How can a good God allow suffering?

How can a good God allow suffering? Pastor David Bootsma.

If you’ve ever asked that question—you’re not alone. Join us as we wrestle honestly with pain, trust, and the hope we have in Christ, even in the middle of it all. 

Free Grace is Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Vernon, BC Canada. Join us for our Sunday service at 10:30 AM at 802 45th Ave, or tune in online through our Facebook or YouTube livestream.

Creators and Guests

Host

Pastor David Bootsma

Associate Pastor | Teaching Elder

What is Free Grace Vernon?

Free Grace is a Presbyterian Church located in Vernon, British Columbia. We believe it is the Gospel of Christ that has power to transform people’s lives. To learn more about Free Grace Church www.freegracevernon.ca

David Bootsma: 00:06

One of the deepest and most universal questions that people ask is how can a good and powerful God allow evil and suffering? Philosophers and theologians still treat the problem of evil and suffering as one of the central objections to belief in God, and it remains a major topic in contemporary philosophy of religion. Christian apologists and pastors, like myself, frequently identify if God is good, why is there so much suffering, as one of the most asked questions they face from skeptics as well as people within their church. Surveys of the general public show that many people struggle to understand why a good and powerful God allows suffering. Who's asking this question?

David Bootsma: 00:58

Christians, religious believers, many Christians report that experiences of suffering regularly make them doubt or question God's goodness or power. Even if they do not abandon belief, they wrestle with this from inside of the faith, and probably if I took a survey within this room, you know again at one time or another we probably had our questions or maybe we still do have our questions with regards to that. Atheists and agnostics, The problem of evil is often cited as one of the strongest reasons for not believing in God and non religious people are especially likely to see suffering as evidence against God's existence. I always find it interesting that most people who I know who are atheists are not atheists because they just couldn't help themselves, evolution, the theory of evolution was so compelling to them they just had to embrace it, but instead it was like they believed at one point, but then they went through suffering or they couldn't reconcile suffering with a good God and they just abandoned their faith, and then they turned to things like evolution. Younger generations like gen z studies of teens and young adults show that the problem of evil and suffering is a deal breaker for many and a key factor behind rising atheism or religious disengagement among the youth and then even the broader public including the spiritual but not religious.

David Bootsma: 02:28

Surveys indicate that people across different religious backgrounds including the unaffiliated grapple with why suffering exists and what it says about God or ultimate reality. And the fact of the matter is suffering is a universal human experience. Right? There's never been a time in history where where people haven't suffered, there's no place in the world where people don't suffer, and there's not really a there's not a human being alive that hasn't experienced suffering in their lives. And this question of, you know, if there is a God why is there suffering?

David Bootsma: 03:05

That like we might not think about it all that much until, right, suffering comes into our own lives. Right? We experience loss, right, of a loved one or whatever, and we experience an injustice, or we get sick, we get cancer, we experience depression, or anxiety, we have mental health issues, Or it may not be ourselves but it's our loved ones, it's our children who are suffering, it's our parents, or our friends. Or we see tragedies in the world, right? Earthquakes, and famines and tsunamis and war and violence.

David Bootsma: 03:46

Or we pray. And as far as we can see our prayers were unanswered. We prayed for healing for ourselves, for a loved one, our loved one who had cancer and they died. Prayers with regards to employment or broken relationships, and we pray that they might be restored, they never are. We pray for safety, and we have a car accident.

David Bootsma: 04:15

Just like, ah, and we become very disillusioned. And then very often suffering appears to be so random and unfair. Right? Like they're the the innocent suffer. It's not just like, oh the scoundrels, they always get what's coming to them and the good people, they have good things coming to them.

David Bootsma: 04:35

Very often it's not that way at all, and children suffer and good people suffer and innocent civilians suffer. And so then the question becomes why? Why? Why is this happening? Why did this happen?

David Bootsma: 04:53

And then underneath that is why should I trust God when he allows these things to happen? Right? If there is a God and he is sovereign, then somehow he's culpable in this, and why in the world is he allowing this to happen? But it's important to recognize, however, that every worldview, it's not just Christians that have to wrestle with this and not only and have to have an answer to this question, all worldviews. Right?

