God's suffering

One thing that distinguishes Christianity from other religions is that in Christianity God is supposed to have experienced the evil and suffering that humanity experiences in everyday life. Jesus is supposed to be God in the same way that you are you, and I am myself (John 10:30, Mark 2:5-12, John 14:9). This means that although God hasn't taken away evil and suffering in this life, God has experienced a pretty broad range of evils and sufferings, which, I suppose, is more comforting than if it wasn't the case.

The fact that God has suffered from the things that we go through means that God can more easily have empathy for what it's like, having been in our situation. God knows exactly what we're going through. God's ability to emphathise with our situation reminds me of John 11:33-5: "When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who were crying with her, he was deeply moved and troubled. So Jesus asked, "Where did you put Lazarus?" They answered him, "Lord, come and see." Jesus cried."

An interesting aspect to God's suffering is whether Jesus on the cross experienced more than purely anguish at his situation and physical pain. When Jesus "bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Pe 2:24), did this involve more than being crucified? One analogy I have heard about this is that you can imagine humanity's sins like a big pool of black sludge, and then this is somehow collected and poured onto Jesus on the cross.

If so, then Jesus' crucifixion involved much more than the anguish of his situation and physical pain. It also involved the pain of carrying humanity's sins, which could be quite horrible. Carrying all of humanity's sins would be an act on a massive scale. It is also an act with a terrible nature - we don't know what it feels like to carry someone's sins, but it could be really horrible. Perhaps it is the most painful experience anyone can go through. And maybe Jesus was also spiritually separated from the first member of the trinity in some way while it happened (Mark 15:34), which could be quite awful for God to undergo.

Suppose this is correct, then perhaps God is the one who has suffered the most in the history of the world.

This is a very surprising idea. Normally when we think of suffering we don't see God as an example of the miseries in the world. We might imagine a starving child in Africa, or someone with terrible chronic pain, or a victim of horrible evil. But, actually, according to this reasoning God is actually the person who has suffered the most in history. God's story is a good example of what it means to live in a world of pain and evil.

A possible solution to the problem of evil

An easy solution to the problem of evil is just to say that God is not very powerful. That is, God wants to help us with our pain and suffering, but for various reasons just can't.

This is not a very good 'solution' because it undermines our ability to trust God. If God isn't very powerful, then can God save us from our sin? Can this God really guarantee an eternal existence of goodness, contentedness, and peace forever?

But I believe you can rework this 'easy solution' into something that does not undermine our ability to trust God.

What if you limited God's power in a key way? What if you, with surgical precision, cut out aspects of God's power that do not undermine our ability to trust God and yet answer the problem of evil?

How about this: as long as there is sin in the world, there must be evil and suffering. As long as there is sin in the world, God can't get rid of evil and suffering. BUT God can easily and quickly get rid of our sin if we let Him. So God can easily and quickly get rid of all evil and suffering in the world forever if we let Him take away our sin.

If you said this, then you could explain why there is evil and suffering in the world even though God could take it all away in a moment.

You could say for those who aren't Christians, God could take their suffering away in a moment if they let God take away their sin, through Christ.

For those who are Christians, God could take away our suffering in a moment, but then our ability to influence non-Christians to follow Jesus would be 'shut down' as a result, for some reason. Maybe people need to leave this world to enter eternal life? So we could not (effectively?) encourage others to let God take away their sin if God took our suffering away, because the end of our suffering would mean the loss of our ability to evangelise.

Therefore, God can take away humanity's suffering in a moment, but will not do so either because people have not freely let God take away their sin or, alternatively, God has taken away someone's sin, but they need to continue to suffer in order to be able to influence non-Christians to accept Christ (so God can take away their sin).

There's a parable that sort of connects to this issue from Matt 24:24-30:

Jesus told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.

“The owner’s servants came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?’

“‘An enemy did this,’ he replied.

