Often when we meet someone who doesn’t or says they can’t believe in God there is one underlying reason. One of the top reasons for this unbelief is the problem of pain. Maybe a child loses both parents when they were young and as an adult still can’t understand why a God, who is all powerful, all loving, full of compassion and kindness, would allow their parents to be taken so young. The hurt they feel can be felt through the tears they shed as they ask such questions. Maybe the hurt isn’t personal maybe it is a national pain. We see images of students walking or running out of a school during an active shooting scenario, even as I write this news of a shooting at YouTube was just released. Whether the pain we feel is personal or otherwise it is still a problem for those who try to understand how could God continue to allow so much hurt when He is capable of wiping it all away right now? This is also often when, as Christians, we make the situation so much worse. Instead of being there for the hurting and loving each other through the pain we decide we need to provide a theological answer to a problem of real hurt and honest pain.

Imagine a family who just lost their daughter in a school shooting. They just got that news and after having a long cry they call some of their friends one of who has been an overt Christian through the years. The friend comes over to sit and cry with them. In this process, the mom asks “Why? I just don’t understand why God would allow our little girl to be taken so early. You say He is all powerful how come He didn’t use His power to prevent my little girl from being murdered”? Instead of holding her friend, the Christian begins with a theological answer on the providence, justice, and holiness of God. This only frustrates the mom who is dealing with the murder of her child because she doesn’t want an answer and even if she did she is not in a place emotionally to deal with a theological debate. The best thing the friend can do is simply say “I do not know” and hold her friend and cry with her. The tears are real, the pain is real, the loss that is felt is not only real but crippling. It is a situation everyone has been through and one we can sympathize with. Our loss may not be a child, it could be the loss of a mother, a father, even the loss of a family pet can really affect people. It is important we do not minimalize this nor explain away the real pain someone is feeling.

With all that said, this does not mean there is not a theological answer. It means we can not provide such an answer when all the person needs is support. This is what we often miss as Christians and even more of a reason why people would not want to believe in God. The thought is something like this “this person is Gods representative. If this is the kind of thing God teaches people as demonstrated in their life (to be cold, callous, and uncaring) I do not want anything to do with a God that has nothing to say to my pain except some theological nonsense”. Since I am not a certified counselor I do not want to go down a rabbit hole I am unfamiliar with. I’ll just reiterate very directly dear Christian DO NOT offer answers when someone is hurt! This only will distance your friend from you and your friend from God. Be there for them hold them cry with them. Be like Job’s friends in the first week of his pain. Do NOT try to rationalize, theorize, or theologize their pain. Just be there, stay silent, offer hugs, and cry with those who are hurting.

So what are the reasons God continues to allow so much pain and hurt? First, when you think about evil how do you view it? Many would say it is equal but opposite to what is good. For instance, theft is the opposite of generosity. Each side, when added against its opposite, would ultimately add to 0 (if it could be done). This is the idea behind karma possibly visually represented in ying-yang. But this is NOT at all my view. First, the existence of what we view as evil automatically assumes there is a God. Here is CS Lewis describing what I am talking about from Mere Christianity

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust

See, how can we know something is evil if there is no absolute good to compare it against? This absolute good can only be found in God, without Him there is no true good nor true evil and therefore everything we view as evil is not truly evil but just another way how someone can live. In order for evil to be a possibility there needs to be an objective good. Therefore this would make evil a parasite of good. Think about this can one lie without truth? No, lying can only take place if there is truth. Can we have truth without lying? Absolutely. Telling the truth IS NOT dependent on lying but lying is dependent on truth. What about murder? everyone would agree, for the most part, life is good. Can life exist without murder? Yes! Can murder exist without life? No way! See evil is not an equal and opposite force to good. Instead evil is a corruption of what is good. So without an ultimate good (God), there can be no evil. So the knowledge that it is evil only proves the existence of God.  Evil is not a ying-yang to good but it is a corruption of it.