David Bootsma: 05:28

And so if you look at other religions, they also have to answer this question. Right? For the Buddhist, for instance, the Buddhist will just say, you know, suffering is an illusion. It's not real. And and and for others it's about karma, if you put good things out there, good things come back.

David Bootsma: 05:45

But then those have all sorts of, you know, they're not very satisfying either, because again we often see good people suffering and the evil people don't suffer at all or have very easy lives. Even those who reject God still have to grapple with the question of suffering. It's not just Christians. Right? Theodore Dostoevsky wrote, If God did not exist, everything would be permitted.

David Bootsma: 06:13

In other words, if there is no God, then there is no objective basis for moral outrage. Right? The fact that we would say that shouldn't have happened, or that is wrong, that is not good, it requires some sort of standard to measure it against. Why in the world so like if there is no God, then then why are you trying to make sense out of suffering? There is no sense to it.

David Bootsma: 06:40

There is no purpose to it. As atheist Richard Dawkins argues, he says that suffering never has a purpose. And there's no answer to the question why, it just is. He says, 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.

David Bootsma: 07:05

Yay for a non God view of suffering. So removing God from the equation does not remove the problem of suffering. As Greg Kugel writes, removing God from the equation does nothing to eliminate the problem. God is gone, but the world is still broken and we continue to suffer. Right?

David Bootsma: 07:28

Before trying to answer the question, however, we must acknowledge something important, and it is this, the Bible, so from a Christian worldview anyways, is that the Bible never denies the reality of suffering. In fact, scripture gives voice to human anguish. The Psalms, for instance, are full of honest cries. Right? Cries of abandonment, like Psalm 13 verse one.

David Bootsma: 07:55

How long, oh Lord, will you forget me forever? Psalm twenty two one. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Psalm six two and three. Right, describes emotional and physical agony.

David Bootsma: 08:08

My bones are in agony. My soul is in deep agony or anguish. Those feeling forgotten by God, Psalm 42 verse three, my tears have been my food day and night. Why have you forgotten me? So long before, you know, atheists and others have been asking the questions, long before you and I have been asking the question with regards to why, even biblical writers are asking the question, why?

David Bootsma: 08:36

Now the Christian dilemma arises because two truths appear to collide. Right? On the one hand, suffering clearly exists, and on the other, God is good and powerful. Tim Keller writes that there is a moral assumption that God has failed to do the right thing. You know, many of us would say like, if I were God, would never allow this to happen, therefore either there is no God or God is, you know, something is wrong with him.

David Bootsma: 09:08

So in other words, when suffering shakes faith, we're assuming that God has violated a moral standard, but then the question is, where does that moral standard come from? Right? If suffering is truly wrong, then we are implicitly acknowledging that the world is not the way that it is supposed to be. And the bible agrees. Christianity teaches that suffering was not part of God's original design.

David Bootsma: 09:39

If we go all the way back to the book of Genesis, Genesis describes a creation that was originally good. Everything that God created, every time he created something he would say, it is good, it is good, it is good, and then finally it is very good. So it was good at the beginning, but then it becomes fractured through sin and we read about that in Genesis three that the ground itself is cursed. The people are cursed, and the and the ground produces thorns and thistles. Romans eight says that creation is in bondage to corruption, and it groans waiting for its redemption.

David Bootsma: 10:19

Jesus confirms the reality of suffering. John sixteen thirty three says, in this world you will have trouble. And he talks about there is going to be wars and there's going be rumors of wars and and the poor will always be with you and and if you follow me you're going to be persecuted. It's going to be a suffering world. Much of the New Testament was written to those who were suffering.

David Bootsma: 10:43

The book of Hebrews for instance, first Peter, the book of Revelation. Right? All these people who received these letters were people who were written to be encouraged in the midst of suffering. So Christianity has never taught that God prevents all bad things from happening to good people. And the fact of the matter is Christianity would have never gotten off the ground if that were the case.