“The servants asked him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’

“‘No,’ he answered, ‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’”

In one interpretation of this parable, if God took away the suffering of Christians as soon as they accepted Christ, then, yes, our suffering could go away in a moment, but then we wouldn't be able to influence a whole lot of people to accept Christ as well. As a result some wheat would be 'pulled up' because making eternal life happen so quickly would prevent lots of people from hearing and accepting the gospel.

There are several issues that arise if this idea is pursued.

One big assumption is that evangelism to non-Christians gets shut down if God takes away the suffering of Christians. So you can't get incredibly happy and contented Christians, who are already experiencing eternal life, hanging out normally with non-Christians for some reason. I'm not exactly sure why this is the case. Maybe eternal life can't be experienced in the world in which we live.

Another assumption is that God can't evangelise very well if there are no Christians on earth.

Another is: why can't God take away suffering as long as there is evil in the world?

A preliminary answer to this is that although the idea of limits to God's power may make a lot of people uncomfortable, most Christians are on board with the idea that God cannot make 2 + 2 = 5, or make it so that you have never existed and have always existed. So perhaps the idea of a world with sin that doesn't have a lot of suffering in it implies a logical paradox, for reasons we don't know.

I think that reality may have unknown aspects that guarantee evil and suffering while there is sin in the world, which operate in mysterious ways. I can't explain any more of this though - why humanity's sin should generate a hurricane, virus, or earthquake somewhere is inexplicable.

Fourthly, why does God taking away our sin involve free will? But this is not extremely controversial because respecting free will usually makes God sound more loving.

A fifth issue is: how does this relate to God's word?

Not having an encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible I can't speak about the general Biblical picture on this point with confidence, but here are some relevant Bible verses:

Romans 5:12-14: "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned - for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come."

Romans 8:20-23: "Against its will, all creation was subjected to God's curse. But with eager hope, the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us." (NLT)

Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Matthew 23:37: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God's messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn't let me."

One thing that would be good to get from this idea is that there's a solution to the problem of evil that could make sense given the truth of some assumptions which are not too outlandish.

One of the disadvantages of sin is that we can't properly imagine heaven

There are some aspects to eternal life that people often find hard to understand. In this life we get bored and it can be hard to imagine how an eternity doing anything - even living with God - will not get boring if life in heaven is like life now.

Something that should comfort people on this issue is that, in the Christian view, one of the disadvantages of doing the wrong thing is not just spiritual death (being disconnected from God, Rom 6:23) but also that we don't experience the sort of joy and contentedness that God originally intended for humanity and this affects our ability to properly imagine eternal life with God.

Even when we are not suffering in any way it's obvious that there is something 'less than ultimate' about human happiness. And you'd have to imagine that God, it would seem likely, actually enjoys living forever (and in some sense has already lived forever). So we're probably missing something.

Surely whatever we're missing, that isn't as nice as what is the case for God, must be connected to our currently being either apart from or actually separated from God.

So we've always known a quality of happiness less than what God experiences, and this is why we can't imagine properly what life will be like once we experience "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit" in the Kingdom of God (Rom 14:17). It will involve experiencing the peace and joy that God has (Matt 25:21). And our inability to experience this happiness now is why people think that eternal life with God will get boring and have problems.

Some good verses on this are:

1 Cor 2:9: "However, as it is written: 'No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him'"

Psalm 16:11: "You will make clear to me the way of life; where you are joy is complete; in your right hand there are pleasures for ever and ever."

Psalm 36:7-8: "How precious is your unfailing love, O God! All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings. You feed them from the abundance of your own house, letting them drink from your river of delights. For you are the fountain of life, the light by which we see."

Rom 8:18: "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us."

Just like sin can eventually cause someone to become separated from God, so in this life it causes problems even where there is no suffering.

Two ways we can say God isn't good

Job 1:22: "In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing."

Job 33:9-12: "You [Job] said, 'I am pure; I am without sin; I am innocent; I have no guilt. God is picking a quarrel with me, and he considers me his enemy. He puts my feet in the stocks and watches my every move.' But you are wrong, and I will show you why. For God is greater than any human being."