Regardless of this people will still try to use evil as evidence that God doesn’t exist. The argument goes something like this: If God is all powerful He will be able to stop evil. If God is loving He would want to stop evil. Since evil exists God must be too weak to stop it or He is not loving, or He truly doesn’t exist. Sam Harris sums this up in this quote:

If God exists either He can do nothing to stop the most egregious calamities or He does not care to. God, therefore, is either impotent or evil. There is another possibility of course, and it is both the most reasonable and the lease odious the biblical God is a fiction like Zeus and the thousands of other dead gods whom the most sane beings now ignore

Here’s the problem with this. How can God create beings with free will, A free will to choose either the most loving thing or the evilest thing, yet take it away at the same time? Simply put He can’t. It is impossible to grant something free will while forcing that something into a situation they did not choose. Yes, God is all powerful but He is NOT illogical. Yes God is all loving, but He gives us the freedom to not choose love. God cannot create a creature with free will yet determine they would only and always choose love. The workaround many atheists will say is that there is no such thing as free will and that our paths are already determined by the universe. Consider this quote by Richard Dawkins from “River out of Eden” on pg 131-132

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 we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.

So the issue with evil in the world is only because it is our destiny. Those families who lost their children in the most recent school shooting, why should anyone be mad at the shooter? He was just dancing to his DNA. It is unlucky for those families who are dealing with loss but that is just life. Life is cruel sometimes and it is our job to just accept that sometimes life seems unfair. There is no morality that we should be responsible too since it is the universe that determines what we do anyway. In fact, taking this logic, murder should be okay as 1) you are destined to kill anyway so you are absolved of any moral issue and 2) the whole purpose of our being here is the continuation of our DNA. So the more we can spread our DNA the more we “win” at this game of life. So by eliminating our competition, we will only give our DNA a better chance of winning in the end. Basically, the atheist standpoint is sometimes life just stinks and there is no reason behind any pain, evil, tragedy, or any other event that causes tears. It is our responsibility to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and make the best out of the situation life has already determined we will follow.

I can’t believe this. I know people have to be held accountable for their actions. I have a sense of justice and that justice demands payment be paid for the hurt people cause each other. If there is no God what justice befalls the person who kills dozens to only take their own life? God provides reason behind tragedies. By not believing in God there is no reason to anything we are to just accept the way things are. I can not bring myself to accept that violence, hurt, pain, loss, are all purposeless. I also have a deep desire to help those who are hurting. How can I be of any comfort when all I can say is “Life just stinks sometimes”?

The problem of evil is one every faith (or lack of faith) system has to deal with. Pain is something we deal with daily sometimes and the question must be what faith system speaks to this ache the best? We can simply deny it which is what Buddhists and Hindus do. But how can there be any comfort to a woman who just went through a failed pregnancy? How can a Hindu comfort a son who was just told their dad will not be coming home from war? How can a Buddhist monk assuage the anguish form a daughter who just buried her mom? How comforting is it when someone with real pain and hurt is given the reason this is happening is that of your own greed. “Your mom would still be alive if you were not so greedy” or in what way is this comforting to those who experienced the Holocost? “the reason you are in Auschwitz is because of your own greed and desire”. What comfort can an atheist bring to the hurting when all they can say “well some people are just lucky others are not. We are all only obeying our DNA”.

This is why Christianity is so different. Christ speaks to us on a personal level and gives REASON behind our pain. We might not see it right away but it is there. We have to remember the number one thing God desires is for us to come to Him, know Him, and deeply love Him. He will absolutely destroy us if it means we grow closer to Him. We have to keep this in mind when we look at what we consider evil. I read a book by Francis Chan, I do not know which one it was, but He relayed a story of a high school girl who had spent a lot of her time and money collecting Bibles hoping she would be able to hand them out to her friends and family. She never got that chance because she died in a car accident (I think it was a car accident anyway). At her funeral, her preacher told the hundreds and hundreds of people in attendance about this young girl and her faith and how her one desire was for everyone she knew to come to Christ. At the funeral were all the Bibles she had been collecting. After the service, those in attendance were invited to take a Bible. By the time everyone left there was not one Bible left over. Granted this did not help the pain the family felt. It did not comfort them in their time of deepest grief. But God’s desire is not for our comfort and well being but it is that we come face to face with who He is and willingly bow our knee. If that means we have to lose a child He will not withhold the evil to prevent suffering if that evil is going to be used for His glory. We may not see it now but there Christ offers hope and comfort in the midst of tragedy. There is a reason behind it all no matter if we see it now or not. This is one of those “you don’t have to take my word for it moments” one could go on YouTube and pull of videos of Shawn Michales, Deion Sanders, Brian “Head” Welch, and many others I encourage you to visit iamsecond.com to see videos like these. One of my favorite stories is the one of Dave Dravecky I read his autobiography in High School and was enthralled by his story. For one I LOVE baseball and reading how a World Series pitcher went from on top of the world to losing his arm is just astounding. For anyone dealing with cancer, I encourage you to watch this video. Even if your story is not as dramatic as Dave’s or cannot see the “why” today know God still holds you in His hands and He promises He will never let you go. The pain may be tough and overwhelming but His story and yours, because of Him, is about redemption!

