Gooding, David: 3 - Why Does God Allow Suffering?

Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for those kind words of introduction. I count it a great pleasure to be invited to come and address you. Indeed, I count it an honor so to be asked. Anyway, the topic you have given me is why does God allow suffering? It's a very big topic, because, as you will have realized, suffering comes from two main sources. The one source is the evil that we human beings commit against each other. From the gigantic evils inflicted, for instance, on the world in the last century by Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia and Pol Pot, and so forth. By the evil in Africa, where people teach little children to be soldiers and to anesthetize them against hacking off the limbs of their family members. Evil. And then all those unpleasant things that all of us from time to time do, even against the people we love. The suffering that comes from evil. But then, of course, there's a lot of suffering that comes from a somewhat different source, is there not? Suffering that comes by volcanoes, or landslides, or earthquakes, that can destroy forty or fifty thousand people at one go. The ep- epidemics. Sooner or later, the illnesses that come upon us and upon our loved ones. And ultimately, we say, well, if that's how this world is, how can you still believe in a God? A God who is supposed to be all powerful. He can do what he likes. A God who's supposed to be all wise, and therefore he knows the best way of doing. And a God who's supposed to be all-loving. Why does God allow evil to carry on? Why doesn't he stop people? Like Hitler or Stalin or Pol Pot or others. Why doesn't he stop them? If he's a God who cares for justice. And because people, for many people, that is a very big problem. They give up faith in God and say they can't believe there is a God. And then, of course, when illness besets people, the question arises once more. Why does God, who's supposed to be the creator, allow such things as avalanches and tornadoes and hurricanes and volcanoes and landslides and earthquakes and illnesses and diseases. It is a very big problem. The last time I was in Moscow, a German friend of mine invited me to dinner to meet some of his friends in Moscow City. Two of the friends, one of the friends was head of the big psychiatric unit in Moscow. He had seen in his time a lot of suffering, as you may imagine. His wife was professionally a biochemist. Of course, they didn't believe in God. They were brought up under Marxism. They were atheists. But towards the end of dinner, he smiled at me across the table, not trying to be funny or difficult. He said, how can you, in the face of all suffering, believe in a God who is all-knowing and all-powerful and all-wise. And all loving. I answered as best I could. I'll try and do the same tonight. I take it my job is simply to tell you, if I may, how I, as a Christian face those questions and seek to answer them. There is another slight difficulty, isn't there? For there are two angles to this great problem of pain and evil. And one is, uh, the intellectual questions it raises. Such as, how can you believe in a God that allows such things? And we seek logical, intellectual answers to the question. Of course, when people are actually suffering, or some loved one is suffering, then the intellectual answers may not be of much help. They're looking for answers that can soothe their pain and bring some real sympathy and courage into the situation. When people are deeply suffering, it's hard to believe... that there's a God who cares for them. Easier to believe that if there's a God, he has abandoned them. Tonight I shall be concentrating on the, what I have called the intellectual answers to the question. I realize my time is limited. It is, I find, however, a good thing when we're not suffering too much and can think clearly, to face the intellectual question and to do it and find God's answers to it before the time of trouble comes. So, to come back to the dear Russian professor, how can you, says he, but still believe in a God when there's so much suffering? Let me tell you, or begin to tell you what I answered him. I said, I admit, sir, as a Christian, I have a problem. I'm not sure if I can completely answer that problem and find particular answers to every aspect of it. I said, but I can tell you straight now how to get rid of the problem. If it's an intellectual problem you have. He said, how's that? I said, well, get rid of the idea of God, sir. Banish God from your thinking. Now you don't have a problem, do you? Why not? Well, because if there's no God, then our little world and all our vast universe has come into existence utterly by chance. There's no intelligence behind it, no mind, no purpose. It's a mindless product of mindless forces and mindless mass. What would you expect from such a process, other than a lot of pain? Do you see? But I said, you can get rid of the problem side of it by getting rid of God. I said, but when you've done it, if you've done it and you got rid of God to your satisfaction, you won't have got rid of the pain, will you? You won't have got rid of the evil. In fact, I said you'll have made the pain ten thousand times worse. How's that? Well, if there's a God, ladies and gentlemen, there is ground for hope. That bad as pain, uh, may be and evil is, if there's a God, there is hope. That it's not the end of everything. There is hope for a glorious