There are two ways we can say that God isn't good.

The first way is obvious. We can say the Christian God exists, but that He isn't perfectly good despite what the Bible says. That is, the Bible inaccurately describes God.

The second way of saying that God isn't good can be a lot more subtle. I'll illustrate it using an example.

Suppose that a parent loses their spouse and child in a horrific accident one day. It also happens to be the case that the parents had stopped going to church a few months ago because they had just been too tired to go along, what with everything else that had been happening in their lives (or for some other reason).

Suppose that the surviving parent says 'I completely affirm that God is good. The reason why my spouse and child died is because God decided to punish us for not going to church more often.'

The second way of saying God isn't good can be quite subtle. It happens when someone affirms and sincerely believes that God is good, but when they try to explain suffering in their lives they say something about God that implies He isn't really good.

If we affirm that God is good, then we should not try to explain why God has allowed something to happen in our lives that subtly (or more bluntly) says that God isn't good. Because it just can't be true, and so it will mislead people who believe it. The surviving spouse is right to say that God is perfectly good, but something would be very amiss with God if their terrible tragedy was a punishment for not going to church more often.

Sometimes we can explain why God allowed something in a really great way. Sometimes, after enough time has elapsed, we can look at our life and understand really well why God didn't answer a specific prayer, or frustrated a persistent desire.

But if we can't explain our suffering very well, it's a lot better just to stick to our principles, affirm that God is good, and say 'I don't know why God allowed this to happen', rather than come up with a poor explanation.

There are general truths we can fall back on if we don't know the specific reason why God allowed something to happen. Characters in the Bible that we know God was helping and watching over often went through very long periods where God might have seemed distant and uncaring (like the account of Joseph in Genesis). Plus, humanity's unnatural separation from its Creator ensures some degree of suffering (like a fish out of water). Also, God will honour people's free will, allowing them to do evil to others, or damage their own lives.

What does the Bible say about suffering?

It's interesting that the Bible acknowledges the fact that good people are just as likely to suffer and experience an early death as evildoers.

Ecclesiastes 9:1-2: "This, too, I carefully explored: Even though the actions of godly and wise people are in God's hands, no one knows whether God will show them favor. The same destiny ultimately awaits everyone, whether righteous or wicked, good or bad, ceremonially clean or unclean, religious or irreligious. Good people receive the same treatment as sinners, and people who make promises to God are treated like people who don't."

Maybe the Bible is one of the first documents to point out this fact. But on the plus side, good, righteous people are doing God's will in their lives, and they go to eternal life when they die. Whereas evildoers reject being with God forever.

If we trust the Bible we know that God is in control of our lives although it seems like chaotic randomness a lot of the time.

Psalm 32:8-9: "The LORD says, "I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you. Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control."

Psalm 68:19: "Praise the Lord; praise God our savior! For each day he carries us in his arms."

I think the Bible's answer is that because we are currently separated from God (although Christians are technically not, we have not yet come into our inheritance) basically life must involve a lot of suffering (Gen 2:17; Rom 5:12-14). We don't know exactly how separation from God leads to our suffering, but it somehow does. The comforting thing is that genuine Christians do God's will in their lives and go to eternal life (which means no longer being separated from God, see Rev 21:3-4) after they die.

The 'Salvation' Theodicy

This is one type of answer as to why God allows people to suffer. A 'salvation' theodicy says that at least some of the suffering in the world is a key part of bringing people into eternal life. I don't think it can be a very complete explanation for why people suffer, but it has something worthwhile to say.

The Bible associates the suffering caused by our disconnect from God with people returning to God and choosing to enter eternal life by giving their lives to Christ:

Luke 15:11-24 'And he said, "There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.' And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants."' And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.' And they began to celebrate."'

In the 'salvation theodicy' somehow, in a way that we can't rationally explain, this world is the world in which the greatest number of people choose to enter eternal life.

