God is good and merciful in that He forgives human sins and offers salvation to those who believe in Him. The benevolence of God does not mean there is no suffering the world.

Why did God create a world with so much unnecessary suffering though? I mean salvation is awesome but why do we need the suffering in the first place?

You can’t have good without evil.

Is that why so many people have to die? That is such a cop out.

It’s not a cop out, Luke. A world where there is only good and no evil is logically impossible. Can you have hot weather without cold weather?

Patrick is right. To know what good is, you need to know evil.

Well, we can have some suffering but sometimes you really get the sense that there’s too much of it. Besides, how can people learn to know what good is if they die in an earthquake?

We can’t always understand what motivates God to do certain things that seem incomprehensible to us. Mysterious are the ways of God. What we call “non human induced suffering” can really be divine punishment or can serve some higher purpose.

On what basis do you say that all these people who died in the Boxing Day Tsunami or China earthwake deserved to die? What’s your evidence? what higher purpose can it serve?

My point is that we DON’T KNOW why God did this or that because we’re not God. I DONT KNOW what higher purpose it can serve but maybe GOD does.

That’s just an assertion though. It’s not a verifiable proposition.

Many things are unverifiable in the metaphysical realm… It doesn’t automatically mean a statement isn’t true. It’s a possible explanation.

I am a christian. i think god was killing the Jews.

I believe that before sunrise there is always darkness, is it not possible that god used the holocaust (like many other atrocities) to renew faith in humanity and god?
If the holocaust had not occurred, is it not possible that European jewry would eventually have been integrated and assimilated into purely Europeans and they would have lost their jewish heritage and beliefs, after the holocaust a new faith in judiasm, god and ISRAEL was found.

At what cost??

Could it not also have contributed to millions of people rejecting God - reasoning that he would never allow such an atrocity to occur? Indeed, could it not also have contributed to the setback of an entire race (killing 6 million is a fairly serious proportion to remove!)?

What makes you think that the day is dawning - what the heck are the positives flowing out of the holocaust!? Before, they existed, peacefully assimilated in European society. I struggle to see the positive fruit of the holocaust that you claim exists.

i am a chirstian and i dont have all the answers, it puzzles me and confuses me sometimes. some might think it’s a cop out but in the end i come back to faith in the god that i know, and to me in all honesty it doesn’t feel like a cop out.

I think an interesting take on this topic can be found through the book of job. Thought as the first book written in the Bible (and hence a Jewish book as well as a Christian book), Job was noted as a ‘righteous man’ by God and completely handed over to Satan for Satan to submit him to incredible suffering. While there is many other points and ideas coming from the book of Job, the suffering comes from Satan, God allows it yes but it does not originate from him.

Looking at this argument, the pope at the time didn’t oppose German aggression in any strong way.

Anyway with reference to Justin’s post, according to you God is an accessory to suffering, by allowing it he is in turn committing a crime, you only have to look at dictators and high officials that are being tried at the Hague, to see that under our own laws, under our own morality such actions are criminal, and those who practice religion are condoning such actions and there is a sense of irony with these groups trying to preach morality.

Natural disasters are and can be explained by science, they can be predicted, and if action was taken earlier for the Tsunami hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved.

With reference to the Holocaust, a desperate nation was willing to give power to a mad man, for at least some to avoid the desperate situations that had arisen in the 1920 - 1930’s in Germany — issues of hyperinflation and in the great depression. God did not play a part, but was the result of various natural forces.

Vish, I would be interested in hearing more about your ‘Hague’ point, maybe it is my naivety of issues but I am unsure of what you are trying to say.

It is admittedly incredible difficult to reconcile a ‘greater purpose’ with something as terrible as the holocaust.
I might suggest that some of the difficulty is inherent in our conception of the phrase ‘greater good.’
Humanity has a spectacularly over-inflated view of our own importance. For most people a natural definition of the phrase ‘greater good’ would be: To further the fulfillment of mankind.
The bible does not give mankind the universe enveloping purpose that we ourselves subconsciously claim. I feel that the bible suggests that the purpose of the universe is 100% to glorify God. All of creation exists to present testimony on the power and personality of its creator.
Human kind has a certain importance in the universe (as God’s beloved creation.) But that importance should not be exaggerated to the point where God glory is second place to our happiness. It is not too difficult with some biblical understanding to see how suffering glorifies our perfect God. As a note, God’s greatest act of glory was the greatest act of suffering of all time, Jesus’s death and punishment on the cross.
A second point is that as God’s creator he has sole claim over our lives. We cannot claim injustice against the entity to which we owe everything.
A third point is that because of our treatment of God (sin) we have are in great debt to our God (a just God who should reward sin with punishment.)

