Why is there evil and suffering? [View all]
The basic philosophical question is “why is there something and not nothing?”
The basic theological question is, “why is there evil, and how is God implicated?”
The dilemma goes like this:
If God is good he would will to stop evil.
If God is powerful he would be able to stop evil.
Evil exist, and therefore God is either not good or not powerful.
Theologians and many others have struggled unsuccessfully with that issue for centuries.
Some of the inadequate or partial answers:
Human ignorance.
Human sin.
Human freewill—as God stepped back
The fall of Adam. (“I have sinned,” said Adam originally.)
Human failure to prevent suffering (allowing people to starve by a failure to share food).
God is testing us to make us stronger.
God is the author of evil as well as good.
There is no evil outside our inaccurate perception.
All things will eventually turn out for good.
We continually violate God natural laws.
And there are others
The difficulty with all these answers lies in the notion that God is a big, powerful person who lives somewhere in the sky and controls what goes on here like a puppeteer who manipulates the strings of his dolls. We even refer to God as “he.” Perhaps God is not a super man, a grand King or a benevolent parent. What if God is that energy which enlivens all that is, which lures creation on, and is the creative power, which simply enlivens all creation? This does not suggest a pantheism in which God is the creation itself, but a panentheism in which God is within all creation as its source of energy. Thus God suffers with us—as a fellow sufferer. In Christian theology, that is the meaning of the cross. God therefore not only wills to overcome suffering and evil, but also is at work within everything to refine all of life. Thus all things are in a continual state of evolution, and the energy behind evolution is the evidence of God with us.
Modern theology is rapidly getting rid of this sky wizard notion of God, and increasingly seeing God as Doing and not Being. God is best understood as a verb, not a noun. Religion becomes, therefore, our human participation in all the creative processes of life, not a belief in someone up there.
If we are to have an intelligent conversation about science, we had better come to terms with the amazing new insights of modern scientists. If we are going to have an intelligent conversation about religion we had better come to terms with the amazing new insights of modern theologians. If the only thing I know about science comes from the dark ages, my ignorance would immediately be obvious.
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