Is what one writer wrote in our discussion forum at school. And the more I think about it, the more I disdain the thought of no suffering in this world. First off, I'll say that I do not like suffering, and it's horrible that people suffer from illness, starvation, homelessness and psychological disorders of any kind. But this kind of statement, that a loving God would not allow suffering in the world, is not only an example of shallow minded-ness, but it negates the beauty of humanity, and all that God has intended for us. It also defies basic logic.
It goes against the evolutionist. Without suffering as Timothy Keller in his book 'The Reason for God' points out, "the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection depends on death, destruction, and violence of the strong against the weak--these things are perfectly natural." I'm not an evolutionist, but even those who are, realize that suffering is part of the process. And yet their most ponient arguement against God is that there is suffering. Go figure. Actually if there was no suffering, on evolutionary term we should never change from being a one cell organism, because that is the only way that we would not suffer.
It goes against logic. Without suffering who are we as human beings, and would we even be human. Without suffering would there be any need for compassion? No, because there would be no reason to practise it. If all the hunger problems of the world were non-existant one day, and everyone would have shelter .. why would we work? If God would heal everyone no matter what, I believe that caring would go out the window. I could go around shooting someone, and jumping off of buildings and there would be no consequence. Sure to some this might be a neat idea, but after awhile it would go stale. With no reason for working or doing anything, we would cease to have purpose, cease to care about family, or friend. There would be no need for community. There would be no love, because heartbreak would be eliminated. It would be a selfish society.
Goes against our culture. Society itself would be different. Books would be filled with pages of countless 'happy stories' that are pointless, and in fact our greatest works of composition and song would be lost, because there was no suffering for the artist to talk about, or write about, or sing about. Humanity would lose inspiring stories of overcoming challenges to grab hold of victory, because none would be writen, and everything would be the same, no change.
You can argue that this is going to far, that you only want a god that can eliminate important and significant suffering. How do you grade what is significant? Do you choose just the hungry people of the world, and leave those suffering cancer? If suffering in the world is not fair, than at what point do you decide what is fair? Even if you get rid of all sickness and all food problems and all housing problems, why should God stop there? Because as long as humanity is around, we will never be satisfied with what is fair, and what is not fair. Because what we decide is on human terms, and when it comes to what we want the world to be like, we are very selfish individuals.
If what I have said has any shred of truth in it, then the question naturally arises ... Why do we suffer? Like it or not there is suffering in the world, and we need to deal with this question which naturally comes to the forefront of our minds, at one time or another.
If we don't like suffering in the world, then the idea of evolution as a belief system is self condemning and has no hope. But the fact that we don't like suffering, that we don't enjoy the agony that a person is going through is not only an example of compassion ... which in a complete evolutionary point of view, should of been eradicated millions of years ago, but this idea itself is should be strange.
Why should I care about someone suffering, why does the idea that "suffering should be done away" with come into our mind to begin with? If I may suggest, that this comes to our mind because we know, somewhere in our very innmost being that things are not as they should of been, that there is some 'higher destiny.'
If evolutionary thinking is self-defeating when it comes to the question of suffering (and to many others of which I have no time to write about) than the only solution is that there is a compassionate God! Why a compassionate God? Because Compassion, Empathy, Love (not lust, but the genuine love we have the compacity to have for the well-being of another person) ... are unessential in the evolutionary thought process. So if we have Compassion and Empathy and Love and it doesn't come from evolution, then it comes from a being who is personal who knows Compassion, Empathy and Love.
Before I go on, let me as you a question. When you go and see your doctor, and you say "I have a pain in my chest, it feels like there are a thousand pins pricking me from the inside, and my left arm is numb." Would you like that doctor to just go "Well, that's nice to hear, but I don't know what you want me to do about it. I'm feeling fine. You go ahead and take an asprin and call me in the morning, if your still around we can talk about it some more."? Or would you like a doctor that was genuinely concerned about your welfare? Of course you would like the second one, as would I.