future. But pain is not just destructive, but will somehow, as the Bible puts it, this affliction which is far for a moment will work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. There's hope, said I, if it's a God. And I added, I don't know about you, sir, but when I'm in pain and I've had my share in life, it's hope that keeps me going. Do away with hope, and I'm as good as defeated. But let me make sure that I'm not just putting my own personal opinion. Suppose there's no God. Can I do that and not mislead you? I, I am a Christian. I do believe there is a God. You've got that bit straight. Well, now suppose there isn't a God. What then? Well, let me quote you from that nowadays very well known professor of the public understanding of science, Professor Dawkins of Oxford. He's a thoroughgoing atheist, and nowadays is developing into an evangelist for atheism, if there can be such a thing. He preaches atheism with great fervor. He doesn't believe there's a God, then. I see. Well, how did we human beings come to exist? He says it's our genes, you know. Not the kind of people that people wear, not that kind of jeans, J-E-A-N-S, the other kind of jeans, G-E-N-E-S, those jeans. Our DNA, if you like. And he says as follows. In a universe of blind physical force. It means the universe is made up of forces that are impersonal, blind, they don't have any purpose. They just act blindly. In a universe of blind physical forces, they are quite impersonal. And genetic replication, that is, the genes repeat themselves and, uh, so make us. In a universe like that, where there's no God, and it's run by simple physical forces, blind, non-personal, purposeless. In a universe like that, some people, says he, 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. For in a universe where there is no God, there is no such thing as justice. Indeed, in a universe where there is no God, even the concept evil disappears. That's a difficult one, that is, isn't it? So let me go over that one. If you were out of a country walk by, say, the mountains of morn, where they sweep down to the sea, and a rock off the top had the impertinence to come hurtling down and land upon your toe. What would you say to the rock? Would you say, you evil piece of rock! Should report you to the priest, the magistrate, or somebody. Evil. No, it isn't evil. Can't call a bit of rock evil, can you? Has no moral sense in its head, doesn't have a head anyway. It just is. It's a bit of rock. And if people are just bits of matter organized by blind DNA, it's no good calling them evil. They just are, like that bit of rock. The best you can hope for in a universe like that is that you will strike lucky, says he. And if you are lucky, you've got no one to thank, it just happened. You might be very unlucky. It's no good blaming anything. There is no such thing as evil if there is no God. Evil in the moral sense, I mean. Perhaps you see why I said that to the professor. If you find it a problem to believe in God because of all the evil and pain in this world, if that's a problem with you, an intellectual problem, well, get rid of the idea of God. Now you won't have a problem, will you? What you find is the result of mindless forces working on mindless matter without purpose. There's no sense in it. And there is no hope. Listen to the atheist Dawkins. It's not my normal advice, but listen to him just for a minute, will you? If there's no God... Well, the universe as we now find it is as we might expect it. There's no design, no purpose, no evil, and no good. Nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, like the bit of rock. And we dance to its music. What does the man mean? Well, he says your behavior, sir, and your friends think some of it is good, but some of they say it's a bit, you know, bit offish. They say that behind your back, of course. But they don't blame you. When you do something very funny, they say, well, he's just dancing to his genes. It's they control him, not him control them. Really? Well, face it. Face it before the pain may start with you. Face what is the fact if there is no God. We just dance to our genes. What will you say of the boy in Germany, at Erfurt in Germany, that a year or so ago arrived at the school door with a gun and shot I don't know ma- how many teachers and a classroom of of children. He was just dancing to his genes, was he? And when Stalin murdered, eliminated, some people say twenty and some people say fifty million, he was just dancing to his genes, was he? And if I got a little baby in front of you with a sharp knife and cut it to pieces while it was still alive, you'd be happy for me to say, but why are you complaining? I'm just dancing to my genes. It is utterly repugnant, isn't it? And And I I repeat, I'm repeating to you the considered thought of a professor of the University of Oxford for the public understanding of science, and he's pointing out to you the implication. If there is, as he says there is, no God. Oh, but a lot of atheists are going to say that's not fair. We agree there's no God. But we're not all like Professor Dawkins. You see, the human race has evolved. And as part of our evolution, we've been able to work out systems of how we should treat each other when we were monkeys, if we were, Josie, as their favorite notion is, or baboons or gorillas or something, uh, uh, we found out we didn't like it when the other chap stole our nut, and he didn't like it when we stole his. So we