How can Christians say there is a "loving" God when there is so much suffering in the world?
Out of all the reasons I have heard people cite for refusing to believe God exists, this is probably the one that comes up the most often. Basically, the objection goes like this: Christianity teaches not only that God exists, but also that He is a "loving" God. Not only that, but God is supposed to be all-powerful, meaning there is nothing He cannot do. Now if we saw a small child suffering and in danger, and we could save him at no risk to ourselves, wouldn't we be expected to help? But Christians don't expect the same of God. There is suffering all throughout the world. If God is really all-powerful, then He has the ability to stop it. But instead He just sits by and lets it happen. Either God is not willing to help (in which case He is not loving) or else He is incapable of helping (which means He is not all-powerful). Either way Christianity loses.
So does this argument really hold up? Actually, it is based on a faulty assumption. Do you see it? The argument is based upon an analogy between man and God. What is the underlying assumption in that analogy? It assumes that the same act that would be considered morally right if performed by a man would also be morally right if performed by God. In our specific example this would mean that in every circumstance in which we would expect a human to help the child we would also expect God to help the child. But if there is something fundamentally different between man and God that would justify a different moral conclusion, then this assumption doesn't hold up.
Allow me to illustrate. The atheistic objection addresses two of God's attributes, namely His love and His omnipotence, but it ignores a third attribute, namely God's omniscience. Not only is God all loving and all-powerful, He is also all knowing. God knows everything; man does not. This means that God knows all the implications of saving that child. Man does not. Have you ever heard the expression that if a butterfly flaps its wings in Central Park it would cause rain instead of sun in China? It's the domino effect. Even the most meaningless event could cause some other small change, which in turn causes another change, and another, and another, with the full consequences being quite profound. If you know that changing one small event would actually result in far more evil, what course of action should you follow? But if you have no way of knowing what the full consequences will be, we have to fall back to our default rule, namely to do good. So to a person who is not omniscient, saving that child is certainly the right thing to do based upon the information available to us. But to someone who has more information available to Him, that may not be the right course of action. The atheistic argument assumes equality in knowledge of the consequences between man and God. But this is not true. Therefore from a logical standpoint the argument falls apart.
Now the logical errors of this argument may be apparent, but there inevitably will still be part of our curious human nature that wants to know what God knows that we don't. What possible reason could there be for allowing this suffering?
Many people have proposed answers to this question, but in my honest opinion, two particular explanations have risen above the rest. This isn't to say that others are not also true, but there are two explanations to which I think the atheist camp has abysmally failed to counter. This isn't to say that atheistic scholars have not tried to offer counter arguments, and they probably think they have succeeded. But I believe that to a truly unbiased observer it is clear that their responses are utterly illogical, and nothing more than basic common sense is necessary to show why they don't hold water.
Free Will
The first Christian explanation I am referring to is the free will argument. Christians have repeatedly pointed out that if God instills us with free will, we must be free to choose our own actions. The freedom to choose not only means the freedom to choose good but it must also include the freedom to choose evil.
Do you really want to be a mindless automaton, with every decision being made for you? In order for God to stop all evil, He would literally have to control people's minds and prevent them from choosing what they would otherwise choose to do. To prevent evil is to deny free will.
Not only is it safe to say that mankind would not like existence without free will, but God would not want this either. After all, God wants us to love Him. But a coerced love is no love at all. In order for love to be genuine, it must be freely chosen. If God forced us to love Him, that would be meaningless. In order for our love to mean anything, we must choose to love God, which means we must have free will.
The leading atheistic response to this argument is to claim that God could prevent at least some evil without having a hugely detrimental effect on free will. So why doesn't He do something. Just a little! Give us some clue. Just stop a little bit of evil so we know You are out there! In other words, even if God couldn't stop all evil without denying free will, He could stop more than He does. The fact that He could stop a bit more, but chooses not to shows that He either does not exist or else He is not a loving God.
This argument is so filled with logical errors it isn't even funny. First, to the suggestion that God could have prevented some more evil but chose not to, I respond, "How do you know He hasn't?" If God did prevent some evil, necessarily this would mean that certain evil things never happened. He stopped them from happening. But if something didn't happen, how would you ever know it was missing? In other words, how do we know a million other evil things couldn't have happened in this world, but God stopped them from happening, leaving us with what we are left with today? If the evil thing never happened in the first place, we would have no way of knowing it was ever prevented.
So the only way to know for sure that God is preventing evil would be if He were to prevent all evil. But in order to do that, He would need to completely eliminate our free will to choose either good or evil. We become nothing but God's little toy robots to manipulate as He sees fit.
