Why does God allow suffering?

We make a start by considering a lesser problem - that of physical pain in an individual.

After a night of toothache even the strongest will feel that pain is much overrated, and that we could happily do without it. We would cheerfully give away those sensitive nerves.

Actually, there is a group of people who do not feel pain - those who suffer from Hansen's Disease - Leprosy to most of us. Worldwide, there are about 1,400 new cases a day. In these poor people the disease attacks surface nerves in cool spots of the body, their fingers and toes can become anaesthetised - they stop feeling pain. When developed, they could hold a hot iron and not feel it while it was eating into their hands.

We see then that, generally speaking, pain, however unpleasant, is a necessary part of our life, to keep us from greater harm.

Perhaps, then, what offends us is uncontrollable or continuing pain without hope of remedy from an accident, or a chronic or fatal illness. And in this we have to humbly say that we just do not have an obvious answer. We dare not say 'Oh - that illness is God's judgement on that man's sin'.

However, sometimes we hear a medical man, specialist in one field, say that he could have designed the human body so much better. Maybe so, if that part were a completely isolated system. But in the body, any one part is just a miniscule fraction of an unfathomably complex whole, and 'improvements' in one area would probably cause significant failure in another. So perhaps, in the same way, that irremedial pain is tied in life on this earth in a way that we cannot grasp.

The last century provides an endless list of human created misery, from the Somme & Paschendaele, through Auschwitz, Treblinka, The Gulags, and Mao's 'great leap forward', via Pol Pot's Cambodia, to Ruanda, Bosnia and Darfur to name but a few. It does seem unfair to blame God for these, our very own horrors.

But we can still ask, 'Why did not God intervene, why did He not stop Hitler or Stalin or ...?'. We long and cry out for justice to be meted out to these evil doers. We even want them to suffer as they have caused others to suffer.

As we think about this, we ought to consider three questions - how should God intervene, when should God intervene and where should He stop.

How: if God is going to intervene to stop evil men, what should He do? Should He kill them instantly, blasting them with lightening, maybe wound them in some way or inflict them with some loathsome illness. Would the perpetrator of mass killing have a worse illness than he who took a single life. Or maybe God should just take over their thoughts and change their feelings of hate to love and peace.

When: if God is going to intervene at what time should He do this? Should He intervene after the first 'serious' act, when evil has been proved as it were, to stop more. Maybe He should act after 10 killings or 5 or 1. But what about child abuse, at what point should He intervene. After the act or before - as punishment or as preventative?

Perhaps God should intervene before the act, while it is only being thought of. Imagine walking along and you see someone whose head suddenly exploded - 'Ah', you think, 'they havn't killed yet, but they were planning to'. Imagine what the human rights lawyers would say!

It seems as if God is in a similar position to the police. They are denounced if an act of terror occurs, no-one believes the police when they say they have stopped many plots, and they are denounced for holding 'innocent' men if they take people into custody 'on suspicion'.

When: if God is to intervene to halt evil, at what point on the scale do we propose that He stop getting involved - genocide or murder or rape or abuse or defrauding the elderly & vulnerable or hatred or inciting others to ... Most of us would be deeply unhappy if God clearly intervened in our lives. What man, intent on having an affair that would cause deep hurt to one or more families, would appreciate his face turning purple or his nose or something else dropping off?

There are four things to say:

• First then, if God continually and clearly intervened to ward off evil in act or thought, we would become essentially resentful puppets, have lost the freedom and dignity that is ours as humans made in the image of God.
• Secondly, given this world where evil can flourish, we can see its consequences but we can also see the value of good, of courage, mercy, honesty, fairness and justice.
• Thirdly, if we are honest, we all know that this is much that is wrong within us. Maybe we have not commited the violence that others have, probably purely because of circumstance. We would not be happy if God acted overtly against us, for the thought which ultimately might lead to the act.
• Fourthly, the bible speaks of a time when God will judge everyone, with an absolute fairness and knowledge, when some will receive mercy and some will receive justice. Mercy to those who cry out for it, in the knowledge of their weakness. Justice to those who demand it in the strength of their self righteousness. Either way - no-one just gets away with it!

Why does God allow earthquake, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods and volcanoes, which so disrupt and destroy, devastating and blighting the lives of so many. These are none of them the fault of humans. To be continued...