David Bootsma: 11:11

Right? Just believe in God and life will be good. I mean, you think about how most of the apostles, what they suffered and died, like like they they they had horrendous lives and deaths. But instead, scripture says that we live in a fallen and broken world. Sometimes we suffer because we sin and God is disciplining us, and for others they are receiving the punishment of God.

David Bootsma: 11:41

But the consequence of living in a world that is not as it should be means that it's not necessarily because of punishment. And of course Job powerfully demonstrates this truth, he's a blameless upright man, he's God fearing, he loses, and yet he loses his wealth, and he loses his children, and he loses his health, and he loses his reputation, and yet he is still declared to be this righteous and good man. So suffering is not always because of punishment, because of something that we did, which is what the friends of Job's, Job thought. So now at first glance, the problem appears to have only two options, and this is where we often wrestle. Right?

David Bootsma: 12:27

If if God wanted to stop suffering, he wants to, but he can't, then he's not powerful. If God could stop suffering, but he chose not to, then he's not good. And so people just that's that's they believe that those are the only two things. Either God's not powerful or he's not good, because he had otherwise he would do something about this. Or maybe he can't do anything about it or maybe he doesn't want to do anything about it.

David Bootsma: 12:56

But what I'd have you consider is maybe there is a third, and I do believe, there is a third possibility with regards to God in suffering. As John Lennox, is a Christian apologist, he suggests, perhaps God has good reasons that is beyond our understanding. I know, and by the way, this seminar is not going to satisfy all of your questions, and there's so much, and there's still like, I don't know, you know, really? At the end of the day, I'm still going to say, I'm not quite sure, but hopefully we'll get close to it. But perhaps God has good reasons beyond our understanding.

David Bootsma: 13:38

Just because we cannot see a reason, not mean that there isn't one. Michael Keller, who's the son of Tim Keller, says like he has his students draw on a piece of paper, a circle that represents all knowledge that can be known, right? So it's a great big circle and he says okay, now with the, you know, all knowledge that there is out there, you know, right, let that circle represent that. Okay, now the knowledge that you have, right, draw a circle within that circle, the knowledge that you have. And for most of you, maybe some of us, the circle is a little bit bigger, some is smaller, but the the big circle is still way bigger than whatever circle that we're drawing.

David Bootsma: 14:24

Okay, so then that means that there are plenty of things that I don't know. It's beyond my understanding. And perhaps the answer to that question is beyond what I know. Whereas the dad the dad of Michael Keller, Tim Keller, he often uses this, just kind of uses an illustration of a surgeon. Right?

David Bootsma: 14:46

If you would wake up in the middle of surgery, you didn't know even why you were there, maybe you were in an accident or something like that, and then you open up your eyes and you see this doctor coming at you with a knife or whatever, you think this person is going to kill me, and then but you didn't understand that he's actually going to hurt you in order to heal you. Or a child, right, a young child, a toddler or whatever, who's brought to the doctor, brought to the hospital, and and and the the parents are handing them over to doctors and nurses that are injecting them, you know, with these needles and everything else, and they're just screaming, and they're terrified. They cannot fathom that what is happening to them is actually for their good. As far as they're concerned, nothing good can possibly be at the bottom of this. And how come couldn't our experience be the same as that of a young child?

David Bootsma: 15:43

But we also learn in scripture that God is not distant from suffering. And Christianity makes a unique claim and that is that God entered into suffering himself. Isaiah 53 which coincidentally was read earlier today, describes Jesus, the Messiah, as a man of sorrows or a man of pain or a man of suffering and acquainted with grief. And Jesus, what are the some of the things that he experienced? Right?

David Bootsma: 16:18

Hunger, temptation, betrayal, abandonment, scourging, thorns, mockery, ultimately crucifixion. Right? The cup, the cup of suffering that Jesus had to drink from. Jesus himself says in Luke nine that the son of man must suffer. He must suffer many things.

David Bootsma: 16:42

And the cross reveals that God is not detached from human pain. John Stott writes, and he's now passed away, but he's another scholar and theologian. He says, I could never myself believe in a God if it were not for the cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who is immune to it? That lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through his hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God forsaken darkness, that is the God for me.