Another problem with this argument is that it yet again ignores God's omniscience. As we've already seen, allowing some degree of evil will be necessary for the "greater good" (i.e., allowing free will). When people complain that God could prevent just a little bit more evil, they assume that they know as much as God. How do you know God is not already preventing just the right amount of evil in order to promote the greatest good? After all, if God is omniscient, He is capable of knowing exactly how much evil must be permitted without overly interfering with free will. It is impossible to argue that God "could" prevent more evil unless you also know how much evil must be allowed in order to promote the greatest good. No mortal is capable of this knowledge, so it is nothing more than pure ego to claim that God could prevent more evil than He does.
The Impossibility of Morality Without God
The necessity of removing free will is not the only problem with the atheistic "argument from evil." The argument is also self-defeating. The fact that you label something "evil" by necessity acknowledges the existence of "good." After all, the whole concept of evil only makes sense if there is also a concept of good. This produces a real problem for the atheist because it proves the existence of objective moral truths. If there is no objective standard of "evil", then I could simply respond to the atheistic argument from suffering by saying, "Well, you may think that all these things are evil, but I disagree. I don't think they are evil. I don't think there is any such thing as evil in the world." You have one definition of evil; I have another. Unless there is some objective standard against we can measure our two definitions it is impossible to say who is right and who is wrong. When you argue against God's existence by pointing to all the "evil" in the world, your argument depends upon the existence of an absolute definition of "evil." But it is impossible for absolute moral truths to exist without God. So in an attempt to disprove God's existence, the argument actually ends up affirming His existence.
Let me explain in a bit more detail what I mean when I say it is impossible for absolute moral truths to exist without God. For starters, if there is an absolute moral law, there must be an absolute moral law giver. In other words, that law must reside somewhere. This moral law cannot just exist in some mysterious realm "out there." Where does it come from?
In order to evaluate the respective arguments, you need to understand the Christian position on the source of morality. The following two paragraphs are taken from my article on the Euthyphro dilemma, also on this site. I discuss morality using the moral trait of "goodness" as an example.
Goodness is a part of God's character. He has a character just like you have a character. Just like you are who you are, God is who He is. People may describe you as "trustworthy", "honest" or "polite". These are all aspects of your character. When we learn moral laws about what is good and bad, we are really learning a little bit about God. When God lays down moral rules, all He is doing is telling us about the nature of His character. That character is internal to God. He is basically saying, "Hey guys, this is what I am like, I made you, so I want you to live like me." It is no different than when you learn a little bit about another person by looking at something they created. Take this article, for example. By reading it you can learn a few things about me. For example, you know that (1) I'm a Christian; (2) I tend to try to argue my points based upon logic; and (3) I've done a bit of reading on moral philosophy. If you look at someone's activities, you can probably draw some conclusions about their moral character as well. Of course, this isn't perfect (people who otherwise seem to be behaving in a morally upright manner do sometimes surprise us and engage in morally repugnant behavior), but as a general rule it holds true.
Similarly, the rules God has laid down reflect the nature of His character. So the moral rules that we all live by are defined by God's immutable (i.e., unchangeable) character.
You can see the article on the Euthyphro dilemma for more details on this viewpoint. The important point is to see that, for the Christian, God is the moral law giver. The source of the absolute moral laws is God's immutable character. If the atheist wants to contradict this point they need to either (1) show that God's character cannot be the source of morality, or (2) at least come up with some alternative possible source for objective morality. I address (1) in my article on the Euthyphro dilemma, so I won't re-hash it here. In regard to (2), every attempt to come up with an alternative source for objective morality has failed. In fact, most atheistic scholars today concede that atheism mandates relative morality. As horribly mistaken as Freidrich Nitzsche was in most of his writings, we at least need to give him credit for acknowledging this implication of his atheism, as he poetically demonstrated in his "Parable of the Madman."
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!"---As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?---Thus they yelled and laughed
The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us---for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars---and yet they have done it themselves.
It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"
If God does not exist, man must take the place of God. If God is not the source of morality, man is. But that begs the question, "Which man?" For as many men as there are, there will be that many different opinions. Hence, the inevitable consequence of atheism is moral relativism.
I've already pointed out a few reasons why morality cannot be relative. Take the hedonist for example. A hedonist is someone who determines what is morally right by self-gratification. If it makes them feel good, it is right. So if a hedonist derives pleasure from brutally killing people, and if all morality is relative, how can you say they are wrong? If all morality is relative, your personal moral code is no more right than the hedonist's. There is no objective moral standard to measure your two codes against, so no one can ever come out on top. This means it would be impossible to morally condemn even the most hideous of actions, including those of Hitler, Stalin or Charles Manson. Any moral belief sincerely held would be a legitimate moral belief.
