Why We Believe 2.2
Why We Believe 2.0 Christian Response to Evil & Suffering.
Thank you all for coming this morning. We are continuing our class on Why we Believe. Meaning us, Christians why we believe in God, Jesus, The Bible, The Resurrection, etc. And the reason we believe? We believe because of the evidence. The evidence is the best reason why we believe although people do give other answers.
In fact the top 3 reasons Christians give as to why they believe according to Jay Warner Wallace is: 1. I was raised that way, or 2. God has changed me for the better, or 3. I had a personal experience with God. Those answers interestingly are the same top 3 answers that Muslims, Mormons, and nearly every other religious worldview give for why they believe. So why is our worldview any better if Christians are giving the same responses? It’s the evidence.
The overwhelming evidence for our Christian Faith should be the top reason we believe. It’s also what separates a Christian Worldview from all of the others. Yes. there is a ton of evidence that supports the things we believe. Does it prove it 100%? No, but we decided that you really can’t prove anything in life 100% of the time outside of pure mathematics. And relying on proof is not how we live our lives. We all are investigators really. That’s really the reason we believe in anything. We have to have evidence before we believe. Before we make just about any decision we need information in order to help us make the right decision for us. Everyday many times a day we put our trust in a person or thing. ( And That is what faith is, trust or confidence in a person or thing.) Before we believe in anything, we must have evidence to justify our trust.
To make sure the object of our faith is worthy of it. Whether it’s getting on an airplane, trusting your car to get you to work, or trusting your spouse with your children. We don’t demonstrate faith without careful consideration in everyday life because it can literally mean life and death. Think about the Trust in the opinion of your Doctor, trusting the food you purchase at the grocery is safe, and trusting your pharmacist is giving you the correct drug and dosage. We may not think about it, but we risk our lives every day by the faith we show in people and things. We determined there are two kinds of faith, Faith based on evidence which most people use to trust, and blind faith, which is faith without evidence. I believe the World out there thinks Christians have a blind faith. So If we don’t know the evidence behind our faith as to why we believe in God and can’t articulate that, then we contribute to this line of thinking.
We need to be able to give a reason for the hope that we have as Peter tells us in 1 Peter 3:14. But he says do so with gentleness and respect. Do so with love. We don’t have to give proof for our faith. Remember proof is not how we live life. We just need to know the evidence that supports why we believe in Jesus.
We live our everyday lives with an evidenced-based faith. Faith is based on evidence. We need to know why we believe, first for ourselves to strengthen and support our own faith, and second for others if we are asked or put in a position to tell someone why we believe if we are asked.
Last week we looked at the evidence for The resurrection of Jesus. I would argue the reason we believe in the resurrection is the evidence for it and because we believe the Bible to be a true and reliable document. You might say “How can there be evidence for a resurrection of a man 2000 years ago?” But there is evidence to support this claim.
If you weren’t hear last week you can actually read the manuscript of the class on the church’s blog on Cornerstone’s website. Josh has asked me to put all of these classes up there for this series.
So today we are going to change things up a bit. Instead of talking about the specific evidence, we are going to look at one of the biggest objections people have to believing in Jesus. So today will be Why We Believe despite this popular objection. What do you think that is? Any guess? Objections people have to believing in Jesus, what do you think?
Why is there Evil, Suffering and Pain. So, it’s a logical question to ask. Why does a loving all powerful God, loving, personal God allow so much evil, suffering and pain occur on this earth? Would anyone like to try to answer one of the hardest questions we are faced with? Why do people treat each other so badly? Why do earthquakes, floods, and disease dominate our world? These are tough questions. So, is this a legitimate question for someone to ask and us talk about? YES of course. A VERY GOOD QUESTION I BELIEVE. And I say this for two reasons. One, we should think about these things for our own faith. How do we personally reconcile this? This should cause us to think about them to satisfy, confirm, strengthen our own faith. 2nd FOR OTHERS in case we are asked Why We Believe despite all of these terrible things that go on in this world.
And there is no clear easy answer so I don’t want to make it seem that we can talk about this for an hour and come out of it with a clear understanding of evil and suffering in the world. Not going to happen. We can’t play God. Do we have any right to question Him on what he allows and doesn’t? Pastor Tim Keller has a good take on this I think: He says “what people are saying is that because I can’t think of a good reason to allow Evil and suffering, that there can’t be a good reason.” If I can’t think of it, then God can’t have a good reason.” How would you describe that way of thinking? Arrogant? What’s interesting is he points out that people of the past from 100 years on back to ancient times, people who obviously also experienced evil and suffering, never used it as a reason to not believe in God like many do today. Why do you think that is? (They were more humble) Modern people are not so humble. Think about that. Modern people think they know better than God. Finally, he says people have a doubt, but it’s based on a faith. In themselves, not God. They trust themselves to judge what evil and suffering should be allowed instead of God. So that’s my disclaimer, we can’t know why God allows what he allows. I think we just have to trust Him based on His character.