David Bootsma: 17:28

Or Peter Creef, the Christian philosopher says, in creating the world God not only said, let there be flowers and sunsets, but also let there be blood in the buzzing of flies all around the cross. Right? So we may not have an answer for every specific question or incidence of, you know, why this suffering? Why am I suffering? Why did that happen?

David Bootsma: 17:53

But we know what the answer can't be. The answer can't be that God doesn't love me. Otherwise the cross doesn't make any sense at all. And then even when you stop and think about it, even in heaven Jesus retains the scars of his suffering. Throughout all eternity Jesus will always have scars in his hands.

David Bootsma: 18:16

And so in other words, God does not merely observe suffering, he participates in it. Now what's the Christian hope in the face of suffering? Christianity does not ever call and the Bible never refers to suffering as something that is good. Remember it's something that was not supposed to be, it wasn't meant to be in the first place. But it does teach that God can redeem suffering.

David Bootsma: 18:45

In other words, there can be a lot of good that comes out of suffering. And I bet you even if you stop and think about it in your own life, or in the lives of people that you really admire, one of the reasons why they are the people that they are today is because of the trials that they went through in their lives and how they endured and coped with and persevered through those trials. Atheist psychologist Jonathan Hite maintains that there is empirical support for the ancient view that people need adversity, setbacks, and perhaps even trauma to reach the highest levels of strength, fulfillment, and personal development. Right? They need these things in order to actually reach their potential.

David Bootsma: 19:31

He sees three benefits to suffering. One, is people who endure and get through suffering become more resilient. Right? They're tougher, they're more resilient. The Bible actually confirms this in Romans five, three and four.

David Bootsma: 19:45

Suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. It's actually producing something within us. Heights says number two, suffering strengthens relationships. Usually bonding the sufferer permanently into a set of deeper friendships or family ties that serve to nurture and strengthen for years, right? When one person is suffering, another person is caring for the person who's suffering, those bonds, they tighten like never before.

David Bootsma: 20:16

Or groups of people that go through suffering, whether that was war, or an earthquake, or forest fires, or whatever, it brings communities together, brings families together. And then thirdly he says suffering changes priorities and philosophies. We quickly learn what truly matters when we go through suffering. And the bible explains and confirms these findings. Right?

David Bootsma: 20:43

In Hebrews, Romans, first Peter, the bible teaches that God uses suffering to remove our weaknesses and to build us up. Tim Keller says, suffer he also has three things that suffering the benefits and hope and suffering says, one, suffering transforms our attitude towards ourselves. Right? It humbles us. Right?

David Bootsma: 21:03

We thought we had it all together. Right? And we're under you know, we we control everything and suffering humbles us, and it shows us how weak and vulnerable we are. We always were, but suffering kind of confirms that and shows us we really are weak and vulnerable. Two, it profoundly changes our relationship with good things in our lives.

David Bootsma: 21:27

We see the things, some things in our lives that became too important to us. Right? A lot of our suffering has to do with how much we prioritize some things. Right? Like two people for instance, two people can lose their job.

David Bootsma: 21:42

They're both fired from the same job, the same company. Right? Lays off or fires or whatever. Two people. One person says, oh, well, there's plenty other jobs out there.

David Bootsma: 21:52

I'll go find something else. The other person is devastated and is depressed and can never get over it. One person loses a relationship, another person loses a relationship, one person just can't move on in life or maybe loses a loved one and they can't move on in life, and the other person is like, this is hard but I can still continue. What's the difference? They both experience the exact same thing, but for one they basically made an idol of whatever it was that they lost.

David Bootsma: 22:21

Right? I cannot live without this. And the other person just sees it as, yep, it was it's a good thing and it's a wonderful thing, but it's not my everything. And so it often exposes our idolatries. And then thirdly, it can strengthen our relationship with God as nothing else can.

