Monday, April 4, 2016

Why does God allow sickness and suffering in the world?








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When God finished his creation, he said it was good. God is not one to use hyperbole. I heard a comedian say one time. “God created the entire universe and said it was good. We build a Ford Pinto and call it fantastic.“  Good means absolutely without fault. Many times the skeptic uses this question to cast doubt on the existence of God. It usually goes something like this.

  If God is a loving God, why would he permit sickness and suffering? The questioner is not really looking for an answer, and when the answer is provided, the skeptic goes on to another question. The problem with the question is that it makes several erroneous assumptions and ignores certain facts. It assumes that because God is loving , He is not also, committed to justice, obligated to exact judgment, incapable of anything but truth, able to become angry, intolerant of sin, and have an ultimate goal for his creation. Ultimately the skeptic always has a problem with the issue of freewill. You cannot create a freewill moral agent and then interfere with his freewill decisions. This would violate the basic attributes of God Himself. God cannot violate His own word. It is impossible. If I give you the choice between doing x and y and I tell you that if you choose y, you will be punished, and then you choose y, I must punish you. If I don’t punish you, I am a liar. One who lives in a world of lies is incapable of understanding a world of complete and perfect truth.
The question also assumes that God created the world like it is today. This is not the case. As mentioned earlier it was made good but became defective as a result of our poor choice. The fall of man, also resulted in the fall of all creation.
“For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are.20 Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope,21 the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom from death and decay.22 For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” Romans 8:19-22 (NLT)
At the time of the fall, the entire creation became subject to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, the law of entropy, which says all order is becoming disorder, all things are deteriorating and decaying. The universe is running down. This includes the animals, the weather, the geology, as well as our bodies. Death came into the world, Adam was designed to live forever, but after the fall he began to age and ultimately at age 930 he died. This was not God’s plan, but God always has an infinite number of backup plans. This is what the bible calls the “manifold wisdom” of God. God is never surprised or unprepared. He “has our backs”.
The question also assumes that all sickness and suffering is bad. Is all sickness and suffering bad? Paul had a thorn in the side, some kind of unidentified malady. He prayed 3 times for God to remove the thorn, heal him, to which God responded, no. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 2 Cor 12:8-9 (NIV) . God uses sickness and suffering to get our attention away from the distractions which lead us away from Him. We are so easily led away from God’s plan for our lives. 

 I remember hearing about how sometimes within a flock of sheep there might be one sheep who would continually wander away from the flock and would be in constant danger from predators. In extreme cases, the shepherd would have to break its leg, immobilizing it for its own protection. The shepherd would then carry the sheep on his shoulders from pasture to pasture. He will do whatever it takes. When the nation of Israel would wander off into idolatry and sin, after repeated warnings by the prophets, God would use other pagan nations to punish His own people, often with great suffering. Once they cried out for help He would send a rescuer. This went on throughout the history of Israel and it is a picture of us as individuals as well.
So why does God allow sickness and suffering? I don’t have all the answers to this question but I do know:
“I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Romans 8:38-39 (NLT)
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