When we think about a God that has Compassion, Empathy, Love (and much more), if this was passed on to us, human beings, isn't natural to thing that God would know what we are going through? Doesn't make sense that if God passed this stuff to you, that God would know something about it?
If God made the universe, stars all its wonder and He did not know what he was doing, I don't think we would even be around. If the person(s) that created the computer on which I'm typing on did not know what they were doing. Very good chances are that you wouldn't be able to read this.
This is why the God of the bible is who I choose to serve, and try (sometimes not so easy) to follow in my daily life. God is a God of compassion throughout the bible. We can read how God continues to challenge his followers to take care of the orphans and widows to seek justice
It goes against the evolutionist. Without suffering as Timothy Keller in his book 'The Reason for God' points out, "the evolutionary mechanism of natural selection depends on death, destruction, and violence of the strong against the weak--these things are perfectly natural." I'm not an evolutionist, but even those who are, realize that suffering is part of the process. And yet their most ponient arguement against God is that there is suffering. Go figure. Actually if there was no suffering, on evolutionary term we should never change from being a one cell organism, because that is the only way that we would not suffer.
It goes against logic. Without suffering who are we as human beings, and would we even be human. Without suffering would there be any need for compassion? No, because there would be no reason to practise it. If all the hunger problems of the world were non-existant one day, and everyone would have shelter .. why would we work? If God would heal everyone no matter what, I believe that caring would go out the window. I could go around shooting someone, and jumping off of buildings and there would be no consequence. Sure to some this might be a neat idea, but after awhile it would go stale. With no reason for working or doing anything, we would cease to have purpose, cease to care about family, or friend. There would be no need for community. There would be no love, because heartbreak would be eliminated. It would be a selfish society.
Goes against our culture. Society itself would be different. Books would be filled with pages of countless 'happy stories' that are pointless, and in fact our greatest works of composition and song would be lost, because there was no suffering for the artist to talk about, or write about, or sing about. Humanity would lose inspiring stories of overcoming challenges to grab hold of victory, because none would be writen, and everything would be the same, no change.
You can argue that this is going to far, that you only want a god that can eliminate important and significant suffering. How do you grade what is significant? Do you choose just the hungry people of the world, and leave those suffering cancer? If suffering in the world is not fair, than at what point do you decide what is fair? Even if you get rid of all sickness and all food problems and all housing problems, why should God stop there? Because as long as humanity is around, we will never be satisfied with what is fair, and what is not fair. Because what we decide is on human terms, and when it comes to what we want the world to be like, we are very selfish individuals.
If what I have said has any shred of truth in it, then the question naturally arises ... Why do we suffer? Like it or not there is suffering in the world, and we need to deal with this question which naturally comes to the forefront of our minds, at one time or another.
If we don't like suffering in the world, then the idea of evolution as a belief system is self condemning and has no hope. But the fact that we don't like suffering, that we don't enjoy the agony that a person is going through is not only an example of compassion ... which in a complete evolutionary point of view, should of been eradicated millions of years ago, but this idea itself is should be strange.
Why should I care about someone suffering, why does the idea that "suffering should be done away" with come into our mind to begin with? If I may suggest, that this comes to our mind because we know, somewhere in our very innmost being that things are not as they should of been, that there is some 'higher destiny.'
If evolutionary thinking is self-defeating when it comes to the question of suffering (and to many others of which I have no time to write about) than the only solution is that there is a compassionate God! Why a compassionate God? Because Compassion, Empathy, Love (not lust, but the genuine love we have the compacity to have for the well-being of another person) ... are unessential in the evolutionary thought process. So if we have Compassion and Empathy and Love and it doesn't come from evolution, then it comes from a being who is personal who knows Compassion, Empathy and Love.