But there are some possibilities that we can talk about. If someone asks you a similar question about evil and/or pain and suffering I think the first thing you want to do is try to find out is the motivation behind the question. Why are they asking it? Now why would we want to know their reason for asking this kind of question do you think? Is it an intellectual or philosophical curiosity and they may want to know how a Christian would respond? Or maybe they want to know more about God. Maybe they want to know How is God involved in this?
What could be another reason they are asking about evil or suffering? Or are they in the midst of suffering and want to know why this is happening? It’s important to try to find out their motivation why? So, you can really meet the need their seeking at the time. Something we can say is that’s a really good question, and I would like to talk to you about it. May I ask what prompted that question from you? If something has happened and they are suffering then we can provide comfort, empathy and serve them in a way that they need right then until they are through this tough time. That person needs an emotional and a relational response. You will then show them how a Christian responds to someone who is suffering. You will be responding to them Christ-like.
That person doesn’t want or need some philosophical reason for their suffering. They don’t want to hear an intellectual argument for the reason they are suffering. They need a friend, they need support and that’s what we should give them. Now if they aren’t in the midst of suffering and are looking for a reasoned thought-out response then we can talk to them in a different way. Instead of them being in the middle of suffering and emotionally connected to a specific situation, we can stand outside of it and talk about it without the emotion. The person with cancer has a much different perspective of suffering than the oncologist who is treating them. Two different worlds and perspectives.
There are two types of evil in this world. Moral Evil & Natural Evil. Moral evil is what man does to each other, and Natural evil is what the Natural created world does to man like Earthquakes, hurricanes, disease, etc.
So in regards to Moral Evil, here is a question to consider. Would a loving God create a world in which Love is possible? YES, I think we would all agree that is true. But would such a world have to involve free will? YES, WHY? The ability to make our own decisions. Why is that? (Why does free will have to be present for love?)
Ok, so if we are free to love then we must be free to do what? HATE. Be evil. If we didn’t have that choice what would we be? ROBOTS. Could God have made us robots who only loved others and God and never hated? SURE. But at what cost? (LOVE) Would love be possible? No. What does love have to be to mean anything? Love must be freely given. Love must be free or it’s not love. Its something else? What would it be then? Manipulation or coercion. And we try that sometimes and how does that work out in the end when you try to manipulate someone into liking or loving you? NOT TOO WELL. (Think back to highschool) Did you ever try to manipulate someone into liking you? I know most of the guys have tried it. Never works does it unless it involves a free will choice without manipulation. So look what God has done. He has created these beings made in his image with free will to do whatever we want, but there's a problem. We have this sinful nature already inside us. This nature produces a lot of Evil and suffering.
So, Does God cause us to do evil? NO. But what has he given us? FREE WILL AND THE ABILITY TO DO RIGHT OR WRONG.
So has God given us these huge abilities and responsibilities and left us completely on our own? Has God given us anything to help us make good decisions? What do you think? THE BIBLE. What else? PEOPLE, HOLY SPIRIT, WHAT ABOUT OUR CONSCIENCE? Why is it that nearly every culture on earth knows murder is wrong? Stealing is wrong? Lying is wrong? Torturing an infant is wrong. Why is that do you think? That little voice inside us that lets us know we are doing wrong. WE ARE MADE IN HIS IMAGE. WE KNOW IN OUR HEART THOSE ARE WRONG. Back to the bible. Among all of the things it gives us in the bible, part of it does gives us instructions about how we should live. He has given us tools and resources in order to find and know the truth, to distinguish right from wrong. Not leave us totally on our own. Do you agree with that?
The bad choices we make that are evil and cause pain and suffering does that make God evil? No. Who then? PEOPLE. Bad choices and their consequences make people evil, not God. Everyone agree with that? See I think too many people blame God for the choices they themselves make or others around them. Paul talks about suffering in this world.
Romans 5:3-5 says “Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. “
So, God can bring good from our suffering for good. We can benefit from it. It’s hard to believe at the time, but how many times have we looked back on a situation and have seen how we may have benefited from going through something?