In my mind when I put those three points together I find no great theological problem with suffering. Just a whole lot of comfort that Jesus has been through it too.

You’re difficult. I’m way to dumb to be spending time in forums around people like you.
Looking at the old testament(Job is the classic example of course,) it becomes clear that God can be glorified in a variety of ways. Some ways I personally can think in relation to suffering:
1) God is glorified when people are steadfast and faithfull despite hardship, “if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God.” - 1 Peter 4:15?
2) God is glorified when people come to a realisation that they are sinful. Suffering makes people realise they need forgiveness
3) The imperfection of the world broadcasts his perfection
4) Suffering shows that man needs God even for our own self governance

Theres a few. Suffering shows how much God is required.
Addressing your point about benevolence; God’s benevolence is part and parcel of him glorifying himself. You can’t seperate the self-glorifying nature of God from his mercifull, loving characteristics.
i) God glorifies himself through grace as well as justice
ii) God glorifying himself is the greatest act of grace to us that he could ever give

Just some thoughts. I cant believe we are tackling such a monumentally complicated area of debate in a chat room. Great book, Don Carson, “How Long O Lord.” 600 pages works better than 20 sentences.

what kind of god gets glory from mass murder? the god you describe isnt a merciful god but a bully

To deny that God has a hand in suffering is to say that there exists things in creation that are outside of His divine will, which in turn says that He is not all-powerful and implies that She is not worthy of the title at all.

Suffering exists, HORRIBLE suffering, and worse exists than that which Christ is said to have suffered upon the Cross. We say the blessing is in the struggle.. for some people live through struggle their whole lives and die painfully at the end.

This suffering does not always lead to an increase in faith. I have seen a son cursing God over his mother’s body… and he has still found no solace in God as yet. In the same way, my own life before religion was filled with death and hardship… but I ‘found God’ several years after it had all past, when I was in a time of comfort.

50 Cent, that shocking excuse for a rapper, said ‘Momma said everything that happened to us was part of God’s plan, so at night when I talk to Him I’ve got my gun in my hand’… similarly, a slightly better rapper, Tupac Shakur, said in ‘Blasphemy’; ‘Mama tell me am I wrong, is God just another Cop, waiting to beat my ass if I don’t go pop?’.

What we see in the above is a failure to see that there is more than what is seen and a failure to realise how small we truly are in the scheme of things. Do we lament the hardship of a cow on a farm in drought? Or a horse dying in pain and confusion in battle? We are an egocentric race, and thus our focus is the immediate. The suffering of humanity is huge, but all is within the scope of creation, even Satan acknowledges in the centre of his being that he is God’s slave.

My belief is that God is not cruel, we are not mere playthings of the Gods (see Greek mythology) nor inhabitants of a bleak, cruel and uncaring universe (see Atheism). All suffering is repaid in kind, be it in this world or the next. Thus there is more hope for me in God than believing it is all for nothing, for that is truly a bleak proposition!

Allahu Alim, God knows and I know not.

Laughing.

and not contributing

Over and Over again people have posted stating the glory of god and the mercy of god through suffering etc etc etc. I have read Job and i understand the point it makes (see post by Stephen d above for details of job, i will not reiterate them). But as many times and in as many places as i have looked i still can not see mercy or glory in mass murder. You may live your whole life not being religious, but still following your own morals, caring about others etc etc etc but according to most religions you will be judged and found wanting. So therefore any Jew who was in the holocaust who was found wanting when they reached the gates was sent to eternal hell.

Can anyone honestly say that somebody who was broken on earth by a death camp, someone who may have had to watch their whole family die before their eyes, or people who had there insides pulled apart for scientists games should then be sent to eternal damnation for not having faith that god would save them from hell on earth.

I can see no mercy or glory in that.

I’m interested in this topic.

I agree with Kate, what happened was unbelievably inhumane. I can’t possibly comprehend why God might put humans through such suffering. The only comparison i can think of was when my dad was rushed to hospal when he had trouble breathing. What would i do if i saw my family being slaughtered before my very eyes?
However, I do not think we can rest our case there. I have a question to raise. When in human history have nations and kings not committed mass murder in waging war against one another? Should we shake our fists at God? Or should we take a look at ourselves, and examine our mortality and falleness? (not rhetorical questions)

We can call God a murderer, however, if he truly is the potter, (although i often do not like it, i want to be in control of my own life), does he not have the right to dash his pottery to pieces? I think we too often want to accuse God of murder but ignore what he gave us - life.