The picture below illustrates a 'magical black box' analogy for God's decision to create our world, click it to see it full size:



Below is an illustration of the possible histories God might have faced in creating our world, click it to see it full size:



It makes sense that if 100 'degrees' of evil gets just one more person into eternal life, then God would choose to make that world. But God can never use immoral means to get someone to choose Him, so there must be limits on how much and what type of suffering can be a part of this process.

God cannot explain His choice of world because He cannot explain His understanding of our choices. Only God knows how someone is going to choose because only God knows how free will really works. So God's explanation wouldn't make sense to us because we'd only be going on what God says, we couldn't 'see' into other people's souls and understand why more people choose to enter into eternal life in this world rather than another, for ourselves. See Matt 24:36, Deu 29:29, and Rom 11:33.

A theory on the relationship between the Fall, and suffering today

This is a speculative look at a difficult topic: how does the Fall lead to so much suffering today, especially suffering that seems to have nothing to do with free will?

The Bible says there is a strong relationship between the Fall and suffering:

Romans 5:12: For this reason, as through one man sin came into the world, and death because of sin, and so death came to all men, because all have done evil

Here is a theory of how suffering, death, and sin could be related. It has a few problems, but maybe there is something in it to answer questions in a genuine way.

A while ago I was reading an online comic and in it one character was trying to justify the existence of hell. But instead of saying 'God is a God of justice' or 'God gives us the freedom to reject Him' the character said that the reason for hell was something like: 'God will not allow sin in His presence, because He is a good God'. I thought that was an interesting response, because 'God not allowing sin in His presence' because of His goodness would seem to have nothing to do with hell and suffering, depending on your view of hell.

Later on I got into reading about the philosophy of mind and consciousness. Consciousness is what you feel when your brain processes information. Whatever consciousness is, it seems different from our physical brain. It seems to exist in a 'mental world' quite different to the world of e.g. tables and chairs. Debates in the philosophy of mind are about how a 'mental world' arises out of a physical world.

Thinking about the philosophy of mind, one interesting idea is to say that there are two worlds that humans live in: a physical world and the mental world. So instead of trying to figure out how the mental arises out of the physical, you can sort of give up and say that humans are a combination of the physical and the mental and the mental is in its own world with its own rules. The mental is based on the world of God.

You know that phrase 'God will not allow sin in His presence, because He is a good God'? Imagine that in the mental world, either a mind is connected to God or it's not. If it's not connected to God the mind suffers horribly. The problem is that when we do something wrong, God needs to separate Himself from our wrongdoing, and that means that God has to disconnect our mind from His. This means that sinners' minds get disconnected from God, creating horrible suffering, even if physically everything is fine, and there are no diseases, tornadoes, tsunamis, nothing of the sort...

So physically, God can stop any hurricane, earthquake, disease, accident, anything. But God cannot stop pain, terrible, unrelenting pain, if a mind is not connected to Him in the mental world. Because that's what it feels like for a mind not to be connected to God in the mental world: death and pain.

Somehow, if God remained connected to a mind that wants to do wrong, then God Himself would be 'infected' with sin. Or maybe it's not a matter of choice, and God simply cannot be connected to a mind that wants to do wrong. Either way, you can explain how horrifying pain must exist in a world where there are people who do wrong, even though God is perfectly good and all-powerful.

There are a few big issues here:

1) Animal suffering. They don't really do wrong because they aren't morally responsible. Yet there's a lot of suffering in the animal world. The Bible does say that the animals were subjected by God to the pain that humans are under (Romans 8:19-22), but why?

2) So maybe getting disconnected from God causes pain. But it sure seems that viruses cause pain. One way of getting out of this problem is to say that the pain has to be there anyway, and God chooses to make it look like physical stuff causes the pain. This seems a little bit odd and counter-intuitive... God needs to have a reason to make it look like e.g. earthquakes cause pain when actually our mind getting disconnected from God causes pain. God doesn't add to our pain by making it look like it's the result of e.g. diseases, so at least that aspect makes sense.