came to an agreement we wouldn't steal each other's nuts. And thus we have made a great deal of progress individually as nations and international. As we have evolved, we have been able to invent all sorts of moral codes, and we try to keep them. Now, that last bit is true. I'm not saying that atheists all behave very wickedly. That is not true. Many atheists are perfectly moral, try to behave morally. But they say you don't need to drag God into it, you see. These are moral codes that we go by as we humans have invented them. Don't need to drag God into it. Yes, they will admit we haven't got to s- a perfect state yet in our laws, not even nationally, let alone internationally, but we're working on it and moving towards better and better and better laws to make us behave better. So that's enough. I have one big question. Well, I got a whole lot of big questions, but I have one big question for that type of a person. I will say, okay, you've invented the moral laws, and you're doing your best to improve them, and a lot of people have benefited. And this is the result of evolution, you see. Yes. Ah. What about those millions in the course of the centuries that have suffered evil and injustice because man hadn't evolved far enough? And what about those millions that in this last, perhaps, uh, fifty years have perished in many different countries around the world, in spite of the evolution of morality. What about them? And you know what the atheist will say in reply, don't you? Well, they've had it. But what about justice? Oh look, they were never going to get justice. And now they've died, they won't get it in this life. And since, according to the atheists, there's no life to come, they won't get justice there either. The vast majority of humans that ever have lived on this earth never get justice? Happy with that result? It follows, of course, by necessity follows, if there is no God. You say, but how would you then explain? You say you believe in God. Hmm. There is a God. Then why does he allow all this evil? Is he responsible for it? The short answer to that question is, well, it has come about because God has given us human beings free will. Ponder that a minute, because that is the glory of the human race, as distinct from the animal. We have free will, and then a moral sense. You will see the story in Genesis is very true to life. God told Adam and Eve they might eat of any of the trees in the garden, except one particular tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He told them not to eat it, for in the day they ate it, if they did eat it, they would surely die. So he warned them not to eat it. He forbade them to eat it. He told them the consequences of eating it. But when Eve and Adam decided to eat it, they found they could. And when Eve put out her delightful hand, she didn't find the hand out suddenly paralyzed and couldn't do it. She was free to do it, had the strength to do it, and God let her do it. Though he had forbidden her to do it. That's what we mean by free will. God gave our human race free will. Now I must ask you a question. I think you'll agree with me, see some of you nodding anyway, to the effect that you have free will. Do you blame God and curse God for giving you free will? I can't believe God would have given me free will, and I find out I've got free will, so I can't believe in God. No, of course not. Why did God give us free will? Well, because you cannot have moral beings unless they have free choice. Uh-huh. True morality, a moral decision arises when there is free choice. Some people, when they have murdered, will say, but I had no choice. My captors put a gun to my head. I had no real choice. If I didn't kill the other person, they would kill me. The argument? In that case, they didn't have free will. Free will is a God-given gift. The glory of being human, that we can understand the moral reasons for doing this or not doing that, the difference between right and wrong, and the ability to choose freely between them. The other reason why God gives us free will is that at the deepest level, you can't have love, true love, at the deepest level, without free choice, can you? Suppose you are sitting in your lovely, uh, drawing room, in your favorite, uh, armchair, and in through the door comes one of these modern robots. Uh, you know, you can get them now to do the, the, the hoovering for you, robots. Mm-hmm. To call you out of bed, or if need be, to push you out of bed and mow the lawn for you. Suppose you have one of these, one of these days the thing comes in the room and comes up to you and puts its old arms around your neck and says, in that funny voice they have, I love you. What would you say? If I kick it in the ribs, I'd say, makes a daft don't. Why, why so? Well, you jolly well know that it wasn't free. It was programmed to say it. That makes it meaningless, of course. God gives us free will, so that we can be moral creatures and choose what is right knowingly, or choose what is wrong knowingly, free to do it. He gives us free will so that we can genuinely love... and love him. The late Professor Mackey of Oxford, he was an atheist, and he made the point in his writings when he heard Christians arguing this matter about free will. He says, but look, it's no good, your argument, because if God is almighty, he could have so made us that we all freely did what was right, out of free choice. He overlooked, of course, one very big thing to start with. For the