I too often want to shake my fist at God, however, i believe we need to look carefully at who we accuse: here is the god that carries out mass murder - it is man - who glorifies himself. Who ordered the execution of those Jews? was it not Hitler?

Stephen D, I agree with you that God uses suffering to bring us back to himself, I myself have personally exeprienced this for a period of time in my life. However I have some quetions to raise for discussion. Surely, large scale disasters such as these cannot be reflected upon without considering the judgement - not only the mercy - of God? Surely we cannot answer for God (in this case) by appealing to one’s individual experience of suffering and subsequent reconciliation with God? No, God judges nations as well as individuals. But are we any better? Are we to shake our fist at God?

These are the words we do not want to hear.
Jesus speaking:

“Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” Luke 13:4-5

Perhaps we can conclude this, when such catastrophic events take place, this is in fact God’s mercy in warning us of the judgement. It works does it not? Here we are talking about existence, God and the reality of our world because our hearts are torn concerning the Holocaust- and I believe they should be.

So in displaying the reality of His judgement, and the reality of our mortality, God extends his mercy - his warning to us - before our life comes to an end, when we will face him?
Surely this is God’s megaphone to us.

Then the question may be - why these people? why this tremendous suffering? Do not get me wrong, i often cry to God, ask God the question ‘why?’ as well. But who can escape mortality? it is only a question of time.

Let us then, in the midst of this world of suffering, flee to the mercy of God through His Son Jesus Christ. Which, in turn, amongst many other blessings, may work itself out through us, in order that we may deliver many from suffering through acts of charity and love.

I believe it is a good thing we discuss these things, i believe God gave us our sense of right and wrong in order that we might know that there is, at present, something wrong with our world.

Theres alot of hipocrisy involved in this. If someone does something good for the world, everyone says “How amazing is that person!” but if something goes wrong then people say “How could GOD let this happen??”. When things go right, we do it. When things go wrong, God hates us.

I have to dissagree with wills comment, when he says that to deny that God has a hand in suffering is to say that there exists things in creation that are outside of His divine will, which in turn says that He is not all-powerful and implies that he is not worthy of the title at all. Does that mean that god has a hand in people lying to one another? does that mean that god has a hand in rape?

One of the ways that God shows his love for us is free will. He allows us to sin, because he wants us to be free to make the choice, and not robots. Therefore, God was definately there during the holocaust, watching in sadness while alot of people suffered at the hands of some making the wrong choice. Why didnt he stop them? Because then he would have to stop us everytime we sinned and he loves us enough to give us free will.

‘Does that mean that God has a hand in people lying to one another? Does that mean that God has a hand in rape?’

Well, either way you look at it, my way, or your way, He does. Do you believe that rape or sin is a successful rebellion against God’s will? Do you believe one can rebel against the will of something all-powerful?

If not, it is as if you imply that God turns a blind eye to such suffering, suffering that He is more than capable of stopping!

We worship God because He is creator of all and thus more worthy of worship than anything He created. If we go around saying that when we sin it is something beyond Him, something against His will, we become akin to those who argued for the ‘God of the gaps’ idea.. the more we sin, the less power God has over His creation.

You yourself point out this hypocrisy in your first statement, saying that we congratulate ourself for the good, and blame God for the bad… when what we must accept is that God oversees both, one as a gift, and one as an aspect of His forgiveness.

I guess if you believe that Adam and Eve (as) sinned AGAINST God’s will, then internally what you believe is valid, but then when you apply reason to that and ask how an all seeing, all powerful God could somehow NOT have seen or allowed the ‘fall’ then things become less clear.

during the holocaust, God was in the same place that he was during the Great Flood (noah and his pets survived that)

Suffering is an education. We have learnt huge amounts from the holocaust. If he were to intervene with people’s egos that executed the holocaust, there would be no acknowledgement that the ignorance and pride that the executors demonstrated are not beneficial.

through suffering, we are guided to the beauty of his path.

if it is not logically possible to have good without evil, how is heaven possible?

um. hell.

The Asian Tsunami can be classified as neither evil nor good (it was an occurence of nature), but it was harmful and caused huge grief and distress.

Therefore I assume god, that c*nt, is apathetic towards us individual human beings. He worries only about the big picture.

