One day, as we were going to the place of prayer, we met a slave-girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling. While she followed Paul and us, she would cry out, "These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation." She kept doing this for many days. But Paul, very much annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, "I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her." And it came out that very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities.
When they had brought them before the magistrates, they said, "These men are disturbing our city; they are Jews and are advocating customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to adopt or observe."
The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened.
When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, since he supposed that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, "Do not harm yourself, for we are all here." The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas.
Then he brought them outside and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."
They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God.
If God is a good God, then why does God let us suffer? Why wouldn’t God take away pain, struggle, and conflict if God really loved us? Why wouldn’t God put us in situations where we can enjoy peace, love, and grace all the time? I’ve thought about these questions a lot for many years, and I still struggle with them? Who doesn’t struggle with them? It’s hard to look realistically at the world around us and not wonder why God allows wars, poverty, hunger, and the like exist.
I thought about these questions a lot this past week as I prepared this sermon, and then God touched me with providence. God gave me a gift. I’ve often noticed that God will do this with me. If I’m struggling with something or dealing with something, and I go to God in prayer, often some sort of coincidence happens to resolve the problem. Of course, I don’t call it coincidence. I call it providence. As Adrian van Kaam once said, “There are no coincidences, only providences.” What was the gift? As I was thinking about the problem of suffering, I came across an interview that dealt with the problem of suffering.
I’ve already told many of you this, so you know it already, but I’m a constant podcast downloader. Each week there are a number of programs that I download onto my ipod so that I can listen to them in the car. For example, I download Meet the Press, Face the Nation, and ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos so that I can keep up with political issues. I also download a program each week, Bob Edwards Weekend, in which Bob Edwards interviews different people about topics such as literature, art, politics, movements, and the like. One of my favorite programs is one called Fresh Air, with Terry Gross. Gross is my favorite interviewer because she thinks of questions that really challenge the people she interviews, but in a way that really allows them to dig deeper into their topics. She treats everyone with respect, and allows them, no matter what the topic or their perspective, to really state their case.
Last week she interviewed a man named Bart Ehrman, who is a distinguished professor of New Testament at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ehrman just wrote a book,
God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer, in which he deals with the issue of suffering. The interesting thing about Ehrman is that he is an agnostic. Doesn’t that sound odd, an agostic who is also a New Testament scholar? That may not be as odd as you think. I’ve often heard professors in our Presbyterian seminaries complain that it is difficult to find biblical scholars who aren’t also atheists or agnostics. Apparently there are many who are interested in the history of the Bible and in treating the Bible as a literary piece, but who can’t translate that into faith. This is especially true at state universities where the religion departments are dealt with from a secular perspective.
Ehrman is one of these agnostic scholars, and he says that it is the failure of Christianity to provide adequate answers to the question of suffering that sent him into the agnostic camp. The gift of this interview is that it gave me a great way of talking about the issue of suffering because Ehrman did a tremendous job of outlining the traditional scriptural and Christian responses to suffering. So this morning I want to share with you what Ehrman has said, then offer you his conclusions. Afterwards I will go back and share with you where I think Ehrman went wrong.
So, this morning I want to simply have a dialogue with Ehrman about why there is suffering. Ehrman starts by saying that there are four basic biblical positions on suffering. The first is the Prophetic View. People would ask, “Why is there suffering?” The prophets’ answer was be that suffering exists because of human sin and free will. God has given us the free will to make the decision as to whether we will live according to God’s ways or our own. The problem is that often we choose to live according to our own ways as we turn our backs to God. The prophets would say that the suffering we experience is due to God’s punishing us for our sinfulness. God gives us free will, but then we suffer the consequences of our actions. You are fairly familiar with this view. Many Christians promote it, saying that if you are not experiencing God’s good graces all the time, then it must be because you are sinning in some way—for God always rewards the faithful and punishes the sinful. Or, as the Bible would say it, the righteous are rewarded and the wicked are punished.
So what’s Ehrman’s problem with this view, the problem that pushes him to agnosticism? The problem is that if you look around the world you notice all sorts of wicked people reaping the rewards of their lifestyles, while many faithful people suffer. For instance, you see dictators like Saddam Hussein or Idi Amin running corrupt governments and skimming billions of dollars for themselves, and then not being punished,… uh,… Oh yeah, I guess they aren’t good examples, are they? Still, Ehrman makes a good point. There are lots of people like drug dealers and dictators who do evil things but never suffer harm. Ehrman makes a point of logic. If all the wicked aren’t punished, and all the faithful aren’t rewarded, then it must point to the reality that God simply doesn’t exist.
Ehrman then moves onto his second biblical reason for suffering. He calls this the redemption view: The redemption view is that suffering exists as part of nature and life, but that in the end suffering is redemptive. In other words, God takes what is bad and evil, and transforms it into something good. This is the message of the cross. Jesus suffered on the cross, but his suffering was redeemed in the resurrection. God took what was bad and turned it into something wonderful.
The problem for Ehrman? There are many situations in which suffering isn’t redeemed. As he asks, “What about the young girl who is killed in a car accident on the way to the prom?” What’s redemptive about that? What about starvation and hunger around the world? Every six seconds someone dies of starvation. What is redemptive about that? From Ehrman’s perspective, if suffering isn’t 100% redemptive, it must be because God doesn’t exist.
Ehrman then offers a third reason for suffering according to the Bible. This is the Job view. In the Job view, suffering is the result of God testing us and strengthening our faith through suffering. In other words, we go through bad times, but it is all meant to help us grow stronger in our faith. And you see things like this all the time. People go through difficult times—the death of someone close, a serious illness—and through the experience they find their faith growing exponentially.
