Board index ‹ The Problem of Evil and Suffering

[Newbie]

Why doesn't God end it all now? I would! Why let children continue to suffer day-after-day? A child is abducted and the mother is crushed in her spirit suffering year-after-year wanting only to know if her child is dead or alive. God knows, right? Why won't he let her find out? She didn't ask for any of this.

The longer God delays his return, the more people will suffer. The longer he waits, the more will be lost. Isn't this just a testament to his cruelty?

[jimwalton]

2 Peter 3.9 says, "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance." The reason God is holding off is that as long as there are people who will turn to him, he (because of his sense of justice) will hold off until they turn. It would be unfair and unjust for him to do otherwise, for if anyone could possibly stand before him in heaven and say, "I would have turned if I had had more time," then God would have been unjust to deprive that person of the opportunity.

We know that in the days of Noah the population was spiritually hopeless, and I mean that literally. No matter how much time would have been allowed to pass, no one else would have turned to God. No matter what. Even if someone had come back from the dead. We know this because Genesis tells us that Noah was the only righteous man left (Gn. 6.5-9). That makes the judgment of God completely fair, because all those who would ever have turned to God had already turned, and no one else ever would. They had had plenty of chances (2 Pe4t. 2.5). So (1) judgment at that time was perfectly fair, and (2) judgment at that time was also an act of mercy to put an end to sin and people's accountability/culpability/guilt.

Now, we also know from Jesus that "as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man" (Mt. 24.37). Jesus cannot come back until the gospel has been preached to the whole world (Mt. 24.14) and everyone who would ever turn to Him has turned. Otherwise it wouldn't be fair.

As far as the continuing suffering of children, it's a call for us to get busy relieving suffering, not for God to come back and cut off someone's chances for salvation. While we wait, we all work for justice and peace in the world, to stop suffering, to prevent and punish crime. The suffering on earth is our fault based on our actions, not God's fault in his delay. The message for the suffering and the sinful is the same as that in the days of Noah: Be reconciled to God. There is still time to turn. Take a lesson from Nineveh.

And here's how I would answer in terms of theological logic: We are engaged in a serious and intense spiritual battle, and there is much suffering on the earth. If God is really all-powerful, the reasoning goes, then he should be easily able to stop the Devil and the suffering caused by sin. Since he hasn't stopped it, what holds him back? Either he has tried and failed (in which case he is not all-powerful), or he hasn't tried (in which case he's cruel)—but there's a third choice: He has tried, has succeeded, and Satan is already defeated. Looking at Revelation 12, this last one is clearly the case, but it says that Satan was sent to the earth and allowed to continue his opposition (vv. 9-13). Well, if God were truly omnipotent, isn't this an untenable situation? No—there is still more good to be gained. It is misguided to say that good is only good if it always eliminates evil as far as it can. Any surgeon who cuts into people or amputates limbs to save people, or oncologist who puts people through almost unbearable trauma knows that the person who is good doesn't forfeit his claim to moral excellence by failing to eliminate all evil, suffering, and pain. The doctor escapes culpability because he cannot eliminate the evil in question without also eliminating a greater good.

In the end of time, there are many many many who will never turn to God no matter what. For God to return to "eliminate their suffering" accomplishes no relief, for in the afterlife they are due for more. But if by waiting he can achieve a greater good—that of the salvation of some and thorough justice for all—then something moral is to be achieved by waiting.

What do you think?