Positive and negative events occur randomly, irrespective of human behaivour. Consider those honour killings in Saudi Arabia/Pakistan where women are stoned because they are victims of sexual assault (wtf)! How did the rape victims’ suffering guide us to “the beauty of God’s path???” In nature, there is no ultimate system of justice.

To conclude, God does not discriminate between good and evil, especially in the specific contexts of natural disasters.

That is why we should not bother thinking so much of Him. It is clear He does not want any special, cuddly kind of relationship with us.

(I mean you could pray to him today, and he’ll run a car over you tomorrow.)

Natural disasters is His way of telling us that we, as individuals, do not mean so much to Him.

Haha. Great use of the word c*nt. I think it is important to hold the possibility that God is above good and evil. Replace the word God (horrible name for it) with Mother Nature, or the Tao (the divine flow of the universe) and that possibility becomes much more real.
There is beauty in the futility of human existence, it just takes someone close to God to recognize it.

Vish, I would be interested in hearing more about your ‘Hague’ point, maybe it is my naivety of issues but I am unsure of what you are trying to say.

Justin either I smell a healthy dose of sarcasm, or a genuine question. I was saying that under our own laws and our notions of crime these dictators were found guilty. They weren’t served with divine punishment, rather the judicial processes of nations took care of them.

God as an entity does not need to exist our crimes are our own as well as our kindness, as I said before the forces of nature exist, we exist.

I’ve read many people say suffering is integral to God’s will, that only exists in Judeo-Christian religions.

If you take a look at the world today human suffering is avoidable, poverty, torture, and war are all preventable. Medicines advance everyday curing diseases, a society that chooses to eradicate suffering does not need god, it needs no belief other than in itself.

In the end I’m saying that God is not required for us as a society to function, it is merely a construct that gives hope.

What a wide ranging and gripping discussion. Everyone in the world wants to know why there is suffering and what is God’s relationship to suffering.
If God doesn’t exist then of course there is no answer, the discussion is closed and we are left without the hope of finding any resolution.
If God exists however, has God said anything in answer to our questions? Christians believe that God has explained the realities of the world in the books of the Bible and through Jesus his son. There are 5 clear things said:
1. when the cosmos was created together with its human inhabitants, it operated properly. Creation and humanity lived in right relationship with God. But it isn’t like that now. Why?
2. Humanity rejected God’s rule and a consequence of that, so the bible says in Genesis 3, is that God let people live as they wanted to, with all the consequences of their choice to abandon him. At the same time the creation ceased to work in harmony with man.
3. Therefore bad things happen because we have been given our choice, to live as we want to and this is often with little thought to the needs of others.
4. Much of the suffering that exists in the world comes as a result of selfish human choice. In giving humanity the self rule it wanted, we became the perpetrators of suffering and also the victims of others people’s reckless self centred choices. Certainly we see that everyday in the news eg drunken driver kills pedestrians - this is a result of a person’s self centred choice.
5. The context of our lives is also the creation that no longer works for our good. Just as we are living yet dying so is the creation still functioning, but dying.
Jesus had this explanation, when asked why some people died when a tower fell on them - was it because they were more guilty than others? And when the Roman governor Pilate in 1st Century Israel slaughtered some innocent people, the question was the same: were they more guilty than others or in other words was God punishing them? Jesus answer is a definite ‘no’ however, it is a warning for all of us that death is part of this world and it will come to all of us eventually and are we right with God, ready to meet him?
If God doesn’t exist then all of this doesn’t matter and everything is meaningless so we might as well eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. But if God does exist…has he said anything else to us? The bible says that God has been speaking to humanity about himself from the very beginning and in recent history he has spoken to us through his son, Jesus.

I used to be very worried about all of the questions about suffering that I have read on this site. I was very troubled by the meaninglessness of everything, the futility of life in the face of suffering and death. Then a person I taught with in a high school, told me about the Bible and about Jesus and suggested I read the life story of Jesus. As I read the biographies of Jesus written by John and Mark and contained in the Bible I found my mind began to find some answers to many questions…and at the same time triggered other questions.
It was very important to me to have reasoned answers to my questions. I could never have just believed. My mind needed reasonable answers. However I also needed to be able to ask lots of questions and the teacher I worked with at school was helpful in providing intellectually and spiritually satisfying answers. The Bible has good answers.

