Source: Kings Church Eastbourne – March 2014

The main big objections…

“How could good and loving God allow such

suffering and evil in the world?”

Pope hugs weeping girl who begs to know why God allows children

to be abandoned to drugs and prostitution

“Many children are abandoned by their parents. There are also many

who became victims and many terrible things happened to them like drugs or

prostitution. Why does God allow these things to happen to us? The children are not

guilty of anything. And why are there only very few people helping us?

GLYZELLE PALOMAR

Suffering and Evil is a deeply personal and emotional haunting question.

“She is the only one who has put a question for which there is no

answer. When the heart is able to ask itself and cry, then we can

understand. Jesus in the Gospel, he cried. He cried for his dead friend, he

cried when he saw the poor widow burying her son. It is only when we

learn to cry with those who are suffering that we can begin to

understand them and to love them.”POPE FRANCIS

There is no answer … we just don’t know.

Psalm 22 My God, my God,

why have you forsaken me?    Why are you so far from saving me,

    so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day,

but you do not answer,    by night, but I find no rest.

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;    you are the one Israel praises.

In you our ancestors put their trust;    they trusted and you delivered them.To you they cried out and were saved;

    in you they trusted and were not put to shame. 

Psalm 22 All who see me mock me;

    they hurl insults, shaking their heads.‘He trusts in the Lord,’ they say,

    ‘let the Lord rescue him.Let him deliver him,

    since he delights in him.’   … I am poured out like water, and

all my bones are out of joint.My heart has turned to wax;    it has melted within me.

Psalm 22 My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,

    and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;

    you lay me in the dust of death.Dogs surround me,

    a pack of villains encircles me;    they pierce my hands and my feet.

All my bones are on display;    people stare and gloat over me.

They divide my clothes among them    and cast lots for my garments

Psalm 22

But you, Lord, do not be far from me.    You are my strength; come quickly to help

me.For he has not despised or scorned    the suffering of the afflicted one;he has not hidden his face from him    but has listened to his cry for help.

    future generations will be told about the Lord 

They will proclaim his righteousness,    declaring to a people yet unborn:

    It is finished!

Hinduism "In proportion to the extent of one's

religious or irreligious actions in this life, one must enjoy or suffer the

corresponding reactions of his karma in the next.”

Bhagavat Purana 6.1.45

Buddhism The Buddha had observed that life is

suffering. The Buddha discovered that the direct causes of suffering are desire

or craving, and ignorance. This is the Second Noble Truth.

By overcoming craving and ignorance, they will attain happiness and

Enlightenment and rise above this world of suffering just as the Buddha did.

Islam

Say: “Nothing will afflict us save what Allah has ordained for us; He is our Patron; and

on Allah let the believers rely.”Surah (9:51)

Allah is the un moved mover. All life is subject to his will to be a Muslim is to

submit to the will of Allah

Atheist

“In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to

get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky; and you won't find any rhyme or

reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we

should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good.

Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we

dance to its music.”Richard Dawkins, Out of Eden, page 133.

An all-almighty all-loving all-knowing God would not permit suffering and evil

without a good reason+

I don’t know a good reason+

Therefore there is no such reason.+

Suffering and evil exists =

An all-almighty all-loving all-knowing God does not exist.

Christian

We don’t know the answerJewish poem of David

My God, my God,

Why have you forsaken me?

    Why are you so far from saving me,

    so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day,

but you do not answer,     

    Why?The question for a Hindu would mean that don’t understand Karma, for a Buddhist they have not

reached enlightenment, for a Muslim the question displays lack of submission to Allah, for the

Atheist who are you asking?

BUT the God of the Bible invites us to take our suffering to God and

ask him why?   

   The Bible provides both logical and moral

arguments but ultimately in each specific case of suffering and evil the

answer is we don’t know!  

   Love and Human Choice.  

“You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;  but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and

evil.” Genesis 2

Henry Scougal “Love is the greatest and most excellent things we are

masters of. it is indeed the only thing we can call our own, other things can be

taken from us by violence; but none can carry off by force our love: if anything elsebe counted ours, by freely giving our love

we give our all”

   Evil and Human Choice.  

Jesus said “This is the verdict: light has come into the world, but people

loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” John 3

   Evil and Human Choice.  

   Hope of Justice.  

Will not the Judge of all the earth do right? Genesis 18

   Hope of Justice.  This is how we know what love is: Jesus

Christ laid down his life for us… so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment…There

is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.

1 John 3 & 4

   Suffering and broken world.  

“Because you ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat

from it,’ ‘Cursed is the earth because of you’ ” Genesis 3:17

   Suffering and broken world.  

Our present sufferings … for the creation was subjected to frustration, … in hope that the

creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory

of the children of God. Romans 8:18

   Suffering and broken world.  

   ”We know that suffering produces perseverance;  perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to

shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit” Rom 5

“Therefore we do not lose heart thought inwardly we are wasting away … For our light and

momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 18 So

we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but

what is unseen is eternal.”2 Cor 4

   Hope of a new creation.  

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us

new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”

1 Peter 1:3

   Suffering and broken world.  

“Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth… He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. He who

was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” Revelation 21:2&4

   The Bible provides more than the logical and moral responses of human evil and physical disorder for suffering

and evil.

The God the bible invites us approach with our suffering the God who has uniquely experienced suffering and

pain!

God himself knows suffering and pain !

God designs a people for loving relationship with him.

People turn theirs back on him, rejecting him with a categorical no to his offer of love.

God himself enters our world. Jesus God in flesh, to call us to himself only to be resisted,

rejected, and ultimately insulted, tortured and crucified, by those he came to save!

God in anguish weeps… He is not different or unmoved     

‘ As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it …Jerusalem,

Jerusalem… how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen

gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”

“They brought Jesus and they crucified him. Dividing up his clothes, they cast lots to see what each would get… Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, …‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but he can’t save himself!...Those crucified with him also heaped insults on him.”

“At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in the

afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means ‘My

God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”

This is no Hindu Karma, or Buddhist lack of enlightenment. This is no Muslim blasphemy, or atheists blind physical forces. This is God

tasting the pain of human evil, the disintegrating de-creation of a broken world.

This is God in his glory, able to comfort all who suffer because he has

drunk the bitter cup with you

Whilst the Gospel of Jesus does not answer

the every why of our suffering, this God alone

wraps his nail pierced loving arms around you and weeps with you and whispers a

promise it will end - It is finished!