So, Did God take a risk by giving us free will? SURE. What's the risk? Is it worth the risk? YES. A lot of us have children. Didn’t we face a similar risk when we decided to have children? What was the risk? (What do you think?) THAT OUR KIDS WOULD REJECT US. That they might turn out evil. And it was confirmed at age 2 right?
No matter what we did for them, how much we loved them, taught them, persuaded them they could still reject us. That’s the risk. Yet many of us still had children despite that risk. Why? Why did we do it? THE RISK ITS WORTH IT. Why?
Love? They might love us, obey us, we could have a great relationship with them for the rest of our lives. Even if our children could reject us, or even become a criminal and hurt us and others, we still took the risk.
Ok, you might say then what about Natural Evil? Romans 8:22 says “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”
Why does God allow Natural Evil? What do you think? This one's a little tougher to explain. Does all natural evil come without any fault or contribution of man? Does man take risks sometimes knowing that some forms of natural evil could affect them? Can you think of any examples? What happens a lot on the West Coast? Earthquakes. They have killed many people over time. But after its over what happens? Do people clean up the mess? Then what do they do? REBUILD. Where do they rebuild? Over the same spot or fault line that it happened. What about disease?
Can you think of any examples that men take risk of exposing themselves to some disease? Sure smoking cigarettes we know increases the risk of cancer yet people still do it. People travel to different parts of the world where certain diseases are known to exist and expose ourselves do them. The point is our free will can even expose ourselves to natural evil in some cases. So, we are not totally off the hook sometimes with natural evil. So where do we turn in these cases? What is the Christian response to A child is born with a terrible disease? A volcano erupts, a title wave happens. Our faith, our Worldview. What does that mean? WE LOOK AND LIVE IN THIS WORLD FROM A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE, A BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE.
Do we believe that life ends when we die? NO. We believe in eternity that our eternal lives will never end. So with that perspective how does that or how should that affect our attitude toward suffering in this life? What do you think about that? We all know people, Christians that were faithful and suffered throughout their lives with circumstances or disease where there isn’t any sense to be made of it at least by us. But when you look at eternity and our little blip of a life here how it can it help us cope a little bit? Won’t Every year in eternity make these years of suffering during our lives a little more distant and hopefully be able to appreciate heaven more? It's just an idea? What do you think? Should that matter to us now do you think?
What about Justice? 2 Peter 3:8-9 says “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
How does this speak to Justice? Do most people ever get true justice in this life? Did Hitler, Lenin and Stalin get justice in this world after killing millions of people. Hitler shot himself in the arms of his mistress. Is that Justice? NO of course not. What's the complaint we hear or heard from our kids growing up about Justice? THAT’S NOT FAIR. That was our youngest's favorite come back to us. I got tired of hearing it. But they’re right aren’t they? And what did we say to them in return? LIFE'S NOT FAIR. And we are right too. Why isn’t this life fair? FALLEN WORLD WITH FALLEN PEOPLE, FALLEN CULTURE AND FALLEN CREATION. So, will there ever be true Justice in this life in this world? No. But what do we know by having a Christian Worldview about Jusitce? Justice will be done. Real Justice, perfect justice will be done? Why do we believe that? Jesus the perfect judge will make things right. He will be the perfect judge.
Do we believe murder and stealing are wrong? YES why? Is it because we don’t like those things? How do we know those things are wrong? Do we believe in a moral standard of behavior? Yes. People are made in the image of God, and have intrinsic value, and dignity. People should not be mistreated according to God.
So, if people and atheists believe in evil, then what also must they believe in? GOOD. If they believe in good then they must believe in what in order to judge what is good or evil? A standard, A MORAL LAW to judge the behavior against, correct? If there is a moral law then there must be What? Where did the moral law come from? A MORAL LAW GIVER?
The Christian Worldview calls that Moral law Giver God or Jesus or The Holy Spirit. A true atheist really cant make this argument about Evil, suffering, and pain. Why? Does a true atheist believe in good or evil? No, why not? Were just meat machines that live by our instincts like the animals. A famous atheist Richard Dawkins said this in a debate with a Christian. “We live in a world exactly as one would expect, with no good or evil, our DNA just is and we dance to its music. “ That’s what he said. I guess the 911 hijackers were just dancing to their DNA right? I wonder if he would stand by his statement if his family was murdered?
I heard a preacher say once that all questions about evil are raised by a person or about a person. When someone complains about evil they are assuming there is intrinsic value in each person. Whether they are a Christian or not they must believe people are valuable for some reason in order to object to evil. Otherwise, wouldn’t it just be survival of the fittest? The strong survive.