In the Euthyphro article, I also pointed out another problem with moral relativism, namely the moral rules that are universally held by all cultures worldwide. If all morality was relative, and simply dependent upon our culture, then we should expect to see differing moral codes popping up all over the place. However, if we were to examine various cultures around the globe, we would see some amazing similarities. For example, every culture has prohibitions against murder and lying and in favor of caring for its young. Of course, every culture also has exceptions to these rules, and different cultures may define the exceptions differently, but the general rules remain the same.
If morality is purely relative, why the universal similarities?
One atheistic response is "natural selection." Ironically, this is also the leading candidate for a non-theistic explanation for objective morality. In other words, some people acknowledge that morality must be objective, but claim that natural selection is the source for that morality. Others claim that morality is relative, but natural selection explains those few moral rules that all cultures have in common. The basic premise is that if a society does not have certain moral rules, then it will not survive. Therefore, natural selection weeds out societies that do not have those moral rules. For moral objectivists this phenomenon explains all morality. For relativists it only explains those moral rules that all societies share.
I already addressed the relativist position in the Euthyphro article by pointing out that there is no reason to believe that an individual member of a society should care whether or not his society will survive down the line (if violating these moral rules would benefit him in the here and now). In other words, natural selection cannot explain how these moral laws would have come into existence in the first place. Even if we assume that they would have been preserved once they were created, what was the incentive for them to ever be created to begin with?
The moral objectivist quoting natural selection has a bigger problem. If all morality is determined by which moral rules promote survival of a society, how do you explain the existence of moral rules that are 180 degrees opposed to that goal? Why don't we have a rule permitting the execution of all invalids, or people with IQs so low that they can never function above a childhood level? After all, these people are not promoting the survival of the society as a whole, so morality should permit us to dispose of them. Yet we don't. Why don't we? Because God's character teaches us to have respect for all human life. All mankind is created in God's image, and is therefore worthy of respect, regardless of whether they are "contributing to the survival of society." Natural selection cannot explain this phenomenon.
So what are we left with? Morality cannot be relative, and if it is objective, the only source we can come up with for that objective morality is God. So if an atheist claims that God cannot exist because there is too much evil in the world, they are at the same time affirming the existence of objective moral truth, which proves that God does exist. Hence, the argument is self-defeating.
In closing let me make one final note. I have focused most of this article on "evil", meaning the conscious evil acts that human beings subject on one another. Many atheists take this suffering argument one step further and point to natural disasters (i.e., another form of suffering that they believe a "loving" God should prevent). They point out (correctly) that God could stop natural disasters without eliminating free will. I have three responses to this position.
First, this is not a problem for the Christian because the Bible is clear that this is not the way the earth was originally created or intended. When sin entered the world through Adam and Eve (see the article on "What is a 'Messiah'?") one of our punishments was that the earth would not be kind to us. Hence God has now set up a world with natural disasters for us to overcome. This is not the way it will be in the future kingdom that Christ will establish on earth.
Second, natural disasters actually could be seen as serving a godly purpose. Have you ever noticed how many people go looking for God after a disaster? This is another example of how some degree of suffering could promote the greater good, and unless we are omniscient, we are in no position to assert otherwise.
Third, and most importantly, if a person claims God should stop natural disasters, we could simply engage in the following dialogue:
Atheist: If a loving God truly existed, He would prevent natural disasters from happening.
Theist: So, if I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that if God is loving, then it would be morally correct for Him to prevent natural disasters.
Atheist: That's right.
Theist: Is that an objective or a relative moral rule you are citing?
Option 1
Atheist: All morality is relative, so it would have to be relative.
Theist: Well, if it's relative, then your belief that it would be morally right for God to stop natural disasters is worthy of no more credence than God's belief that it would not be morally right to stop them. So you really haven't articulated an objection at all.
Option 2
Atheist: It's objective.
Theist: But the only plausible source of objective morality is God's character, so by asserting the existence of an objective moral rule in your attempt to disprove God's existence, you have actually affirmed His existence.
You see, in the end, whether we are talking about evil, natural disasters, or any other undesirable thing, the result is the same. It is impossible to claim that God is violating any moral rule without either falling into the trap of moral relativism or implicitly admitting to God's existence by admitting to objective morality.
So the existence of suffering doesn't disprove God's existence. In fact, it actually proves that God must exist. Not only that, but it proves that God loves us enough to give us free will, and the appropriate way to respond to that gift is to give God our love in return.
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