My belief may be quite abstract yet it depicts my optimistic view on religion and life as a whole.
first off - i am an observant Jew. some of my family members were murdered during the Holocaust.
however, where was G-D during the monstrosities that occured?
He was always there and always is there. he is always around us, he is everywhere and everything. However as Naz Jarret wrote ‘humanity rejected G-D’s rule’ i believe this is true but G-D does not just reject us and let us control our own lives.
I believe that the world is on a scale. one between chaos and order. if the world tips too far to the ‘chaotic’ side of the balance G-D will interfere and balance the scale to its rightful place. He is a father to us, and as a father he would never let the world get too far out of control. Nevertheless he does give us our freedom to believe and to think and to act - not without consequence unfortunately i.e the Holocaust. thus it is our own failed morality and ethics that caused the Holocaust, and G-D was rightful to not interfere. like children fighting. its better off to let them sort it out first before intefering.

Thanks Lawrence for your thoughtful reply. Like you I think that God has allowed us freedom of choice and therefore whatever consequences may flow from that. This is the sad and terrible thing about freedom. Yet it isn’t freedom without accountability. The writings of the prophets speak of a day of righteous and therefore just judgement. All will be called to account for how they have responded to God, how they have loved him and how they have loved one another. The Law and the Prophets make clear God’s will: You will love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your mind and with all your strength and, you will love your neighbour as yourself. God’s servant Jesus upheld the Law and the Prophets and called Jewish (and through his disciples) Gentile society to hold to this first and great commandment and, the way in which we demonstrate our love for God, is by loving one another - our neighbours…wherever they might live.

Get a Bible. Read it.

Sorry dave
thats just blatant arrogance and the same misleading statement that the church has been using to change meaning and purpose in history.
why dont you just say ‘go read david irving’? same difference is it not?
(i am an obervant Jew who believes in G-d)

Why restrict this issue to a question of the Holocaust? What about all the other periods throughout history where immense suffering has taken place?

Let us wind the clock back to 1348. At that time, a particularly virulent strain of the bacterium Yersinia pestis arrived in Europe, carried here aboard trading ships from the East. From its initial point of contact with Europe in Venice, it spread across the continent, transmitted by parasitic fleas accompanying brown rats, and in three years, became a pandemic that became seared upon the history of the continent. The very words used to describe it - the Black Death - testify to the resounding thunderclap of fate that befell the people of that era.

How did they respond to this? They redoubled their efforts to plead with a supernatural magic man to intervene and bring the pandemic to a halt. All over Europe, churches were filled to the brim with people who fervently believed that their magic man would somehow deliver them from the spread of this disease. Indeed, they knew of no alternative: ruthless suppression of any alternative views of the world by enforcers of conformity to doctrine had seen to that.

What was the result of this effort on the part of these people, who knew of no alternative but to continue pleading with their magic man? 25 million Europeans - a quarter of the population of the entire continent - died a lingering, horrible death. Magic man was conspicuous by his complete absence. Despite purportedly possessing the power to stop the death toll at a stroke, magic man sat on his hands and did nothing as millions died.

I find it quite frankly sickening to see the apologetics erected with respect to this entirely synthetic supernatural entity, who, we are told, purportedly possesses “infinite love” for us all, purportedly possesses the power to intervene on our behalf and answer our pleas for help, but who in this instance did nothing whilst 25 million human beings were dispatched to the grave to become mushroom compost. Please, spare me the tiresome “god moves in mysterious ways” mantra, because this is merely an evasion, an evasion erected as a debate killer, a deliberate and specious device whose sole purpose is to stifle awkward questions and avoid having to face the task of answering them. Tell me, what “perfect plan” involves the wholesale and gruesome extermination of 25 million people who were, at the time, fervent believers in this entity? It makes absolutely NO sense whatsoever for such an entity to set in motion the dreadful culling of 25 million of its own followers, thus setting in train the events that would eventually lead to increasing scepticism with respect to the very existence of this entity. Assertions with respect to the notion that this was somehow a “test of faith” are frankly repulsive, and offer no answers whatsoever to the events of the age.

On the other hand, once humans started paying attention to reality instead of worthless mythological presupposition, humans began finding out how to deal with organisms such as Yersinia pestis. They alighted upon the importance of basic hygiene, they developed effective systems of public sanitation, they set about implementing rodent control programmes, and eventually, alighted upon antibiotics that killed the bacteria without harming the humans being treated by them. Human beings got off their backsides, put in the hard intellectual labour required to solve the problem, and solved it. No assistance from magic man whatsoever.

Reality based thinking WORKS. Mythology doesn’t.

Thanks for the interesting content!!!