3) Suffering is a universal fact of life, and there isn't anyone who doesn't experience it. OK, but some people suffer a lot more or less than whatever is 'average'. Why? This remains a bit of a mystery. Maybe suffering gets 'balanced out' over an eternity, assuming a person doesn't have their sins removed by Christ - Luke 6:24?

On the good side, this theory does fit in with Luke 17:20-21, which talks about what the Kingdom of God involves:

Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you."

If suffering happens because our mind gets disconnected from God, then perfect happiness will come when our sins are completely removed by Christ. Because we have never experienced life having our mind connected to God, then this theory explains why heaven is going to be so wonderful, even if it sounds to a non-Christian like it's just a change of scenery. They might ask: what's so great about heaven, just because it looks beautiful? The great thing about heaven is that our soul/mind will be connected to God for the first time, and we will experience life as it was originally meant to be experienced - in union with our creator, feeling the happiness that the image of God was originally meant to feel. We cannot even imagine what this is like - if we could, our mind would not be currently disconnected from God due to sin.

It also explains why no matter how much God helps those who reject what Christ did for them, they must suffer forever if they continue to reject Christ (very reminiscent of CS Lewis' Great Divorce).

In summary, you could say that the theory works like this:

Do we suffer because of a greater good? Yes.

1. Either we are perfect and there is no suffering.
2. Or we are morally imperfect and God becomes evil, because God allows sin in His presence/does not separate Himself from a soul that does wrong.
3. Or we are morally imperfect and there is horrible suffering, but God is perfect and provides a way for us to be free from sin and be truly happy one day (through the cross).

The third option is the best, which is what we see God doing. For the greater good of God remaining free from wrongdoing, we must suffer, assuming this whole system regarding a 'mental world'.

[See comments for clarification]

Answers to tough questions: suffering

When we see suffering going on in the world, often not connected to wrongdoing, it is hard to see how a loving God exists. Suffering is also pretty random. The traditional Christian answer is that because we live in a fallen world, therefore terrible suffering must happen.

I think there are some gaps in this explanation. Here is my attempt to fill them:

We are mental and physical beings. Mentally, we have a mind which is not the same as our brain. Physically, we have a brain and a body. The mind is based off the brain, but it is not the same thing as the brain.

I think that the mind lives in a mental world that follows different rules to the physical world around us.

I think that one of these 'mental' rules works kind of like gravity. Say you throw a rock up into the air. It will fall down due to gravity. In an analogous way, in the Christian view, a mind is naturally connected to its creator, God, in the mental world. God is the 'super-mind' from which all other minds come, creating this connection.

But in the Christian/Judaic view, if a mind sins then it gets pushed away from its creator, God (in the mental world). Sin pushes a mind away from God sort of like a rock suddenly flying out into space instead of falling to the ground (for some reason).

When a mind is connected to God it feels infinite happiness. It is enjoying what God feels all the time. But when a mind is 'pushed away' from God due to sin, the mind suffers, and loses ultimate happiness.

The stuff I just described only goes on in the mental world. It does not happen physically. So physically, everything can be fine. Someone can be in good health, be having a good time etc., but if our minds are cut off from God due to sin then we must suffer no matter what is going on physically.

God makes our mind getting cut off from God go along with physical suffering, like e.g. a disease. It doesn't have to go along with physical suffering like disease. But whether it does or not, the suffering we must all feel is roughly the same. So God should not be blamed for making this process go along with physical suffering, because the same suffering must happen regardless.

I think this is how saying 'We live in a fallen world' can make sense of suffering, and yet 'God is love' and all-powerful.

Two questions remain:

1) Why does our mind get cut off from God due to sin?
Answer: Because the mind is connected to God, and God simply cannot be connected to a soul that does wrong. It's impossible for such a connection to be maintained, because God is holy. Even though God is all-powerful, God cannot allow sin in His presence (for a reason we may not fully know).

2) Why do some people suffer much more than others?
Answer: I'm not sure, but this argument does explain why there must be horrible suffering... even if we can't explain why some people suffer more than others. This must simply be left unexplained, and so the argument is not complete. But this argument is at least something...