In the 1870s Father Damien when to Molaka’i to care for the growing amount of people who were contracting leprosy. He would live in Kalaupapa for the rest of his life treating wounds, providing food and water, and just showing love to the people who were exiled there. He did this for 12 years. Then one day he stood in front of the people He was caring for and showed them the same sores on his body they too had. Hanson’s disease is not highly contagious one still needs to be careful about their lifestyle and cleanliness. However, for Father Damien, he came not to be secluded but to live life with the people of Kalaupapa. He would eat with them and smoke with them. Sometimes He would even eat out of the same bowl or the same food as those with the disease. This was all to show them, love. But when that day came he showed them his sores, this all took on a new meaning. Now no longer was he apart from them I health but would actually know what it would be like to have the disease. Instead of saying “I can only imagine what you’re going through” he can now say “I also know what it is like to be a leaper despised and rejected by people”. His love for the people took on a whole new meaning. Through this evil of leprosy, Father Damien would be able to show the people he loved that he truly loved them in ways no one else could.

Do you see the connection here? We are in a desperate situation. Our sin is as filthy as a leper’s sores. Our sin is the source of so much pain and heartache and pain, it separates us from each other in what we may say or do but also from a God who does love us. Our sin is the source of all death. We may ask if God is truly powerful and loving why doesn’t He just take away all the heartache, pain, misery, sin, etc. Because by doing so He would also take away our free will. But instead of doing that He decides to come live with us. He allows Himself to be affected by our disease of sin. He endures the humiliation on the cross, He mourns with Mary over Lazarus, He feels the pain of the nails, and He eventually contracts the disease of Sin and succumbs to its curse of death (2nd Cor 5:21). This way He will be able to say “I know what you are going through” we do not serve a distant God but a personal one who overcame every temptation. But still became sin so that way we would be cleansed of our leprous condition. When we see all the evil in the world and ask why, we only need to look at the cross and see that, more than anyone else, He knows exactly what we are going through. We feel betrayed? We feel abandoned? We feel pain? We feel hurt? We live in a world that is evil. How about the one who experienced all that but yet loved those who did these things to Him? Even though Judas betrayed Christ, Jesus still washed his feet. Even though Jesus was mocked and humiliated He still prayed His Father would forgive them. Here’s the thing the one who was least deserving of any evil is the one who felt the full weight of pure evil. Without the evil of crucifixion, we would never know the miracle of the resurrection. We would not be able to enter into the presence of God without the horrors surrounding His death and His subsequent victory over sins curse. We may not know why things we think are evil happen but if the worst example of pure evil turned around to show God’s glory and had significant eternal importance then the hurt, loss, and sadness, we face every day will undoubtedly lead to God’s glory with a reason behind it as well. We just might not know what this is until after His Kingdom come.

Our hurt may seem too much now but it does not come without promises to those who have put their trust in Christ. Our tears will be wiped away, Everything will be made right, and at the end of all things, we will NEVER again go through what many of us go through on a daily basis. We will never suffer alone and our suffering will always be for a reason. In the meantime, we have to understand our true satisfaction is in Christ alone who can never be taken away from us. We may experience loss and be hurt by it but we can never lose Jesus. Our only comfort in times of true pain can only come from Christ.