Before I go on, let me as you a question. When you go and see your doctor, and you say "I have a pain in my chest, it feels like there are a thousand pins pricking me from the inside, and my left arm is numb." Would you like that doctor to just go "Well, that's nice to hear, but I don't know what you want me to do about it. I'm feeling fine. You go ahead and take an asprin and call me in the morning, if your still around we can talk about it some more."? Or would you like a doctor that was genuinely concerned about your welfare? Of course you would like the second one, as would I.
When we think about a God that has Compassion, Empathy, Love (and much more), if this was passed on to us, human beings, isn't natural to thing that God would know what we are going through? Doesn't make sense that if God passed this stuff to you, that God would know something about it?
If God made the universe, stars all its wonder and He did not know what he was doing, I don't think we would even be around. If the person(s) that created the computer on which I'm typing on did not know what they were doing. Very good chances are that you wouldn't be able to read this.
This is why the God of the bible is who I choose to serve, and try (sometimes not so easy) to follow in my daily life. God is a God of compassion throughout the bible. We can read how God continues to challenge his followers to take care of the orphans and widows to seek justice
"Wash yourselves and be clean, Get your sins out of my sight. Give up your evil ways. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows." -Isaiah 1:16-17 NLT
His compassion is proclaimed
"The Lord is merciful and compassionate, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. The Lord is good to everyone." Psalms 145:8
The God of the Bible isn't talked about as just being compassionate. He is not some far-off entity. It is not enough that God knows about suffering, or compassion. Prove it to me! All the other religions in the world have a God that talks the talk, but show me a God that walks the walk!!
We are right to not want suffering in the world. At one point when we look at the creation story in the bible we see that everything was awesome. No suffering, nobody without food. All was well, until we decided that at one point we wanted to 'be like God' . In essence we screwed up, suffering entered the world. Pain, sorrow, death etc. This is where suffering started, and the reason why we even have a desire to get rid of it. Because in the deepest recesses of our heart, we know that things were meant to be different. God wanted to have that relationship with His creation. But we messed up.
So what happens when we mess up? If you have children, and you take them to the beach and they build a sand castle. What happens when someone tears it down? After much crying and consolling, maybe through your help, your child picks up the pieces, and starts to make the sandcastle the way it was meant to be. Moat, walls, and everthing. This is what God decided to do, to come down to our level, to show compassion, and even suffer the most horendous death. That through His suffering, he could bring us back into that relationship with Himself.
"For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God,
with underserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ
Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice
for ours sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed
his life, shedding his blood." - Romans 3:23-25a
Suffering in any way, shape, or form is not easy, and there is no easy answer as to why a person is undergoing suffering, why children are dying of malaria, cancer, aids. But suffering is a call for us to serve, a call for us to be active in our compassion. The act of suffering is a reminder that God is not only there for us to call upon, but that because of what Jesus did for us, we know that He is empathetic to our situation, but not only that, but He has given us a real hope that is in an everlasting life where suffering is no more.
In the Bible we start off where mankind introduced suffering by listening to a serpent, and taking a fruit off the tree in hopes to in essence become like God. God being compassionate decided to lift us up out of our sinful mire and give us back eternal life through Christ His one and only Son. Why is there suffering? We did it to ourselves a long time ago. But the good news is that Christ has made a way for a brighter future were there is no more suffering. In and of itself that is an awesome thing. But He has also given us a purpose to be comfort in this world. What is our purpose in life? Why should we get up in the morning to face the day? "To love God withou all our
In the Bible we start off where mankind introduced suffering by listening to a serpent, and taking a fruit off the tree in hopes to in essence become like God. God being compassionate decided to lift us up out of our sinful mire and give us back eternal life through Christ His one and only Son. Why is there suffering? We did it to ourselves a long time ago. But the good news is that Christ has made a way for a brighter future were there is no more suffering. In and of itself that is an awesome thing. But He has also given us a purpose to be comfort in this world. What is our purpose in life? Why should we get up in the morning to face the day? "To love God withou all our