David Bootsma: 22:40

It's actually the primary way in which we get to know God better, and I bet I could go around this room as well and say what were some of the most important things in your lives that moved you towards God? Probably it had to do with, oh you know I was on vacation in Hawaii and having the time of my life and that was just the breakthrough for me. It's probably not your story, instead it was some sort of struggle that you went through that made you feel like you were just drawing near to God and clinging to God and God was drawing near to you. And it should be that way. It's it's it's not surprising that it is that way for like Psalm thirty four eighteen says, the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

David Bootsma: 23:25

It doesn't mean that God isn't close to those who are in Hawaii or whatever, but there's something about when we're suffering. It's like something that draws the compassion out from God like like nothing else does. And then of course there is the oh, my timer is going off. That's good. That's good.

David Bootsma: 23:45

So I know. I'm gonna wrap it up. I'm gonna wrap it up. Biblical case studies, Joseph, right, he's betrayed, he's sold into slavery, goes through all this misery in his life, but then he says at the end of it, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. It was still an evil thing that happened but God meant it for good.

David Bootsma: 24:05

Job, Job actually never receives an explanation for his suffering but instead the book asks a deeper question, can we trust God when we do not understand? And so the book of Job is about trusting the one who holds the answers even though we don't get it. And then the ultimate Christian answer, as Tim Keller summarizes, the Christian perspective this way, that the cross refrains all suffering. Right? The worst when you stop and think about it, what was the worst evil, the worst suffering that ever happened in history?

David Bootsma: 24:37

That is Jesus Christ being crucified upon the cross. And yet this became the greatest good. So if God can bring salvation out of the cross, he can bring redemption out of our suffering. Christianity does not promise a life free of suffering, but instead as John Lennox says, it promises that suffering will not have the last word. Revelation 21 promises that one day God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

David Bootsma: 25:11

But ultimately Christianity doesn't offer a simple explanation for every instance of suffering, instead it offers something greater and that is God himself. In other words, the Christian answer to suffering is not an answer but an answer. And the fact of the matter is, friends, if you're in the middle of suffering in your life, right, you just lost a loved one, you know, a tsunami is sweeping over you and you're getting, you know, drawn into the waves and the ocean everything else. What you don't need at that time is an answer to the question why. What you need at that moment is not an answer you need a someone.

David Bootsma: 25:51

You need to know that God is there and he's good and he's present and he's with you. And Christianity and Christianity alone provides that. Okay. I'm gonna stop. We're gonna open up for questions.

David Bootsma: 26:07

Yeah, and I know I didn't answer every single question but yeah, do you have some questions or maybe there's some other things, oh yeah you know what this was really helpful for me, in my struggle with this question or whatever, you didn't touch on that but here's something else, Any questions that you have? And I know that just by not asking doesn't mean that you don't have questions. I know I didn't answer them all. And I'll be around. And you don't have to ask me right now.

David Bootsma: 26:46

You can ask me later. Or what, you can ask Ian. Here you go. I don't think Dave knows he has it, but I bet you Ian does. He probably does.

David Bootsma: 26:55

All right, let's pray together. Lord God, we admit that suffering is a struggle and it's a struggle for us, Lord. Sometimes it's physical and sometimes it is psychological and sometimes it's theological and we grapple with why, why, why is this happening, why is this happening to me, why is it happening to this person or them or those people different things in the world. Lord we pray that even though we might not know all the answers that we would rest in the reality and trust in the reality that you are good and you do love us. If the cross says anything it's not that you don't care but you do care.

David Bootsma: 27:46

And Jesus thank you that you became a fellow sufferer with us and suffered more than any of us ever could. And so in our time of suffering, Lord, we're gonna find sympathy and compassion from you because you know exactly what we are going through. And Lord we also look to you as the kind of the model in what to do in suffering and Lord Jesus you yourself, you didn't shrug when you came to the cross and see it as no big deal but instead you said, Father if there be any other way can you take this cup away from me? It's okay not to be okay with suffering and it's okay to be sad and to struggle but we also pray Lord, to be relieved from suffering, but we also pray Lord that we would be able to say along with Jesus, not my will but yours be done. Trusting that you are wise and you're good and that you're gonna even produce good things in our lives, through the suffering that we go through.

David Bootsma: 28:45

So, help us in our own personal struggles and also help us to help those who, that we know and love who also struggle with this question. And we pray this in Jesus' wonderful name. Amen.