“Question Everything”
“God of Distance or God of Nearness?”
Does the presence of suffering discredit God? How could a loving God allow so much suffering in the world?
“Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams into dust.”
“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation . . . In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference”-Richard Dawkins
The reality of suffering, evil and pain is not incompatible with a loving powerful God
Romans 11:34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”
We assume God’s greatest concern is our happiness, health and prosperity…that ultimately God exists to make our lives better
The Scriptures reject simple approaches and answers to the problems of suffering
All suffering has purpose and can be used to develop our souls
“And why could it not be that our future glory will actually so ‘swallow’ the evil of the past that in some unimaginable way even the memory of the evil wont darken our hearts but only make us happier?” C.S. Lewis
“We know that time and again in the history of the Christian church, the blood of martyrs has been its seed. We are tempted to assume a simple equation here. Five men died. This will mean x-number of Waorani Christians. Perhaps so. Perhaps not. . .. God is God. I dethrone Him in my heart if I demand that He act in ways that satisfy my idea of justice. It is the same spirit that taunted, “If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the Cross.” There is unbelief, there is even rebellion, in the attitude that says, “God has no right to do this to five men unless . . .”
Through Jesus Christ we learn we can absolutely trust God through our suffering