paul writes about how to face hardships in his letters to the Romans and the Corinthians, and the book of Job in the Old Testament contains

John Hick argues in this writing that the all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good Christian god is compatible with an abundance of suffering. He offers solutions to the problem of suffering which relies heavily upon a tripartite foundation. Hick divides evil into two: Moral Evil = the evil that human being cause - either to themselves or to each other. And Non-Moral Evil = the evil that is not caused by human activity - natural disasters, etc. He tries to explain that a world without pain and suffering, moral traits such as courage, patience and sympathy would not be developed.

The central argument that Lewis puts forth in The Problem of Pain, is that it is man’s free will that is responsible for the suffering in the world rather than God’s will or lack of goodness. He states, what he believes to be the problem of pain in it’s simplest form, that, “If God were good, He would make His creatures perfectly happy, and if He were almighty He would be able to do what he wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both. The possibility of answering it depends on showing that the terms ‘good’ and ‘almighty’, and perhaps also the term ‘happy’, are equivocal: for it must be admitted from the outset that if the popular meanings attached to these words are the best, or the only possible, meaning, then the argument is

I have been asked hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept, by faith, that God is sovereign, and He’s a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering. The Bible says that God is not the author of evil. It speaks of evil as a “mystery.” In 2 Thessalonians 2:7 it talks about the mystery of iniquity. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” He asked that question, “Who can understand it?” And that’s one reason we each need God in our lives.

Why does God allow suffering? This is the age-old question of Christians and non-Christians alike, and it's unlikely to be answered to anyone's satisfaction this side of heaven. Even though I'm just an ordinary guy, I'd like to take a stab at it.

The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis’s first foray into Christian writing, although he professes in the preface, “If any real theologian reads these pages he will very easily see that they are the work of a layman and an amateur”. This self professed layman of the Church of England, however, deliveries an astute defence of Christian theism in the face of pain in the world. Lewis’s arguments, which contain many ideas of previous and present Christian thinkers, attempt to defend God’s goodness despite the world’s evils, steers close to many other theodicies in this regard.

What is “freewill”? Freewill is the ability for us and only us as humans to control our faith and to a certain extent, our destiny. Without the attribute of freewill our lives would become very simple and meaningless, with no end goal to our lives. Did God create suffering so we could choose between good and evil? As children of God, He gave us the power of freewill at birth, whether to be upright or malicious. He gave us the choice to be blissful and go to Heaven or to sin and suffer then go to Hell. Suffering is a key component in every aspect of freewill. Without suffering freewill would not exist. There needs to be consequences for every action we take throughout our lives, without consequences our lives would be pre-determined and extremely

The existence of pain and suffering in a world created by a good and almighty God is a fundamental theological dilemma and may be the most serious objection to the Christian religion. In the book, The Problem Of Pain , author C.S. Lewis addresses the issue of pain as a mere problem that demands a solution; he formulates it and goes about solving it. "If God were good, He would make His creatures perfectly happy, and if He were almighty He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both" (p. 16). According to Lewis, this is the problem of pain in its simplest form. In his attempt to solve the problem of pain Lewis evaluates the past and the origin of religion, he

According to Augustine, God’s mercy can be painful in that as humans we can see how bad we were and the kind of grace God gave us anyway. It hurts us to envision our pasts knowing that we were so sinful and that Jesus had to endure so much to save us- so much that we didn’t deserve.

This outright dismissal of pain and suffering arises because religious theology cannot answer the fundamental question as to why there is evil and suffering in the world. The result is a morality that can have a profoundly negative effect on human

“If the universe is so bad, or even half so bad, how on earth did human beings ever come to attribute it to the activity of a wise and good Creator?” (Lewis, C.S. The Problem of Pain, p. 3.) Prehistoric man first wrote of fear of a supernatural being, and Lewis describes a feeling of awe and fear which he calls Numinous. He describes man’s consciousness of morality, and the inherent feeling of knowing right from wrong. God is all powerful and good, yet the world is full of evil, tragedy, loss and suffering. Lewis argues that life cannot exist independent of the natural world and because we have the freedom to make choices, human suffering is inevitable. “We have seen that in a stable and meaningful universe a possibility of pain is inherent; and in a universe of creatures, inclined, by virtue of their fallen nature, to move away from God, evil becomes, so to speak, endemic.” (Bacz, Jacek.) God is full of love and goodness. Man, however, is not perfect, we make mistakes, we make bad choices, we can be wicked and evil resulting in great suffering to ourselves and others. The pain we experience is the mechanism to bring us closer to God, and to become blessed and

The problem of evil has been around since the beginning. How could God allow such suffering of his “chosen people”? God is supposedly all loving (omni-benevolent) and all powerful (omnipotent) and yet He allows His creations to live in a world of danger and pain. Two philosophers this class has discussed pertaining to this problem is B.C. Johnson and John Hick. Johnson provides the theists’ defense of God and he argues them. These include free will, moral urgency, the laws of nature, and God’s “higher morality”. Hick examines two types of theodicies – the Augustinian position and the Irenaeus position. These positions also deal with free will, virtue (or moral urgency), and the laws of nature. Johnson

God cannot determine the outcome of our free choice. So either there is no omniscient god or we are created without free will and therefore are forced/unable to avoid doing evil. Again this shows that god is not benevolent, nor omniscient, therefore he is non-existent. Theists may argue the following reason for god to have granted humans free will. It is possible that god raised homo sapiens to rationality giving the gift of abstract thought, language and disinterested love. And so it is arguable that god gave us free will to allow for love, as free will is necessary for love. Although this may be one of many reasons that god granted us free will, it is one that we may understand. Free will is necessary for both erotic and platonic love. One may argue that evil is only trumped by love. And that the existence of evil, although in its masses is worth it for the sake of

Suffering is an inevitable cause of fate within our world that succumbs one to a state of pain, distress or hardship. Suffering has many forms with a limitless scale to how influential it can be on an individual’s character and overall perspective of life. Pin pointing the exact origin and reasoning behind something perceived as so inconceivably evil and negative has buffaloed multiple people. This has lead many into trying to figure out its meaning or importance towards humans and the sovereignty of god. Some philosophers state that god cannot truly be Omnibenevolent if such a thing as evil and suffering exist in a world he created. While others have come to a conclusion that suffering is not an act or creation of gods benevolent sovereignty, but in fact a price or side effect of humanity’s freedom, allowing both good and evil actions to exist and vice versa the reactions of these as well which could cause

Most "bad" things which happen do so because God gives a radical freedom to God's people; we are free people, not puppets on a string. But God does not cause "bad" things to happen. God loves us and grieves with us in our pain when "bad things" happen.