The problem for Ehrman? If God uses suffering as a way of testing us or strengthening our faith, then this makes God cruel. No good God would use suffering as a strengthening tool. Therefore this answer doesn’t make logical sense and must be rejected. Instead we must accept that God doesn’t exist.
Finally, Ehrman says that there is the apocalyptic view. This is the view that probably is the least compelling for me. This is a view based on apocalyptic writings such as those found in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel, or Revelation. This view believes that suffering is due to spiritual warfare. In other words, God and Satan are in a battle with each other, and humans are the battlefield. Bad things happen because of Satan spreading evil in the world. In this view, our role is simply to withstand the suffering with the knowledge that God will bring the messiah soon and relieve all suffering. It is based on the idea that we are in the last days, and soon our suffering will be over when the messiah comes on a cloud of glory to restore peace and God’s will.
Ehrman’s problem with this. Every generation thinks it is the last days, and that their suffering is proof. As he points this has been the case since the apostle Paul’s time. Generations live and die, thinking that they are in the last days, yet in their lifetimes Jesus still doesn’t return. And to Ehrman the response is very clear. If Jesus isn’t returning, it must be because we aren’t in the end times, and therefore suffering can’t be according to spiritual warfare. I have to admit, out of all of his arguments, this is the one that makes the most sense to me.
So what’s the basic problem with all of Ehrman’s answers? I think that the most basic problem is that he does what too many Christians, atheists, and agnostics do. They think in a way that is too linear, too black-and-white, too much this view or that view. The create formulas of logic that may not lead to logical conclusions, even though they think that they do. For instance, a linear way of thinking might be that (a) snoring is bad, (b) my husband snores, therefore (c) my husband is bad. That’s a clear logical formula, but it isn’t necessarily right. Saying that because God doesn’t operate in a certain way 100% of the time therefore means that God doesn’t exist is too linear, too black-and-white, and bad logic.
My experience of God is that God is in the depths that go beyond logic. God is not an either/or God, but a both/and God. What does this mean? It means that often with God the answer can be that both snoring is bad, my husband snores, and my husband is good. In other words, sometimes suffering is due to the consequences of sin and free will, and suffering is due to testing and strengthening, and suffering is redemptive, and suffering is due to the eternal struggle between good and evil.
Go back to all the answers on suffering. No one answer works for every situation, but together all of these answers offer good answers, and none of them diminishes the fact that there may also be other good answers. For instance, sometimes suffering is the result of consequences to sin and free will. Whether it’s God’s punishment or not, it is the consequences. Look at the problems of addiction. Often people who suffer addiction suffer, as do those around them. It’s not until they give up the addiction that their lives get better. And often healing from the addiction comes through the twelve steps, which open people to God (or, as they say, a Higher Power). In that case, they suffer consequences as they give their lives over to addiction, and experience healing as they let go of their addiction, even if the healing come slowly through the healing of relationships.
Also, let’s go back to the issue of hunger and starvation. Why do they exist? They don’t exist because God doesn’t exist. They exist because people don’t care about the hungry and the poor. Starvation is the direct result of human sin. We produce enough food in this world to feed every individual, but do we care about feeding every individual? To put the problem starvation in God’s lap, or to say that if it exists God doesn’t, lets humans off the hook, especially since we are God’s hands and feet in the world. We are God’s hands and feet, called to do something about starvation in Africa, Asia, and even here in America. God has chosen to use us to do something about it.
What about suffering as redemptive? Does God use suffering to redeem us? Ehrman answers that himself in his own response to this question. He dismisses redemptive suffering, but in the interview Terry Gross asked him about an event in his own life. Ehrman got started as a scholar because of his own suffering. He was a baseball player in high school, and believed that he was going to be a pro baseball player. But then he got hepatitis as a senior in high school. It sidelined him for the whole year, sapping him of energy. As a result, he began to read. He was an evangelical Christian at the time, and he began to read the Bible with fervor. It fascinated him and stirred in him a desire to really dig into it and understand it. The result of all this reading is that it led him to eventually become a biblical scholar (albeit recently an agnostic one). His suffering was redemptive.
Often suffering is redemptive, and those who seek God’s way often report redemption—a sense that God has transformed difficulties into something glorious. We see this throughout history. Before World War II, Europe had been at war in one way or another for over 2000 years. WWII was so horrific and so scarring that it led people to lay down their arms and do something that no one every thought possible: to create the European Union. Look at the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King, Jr. called people to purposely allow themselve to be beaten, hurt, and imprisoned—to suffer. He called people into redemptive suffering. The result? Equality for African-Americans. And today we are bearing witness to a remarkable outcome of this redemption, which is the possibility for the first time that this country might actually elect an African-American to be our next president. Whether you will vote for Barack Obama or not is not the question. The redemption of the Civil Rights Movement is the legitimacy of his candidacy. There’s the redemption.
Finally, sometimes suffering does seems to be due to darker forces. I confronted this when I worked in a psychiatric hospital. We had youth who were dabbling in satanic worship who used to carve pentagrams in their arms with red-hot bobby pins. These kids were in the hospital for doing some pretty bad things, things that otherwise might land them in prison, and I truly believe that it was their openness to the darker forces that contributed to their problems.
Despite all of these answers, sometimes there is no answer as to why suffering exists. It is just there. In many ways this subscribes to a fifth view that Ehrman offers, which is the Ecclesiastes view. The answer to why there is suffering in Ecclesiastes is that there is a time for suffering just as there is a time for rejoicing. What matters is not that there is suffering, but that we live good lives in the face of suffering.
It seems to me that the real question for us Christians is not figuring out why suffering exists. The real question is how do we trust God through our suffering? The reality is that we can ask all day long why there is suffering, but it never diminishes the fact that God is really calling us to do, which is to trust God no matter what happens to us. For there is one thing that we can be sure of: God is always with us, no matter what.