Again, this is consistent with our worldview. We believe that we all are created in the image of God and have value, the poorest, and weakest to the strongest and richest. We all have value or else why would it matter if evil was done against us. Without a Christian Worldview how would living here seem to an unbeliever or atheist? If we lived just a few decades on this earth, where there is evil and suffering, pain and no justice, no hope. How do you describe this type of Worldview? Dark, depressing, and hopeless. God places great value on us, wanting a relationship with us, providing his word to help us, and making a way for us to receive salvation and justice, and hope from this life to the next.
Now it's so hard for us to comprehend that God is outside of space and time. He is not bound within space and time. He is outside of it. As much as he loves us, and understands our limits in time and space, he knows our lives on earth are a blip in eternity. He knows the big picture and knows how everything that has happened, and will happen. Although he doesn’t cause the bad things that do happen, he can use them in his eternal plan. Who knows maybe the bad things that happen to us and how we react to then, will mean something in heaven? Have you heard the term ripple effect? How one event affects thousands or millions of future events. Think about the sequence of events of how you came to be. Your parents meeting and their parents and so on. God is outside of all of these events and can look back and forward and can know what will happen without causing it to happen and use events for his purpose. Good and bad.
Now we can’t know the motivation of God and why he allows some terrible things to happen and why he doesn’t always intervene. One thing I think about sometimes is how many times he does intervene, some that we might know he does, by our witnessing what appears to be miracles, and most I would imagine we have no idea what he's done for us and how many times he has helped us.
So what should we do in these cases when we are suffering do you think? What did Job do?
We just have to trust Him. Based on what? His character and the things we know he has done for us already.
So lets look at this a little bit more. 2 Corinthians 7:10 says “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.” What do you think this verse means? Obviously No one likes to suffer. No one likes pain.
Are you aware there are people who can’t feel pain? It’s a real medical condition. Do you think those people are happy with this condition? They can stub their toe and not feel it. Hit there thumb with a hammer and no pain. Do you think they appreciate not feeling pain? Why do we need to feel pain? Do we ever get anything out of a painful situation? (Ever heard the phrase no pain no gain?) What can be some positives out of a painful situation? Do we learn? Do we mature? Is it a guarantee that we get something positive out of it? NO That our character gets better or we improve in some way? Why or why not? What do you think?
My wife accuses me of not embracing change, being in a rut. Ordering the same food at the same restaurants, being a total creature of habit. Guilty as charged. Can that not happen to us, in a bigger sense. We are just treading water in life and/or our faith. Then something happens, maybe it’s a trial we go through. What can a trial or suffering or pain do to us? Positive or negatively? Can it wake us up and changes our priorities and draws us closer to God? Can it depress us and push us from God? It can. But if we remember our Worldview, who we belong to, it can help us get through it. God can and will help us get through it. He promises to never leave us.
So, can this all knowing all love God really relate to the evil, suffering and injustice in this world that we all experience? When an atheist says that God causes or allows all of this evil in the world what does he think about God? Does he think God can relate to our suffering? NO. Why not? But what do we know about God in that sense? How can he relate or what has he done to show that he can? HE BECAME A PART OF SUFFERING ON THIS EARTH. The cross. Now why would he do that? He didn’t have to.
Why even deal with these sinful unappreciative humans? Love. Back to Love. A way for us to remove our sin, a way for us to know that God himself suffered more than we will ever suffer.
There is much unique about our faith, but There is no other worldview or faith that can say that their God can relate or became part of suffering for our benefit. And he didn’t stop there. He suffered to the point of death and then overcame death just as we will. And to top that off he will also provide the ultimate perfect justice in the end that will finally set all things right. The Atheist can complain about suffering and the injustices of this world. But what is his solution? He has none. His worldview has no hope for salvation or justice in the end.
Evil and suffering is used by some to reject faith in Jesus as God. But if they make this point they are actually acknowledging a moral law that people should follow which is part of a Christian Worldview. As we talked about, a God that allows loves has to allow hate, and evil which results in suffering. So the two are not mutually exclusive, in fact I would argue that evil and suffering actually support the idea of a loving God. God loves us enough to give us free will to do right or wrong. Love or hate. Accept Him or reject Him. Spend eternity with him or without him.
I don’t know who said this but it is sums up what we discussed today:
“Where there is freedom, the possibility of love, where there is love, the possibility of pain, where there is pain, the possibility of a savior, where a savior, the possibility of redemption, where redemption the possibility of restoration.”