Evil, Suffering and God

Evil, Suffering and God

By Mr. Krevs

The following is a dialogue between Lance Morrow and a Roman Catholic theologian. The purpose of the dialogue is to honestly confront difficulties believers and unbelievers may have concerning God and the existence of evil and suffering in the world. Many have used the presence of evil in this world as their reason for denying the existence of God.

…Moreover atheism results not rarely from a violent protest

against the evil in this world….[1]

These difficulties may partially stem from a lack of knowledge and correct understanding of the true nature of God as revealed in Scripture and Tradition.

In the course of the dialogue, Lance Morrow will simply be referred to as “Morrow” and the Roman Catholic theologian as “Theologian”.

Theologian: Mr. Morrow, I read your article in Time magazine (June 10, 1991). I found

it to be an accurate description of Evil as it has revealed itself throughout man’s history. Are there any parts of that article that have challenged you to think more deeply about the topic?

Morrow: Yes I find it difficult to reconcile God with the existence of evil and suffering in the world. I hint at this in several parts of my essay. I quote William Langland, Jefferey Burton Russell and Elie Wiesel. All three would be sympathetic to my difficulty. Elie Wiesel, as a child in Auschwitz suggested that

God has retracted himself in the matter of evil. God is in exile, but every individual, if he strives hard enough can redeem mankind and even God himself.[2]

I myself pose this question in an attempt to resolve the issue.

Can one propose a God who is partly evil?[3]

Theologian: What lead you to ask this question?

Morrow: The argument begins by examining the following three propositions, which I mention in the article.

1. God is all-powerful.

2. God is all-good.

3. Terrible things happen.[4]

By terrible is meant evil and suffering. A collegue of yours, Frederick Buechner has stated that one can match any two of the prpositions, but never all three.

Theologian: Let me elaborate on Frederick Buechner’s propositions. If God is all powerful and all good, then it would be impossible to have terrible things happen. His goodness would call upon his power to eliminate all suffering and evil. If God is all-powerful and terrible things happen, then it would be impossible to call God all good. It could be possible then that he is partly evil. If God is all-good and terrible things happen, then God is really not all-powerful. For if he was all-powerful, he could easily eliminate evil and suffering.

Morrow: You understand my dilemma. How does on trust a God who is not all-powerful or not all good? I certainly would not put my trust in a God like that.

Theologian: God really is all-powerful and all- good, but the reality of the situation is that evil and suffering do indeed exist. Your article in Time gives testimony and descriptions of evil, which are confirmed by many through personal experience. You are however limiting the nature of God by confining your description of Him to only two propositions. In your article you gave evil many faces. You said:

Evil is sly and bizarre

Evil is easier than good

Evil is bad elevated to the status of the inexplicalble[5]

Almost your entire article is, Evil is….

Morrow: So the first two propostions describe God incompletely.

Theologian: Yes. God is also omniscient. He is also love (1Jn 4:8) and wisdom (Wis 7:25). I think Descartes may help us understand this problem more clearly. Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am.” When he said this he was saying that one’s thinking determines what is. Philosophers would phrase this as : Thinking determines existence.

Morrow: Is there another possibility?

Theologian: Yes. Saint Thomas Aquinas approached the issue of existence this way. Thought does not determine what really is (existence), but what really is, determines our thinking.

Morrow: So Frederick Buechner classified God too norrowly by saying He was only all-good and all-powerful. If I describe God and His actions more fully, would that change the way we look at the connection between God and the existence of evil and suffering in the world?

Theologian: Yes. This god who is all-powerful and all- good, demonstrates his all powerfulness and all gooodness through the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish, but might have eternal life.[6]

Morrow: Why would a God, who we have described as wisdom, power and love, make His son suffer and die?

Theologian: Because through His suffering, death and resurrection Christ liberated us from the very evil you have described so well in your essay for Time magazine. Christ came to liberate us from social evils, natural cataclysms – any evil that has ever been conceived and will be conceived. Man has even been liberated from death, the evil of all evils.

Morrow: Why did God have to send His Son to save mankind? Why not send a human being?

Theologian: No science, no medicine, nothing man has at his disposal, including man himself can make man immortal and with it eleminate all suffering and evil.

Morrow: Maybe one day modern science and medicine will make it happen.

Theologian: Maybe is not actually. Maybe I can turn a piece of plastic to gold. Maybe is in the realm of possibilities. Possibilities are not actualities.

Morrow: So only God can save?

Theologian: Yes and He has already done so. Elie Wiesel whom you quoted in your article is wrong. God is not in exile. Every individual, if he strives hard enough cannot redeem mankind.

Morrow: Try convincing those who read Time magazine of this. If I wrote this in Time most would say I’m crazy, some kind of religious fanatic.

Theologian: Yes, most would probalbly say that. But if many say it that doesn’t make it true. Remember the distinction between Descartes and Aquinas that we discussed earlier? Just because you think something, it may not be true.

Morrow: Your claim that God has redeemed us from evil, suffering and death through the power of Christ’s suffering death and resurrection. Yet, I still see evil and suffering in the world. People are still dying.