deepest point of issue between us and God is... whether we shall love him or not. And God wanted us to be free. What use to God if we found we couldn't do anything other and it wasn't our free choice? We had to love him willy-nilly. It wouldn't be love. And God has so made us. And this is the staggering revelation of the Bible. That he wants our love. But he's given us free will. So that we can choose whether we shall love him. Or not love him. It is in that kind of context that the Bible will say, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone Everyone to to his own way. Not that we've all murdered our mothers-in-law or fathers-in-law according to preference. We've just gone our own way. I was traveling in a train in England just after the war, when rations were severe, and I sat opposite a young man in the compartment, and he shared his sandwiches with me, and I shared my coffee with him. And we got talking, you know, and in the end the talk came round to these spiritual matters, and I happened to use the word sin, do you see? Oh, he said, that's a silly term to use. Sin? I don't, I don't accept the concept, says he. For he was a bright young thing. I said, um, to change the subject a minute, do you think you could ever be, uh, sort of clever enough, uh, to make a motor car? He thought he was. I said, suppose you made a motor car, and when you got behind the steering wheel, five times out of five it went where you wanted it to go, and five times out of five it went it went where it wanted to go itself. What would you do with that? He said, I'd scrap it. Well, I said, suppose nine times out of ten it went onto where you wanted it to go. And just once in ten took no notice of you and went wanted where it wanted to go itself. What would you do with it then? He said, I'd scrap it. He said, if I made a motor car, I would want it to go ten times out of ten where I wanted it to go. I said, I thought you were. I said, oh boy. What the Bible talks about sin is this. We've gone, everyone, to his own way. I said, you better look out, old chap, lest God put you on the scrap heap of eternity. For the first command in the whole scripture is this: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength. And God gave us free will so that, uh, our love for him should be free. That is one of the reasons why God doesn't immediately strike the wicked person and end their lives. They seem to get away with wrong deeds. God cannot immediately consign every sinner to death. Suppose there's a room, and on the table there was a bar of gold, and you were watching me through closed circuit television, you see. You'll see, we'll hear about, see what this do this to chap Gooding does. He thinks there's nobody around, nobody can see him. Ha. You'll see what he'll do with this. Put it in his pocket. So I look at this gold, and I stand there and think, yes, I like gold. Could put it in my pocket, nobody would see me. And then you see me, through your closed circuit television, walk away. I don't take the gold. Hmm, you say, Gooding, after all, was a very moral man. Look at that. Ah, but you didn't know what I knew. I could see that the bar of gold was wired up to a lethal dose of, dose of electricity. I only had to put my finger on it, and I should be dead. I didn't try to take it. Not because I was moral. Because I knew if I took it, I would die instantaneously. God has to let evil run its way for our choice to be free and for us to be moral. Evil Evil then. then. You say, but has no God no answer to it? Oh yes, God has an answer to it. And it is found in that magnificent love of God, our Creator. In spite of the fact we're sinners. Well, let me quote you what the Bible says. God commends his love to us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Misused our free will, gone our own way, sinned against God, small, big sins anyway. And then the Bible says this astounding thing. God commends his love. I think that is a s- extraordinary description of God. I'll tell you why. When I was a boy, I was born between the two great wars, not the cause of either, as far as I know. But anyway, people were in unemployed sometimes for ten years. And if they were going to get unemployment benefit, they had to take any old job that was offered them. If they didn't take the job, they unemployment benefits stopped. And so they came round, perhaps to sell clean easy brushes around the doors, you see. And knock on the door, and the housewife would go to the door, do you see, and it would be the clean, easy man. Well, they didn't want any brushes anyway and couldn't afford them. That was the second thing. Ah, but the poor chap, his, his, his job depended on it, you see. He didn't want the housewife to shut the door on his face, so he put his foot in the door. So she couldn't shut the door, just to plead with the woman, but let me show you, my dear g- good lady, how marvelous this brush is. Can you picture him standing at the door, commending the brush to the woman? But to think of God Almighty doing it. But that's how scripture speaks of him. Putting his foot in our door. Sometimes, if we won't listen otherwise, we put the foot in the door by letting us suffer pain or something. Putting his foot in the door of our heart so that we don't shut it on him. Pleading to be allowed to commend his love to us. And his plea is this, that while we were still sinners, still sinning, Christ died for us. Or as another verse puts it, here in