Theologian: Remember the quotation from John’s Gospel.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish, but might have eternal life.[7]

For Christians, belief in God helps us to endure earthly suffering and death, because of this promise of eternal life. As Scripture says:

On this account, I am suffering these things, but I am not ashamed, for I know him in whom I have believed and am confident that he is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that Day.[8]

Morrow: I see; it’s like a story. It has a beginning (belief in God) a middle (earthly life and suffering) and an end (eternal life).

Theologian: That’s a helpful analogy. Presently we are somewhere between the beginning and ending of that story. Yet our understanding of the characters in the story is still a bit hazy.

Morrow: What do you mean?

Theologian: I mean your essay on evil leaves me with some questions of my own. How are evil and suffering related?

Morrow: Human suffering is the result of evil. I mention this indirectly in my essay on “Evil”. I said, for instance that

There is something spookily splendid about evil as an ax in space.[9]

All my descriptions are meant to induce a sense of suffering in those who read the article, through the emotions of fear, trembling, discomfort and pain.

Theologian: Why this preoccupation with evil?

Morrow: Because people are not really concerned so much with evil as they are with the

pain and suffering that evil produces.

Theologian: I would agree. People also have many different ways of avoiding pain and suffering. It is difficult for them to find meaning behind their suffering.

Morrow: Asking questions involving meaning requires effort in answering them. One that I still have is , why evil at all?

Theologian: You answer this one partially when you refer to the fact that moral evils exist. You give some descriptions of these. A group of

Boys shot gunning their parents in Beverly Hills for the purpose of getting a fourteen million dollar inheritance.[10]

I gather you mean that these evils are the result of actions individuals perform. Why not use the word sin?

Morrow: That’s a religious term.

Theologian: Yes and an accuarate description of reality. Both in the New and Old Testaments, sin is referred to as personal

deliberate action against God.

Morrow: Why is it that people choose to perform such actions or sins, as in the case of the boys who shot their parents for money?

Theologian: Concupiscence. This means an inclination to evil that all of us have. We are wounded in our natural powers. We all possess original sin and are also born into the effects of all personal sins.

Morrow: Why does God allow this? Is He punishing us for something we as humans did in the past?

Theologian: God is not punishing us, but he does allow this as a consequence of the inappropriate use of our free will. We are all born into it and we on our own cannot escape from it.

Morrow: You believe Christ redeems us from this situation?

Theologian: Yes.

Rather, he emptied himself taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.[11]

It all fits together doesn’t it? That’s not all. Sin, suffering and evil also connect with Eternal Life. Definitive suffering is suffering that results from the loss of etyernal life.

Man “perishes” when he loses “eternal life”. The opposite of salvation is not therefore only temporal suffering, any kind of suffering, but the definitive suffering: the loss of eternal life, being rejected by God – damnation.[12]

That’s Hell

Morrow: So moral evil and the suffering that accompanies it are all the product of individual sin. But why does God permit

The innocent suffering and possibly murder of an individual child?[13]

Theologian: I remember you mentioning that more than once in your article. You do it again when you mention it in relation to Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.

The why of suffering and evil are really questions about the cause, the reason and the purpose of suffering.[14]

In brief, it is a question about ultimate meaning and not just meaning within

the confines of one’s personal private existence.

Morrow: Is this God you proclaim really loving if He permits suffering of the innocent to exist?

Theologian: I can’t explain this.

If I knew all the answers to questions like that, I wouldn’t have to believe him. He asks us to trust Him even when we don’t understand.[15]

As scripture says:

At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face.[16]

Morrow: What reason do I have for trusting Him?

Theologian: Everything He says is true. He even stated:

I am the Way, the Truth and the Light.[17]

Morrow: I want some evidence.

Theologian: As a matter of fact you yourself give the evidence, but in a perverse way.

Without Hitler, no Holocaust. No Holocaust, no Israel.[18]

Morrow: I intended the statement in a perverse way. Evil is a requirement of the good.

Theologian: I understand, but good does not require evil. What the Bible says is

We know that all things work for good for those who love God.[19]

This says that God will take the evil that is there and turn it into good. The perversion of this is that God requires evil to produce good. Remember, God requires nothing. When He acts it is out of loving concern.

Morrow: But that’s not evidence. That’s simply what the Bible says.

Theologian: Yes. But what the Bible says is true. Patience and charity are made perfect in trials.

Morrow: But not always.

Theologian: Yes that’s true. This is where each one of us has a choice to make. We can’t destroy suffering and evil. Remember that’s how we started our dialogue. Only God can and He did so throught His Son. But we have a choice on how we respond to that suffering.

This dialogue is dedicated to one of my students who in one of our many after school encounters pose the question of evil and suffering with an all powerful, all good God. In the midst of my teaching duties, I was unable to properly articulate, in a convincing way that his

Limited vision is not a valid argument against certain conclusions.[20]

Difficulties, such as this particular one (evil, suffering and God) are not to be used as evidence against God.

Difficulties are simply our inability to see how facts fit together. The problem of evil, suffering and God is a huge

problem; such a huge problem that we call it a mystery.

…the suffering of someone who is innocent [like Job]… must be accepted as a mystery, which the individual is unable to penetrate completely by his [or her] own intelligence.[21]

I hope that in the future when other students confront me with the same question, I will be able to

… clear away some of the obstacles on the intellectual road…[22]

so that they may accept

… this God who lets me and my loved ones suffer… and to trust Him that He’s doing it for love not out of spite or indifference.[23]

Endnotes