his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation, that is the sacrifice that pays the penalty of our sin, so that we might be forgiven and reconciled to God. That's the beginning of God's argument. But God isn't going to let evil go on forever. That's the other side to his story. There's going to come the final judgment. You say, what a gloomy subject to get onto of a Wednesday evening. The final judgment. Oh. You don't like it? I thought you were going to clap your hands with joy. There's going to be a final judgment. Hallelujah for that. You don't? Why not? Would you like evil to go on forever? Surely not. Well, let me tell you, says God, there shall be a final judgment. When the world ends, and the great white throne of God's judgment is set up. This ultimately is a moral universe. And the dead, small and great, shall stand before God. Evil is not going on forever. People should be judged according to their works. But listen next to the ultimate decisive thing. Whether a person is admitted to God's heaven or consigned to the darkness forever depends on this. Is that person's name written in the Lamb's Book of Life? That's a decisive thing. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, they were cast, it is said, into the lake of fire. That is such a basic and fundamental question in life, isn't it? I confess to you I wouldn't rest my head on my pillow tonight unless I were utterly sure that my name is written in the book of life. The disciples of our Lord Jesus, you know, they came back to Christ at one stage when he was here on earth, and they were very excited. They said, Lord, we went out and preached like you told us to, and even the demons were subject to us in your name, they said. They were excited. And our Lord replied, well, okay, but in in that don't rejoice particularly. Rejoice in this, that your names are enregistered in heaven. They knew it, you know. Here on earth, they knew it. Paul was writing from prison to his Christian friends in Philippi. And he has a lot to say to them, and then in the end, a lot of practical things like friends do at the end of letters. And he says, help so and so, and so and so, and so and so, and so and so, give my greetings to them. And then, as though it were a casual remark, he adds, their names are in the book of life, you know. No. It is therefore open to all who come to God through Christ to know that they have been reconciled with God, forgiven, Forgiven. Justified. justified. With the gift of eternal life. And a sure place in God's heaven, where no evil shall ever come. It doesn't mean that for a Christian, his life is going to be free of suffering evil. It is the evidence of the New Testament that when Christians in those first days got converted, more often than not, they had to face more evil then than they ever had to face before, because the Romans didn't always like them and threw them to the lions. And they suffered this, and they suffered that, and they lost their jobs, and they lost their homes, and they lost their furniture very often. And to this day, in some countries, if a person puts their faith in Christ, sometimes even their family friends will murder them. In the world you shall have tribulation, says Christ. Ah, but to know oneself loved by God and to have eternal life. And if in faithfulness to him or for some other reason, we pass from this world, this temporary world with all its evil and suffering, we pass from this world into eternity. Our names are in the book of life. It will be merely going home to be with Christ, to be in one of the rooms in the Father's house in heaven. The problem of evil. I'm aware that I haven't touched on all its many implications, and what I haven't done this evening, and you've a right to complain. Don't complain to me, complain to the organizers. And if you do that, they'll never ask me again, you see, so that's your sure fire way of saving yourselves from further distress. I haven't talked about that other source of pain and suffering that comes not from the evil of our fellow men and women, but comes from what we call natural disasters, for which they're not responsible. And the only one responsible ultimately for them is, of course, God himself, who made the world that way. Volcanoes and mudslides and all sorts of things of that order. Though man, as we now know, by the superheating of the atmosphere and this, that, and the other, is by his own selfishness perverting the climate. But a lot of things for which human beings are not. What is the answer to that, if this is God's creation? And a lot of illnesses that we suffer, not because of anybody else has tried to do us harm. Why does God allow that? But I mustn't keep you any longer. I shall get bad marks for keeping you so long. If God so will, tomorrow night when we start our Bible studies, I think that will be very near the beginning of our study. Because our study will, um, tell us why God made this world and universe to start with, and what he had in mind when he made it, and what he made it for, and what his ultimate plans were. For this world was never meant to be eternal, and it is, as the Bible says, subject to frustration at every angle. We shall have to consider that, can't we, to answer our question properly. But I've said enough, perhaps too much tonight. Thank you for your patient attention, and the chairman tells me that if you have questions, you are allowed to put them to me now or collect them up and bring them tomorrow.