Why Suffering?
People often ask the question of why bad things happen if God is who we claim he is. If he’s all knowing, he knows the consequences of everything he does. If he’s all powerful, there’s no limit to what he could do. If he’s loving, shouldn’t that mean there should, at the very least, be no natural disasters?
The common answer to this question is free will. The argument is that we suffer because we choose to, and God’s only involvement is to give us that choice. This is to claim that God could not have created an environment where men choose freely and they also always choose good, or at least that he messed up and did not do so.
Eternal life starts to look a little bleak when you think of people living forever but not always choosing good. Alternatively, we may be given free will now only to have it taken from us for eternity. However, I would like to present an alterative explanation.
As beings who live in time, we learn by experience. God, being eternal, simply knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). However, the rest of us must be taught. When sin entered the world through Adam’s family, they lost much. At the same time, they gained the knowledge of good and evil.
Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.
Genesis 3:22-23
We think of Eve as a fool for being tricked by the serpent. However, why would she have any reason to doubt? Her life experience was only good continually, so good was just “what is”. When they disobeyed God, they were first introduced to the contrast we take for granted.
To What End?
That still doesn’t explain everything. So we learned about good and evil. We know that God is good and we’ve experienced the effects of sin. Why was it important that we learn these things? The cost is massive. What is the benefit?
It is to prepare us for eternity. It creates a longing in us for good. We will live forever with the knowledge of evil and the appreciation for Christ having vanquished it once and for all! Even creation itself longs for God’s children.
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
Romans 8:19-22
More Than Rocks Cry Out
But not only does the rest of creation cry out for the making right of all things. We also have a longing for this, don’t we?
And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
Romans 8:23
We suffer a lifetime of extremely tragic events in this world. We lose loved ones, suffer at the hands of cruel men, are beaten by the elements of a fallen world, etc… Yet from an eternal perspective, even all the terrible things we face in this life are worth it for the fruit it bears in eternal life.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
Romans 8:18
Eternal Free Will?
Earlier, I mentioned that, if man could not be given free will without that necessarily leading to sin, eternity looks pretty rough. However, it’s not that I believe God forces us to make choices the way we do. He causes nobody to sin. That is on us.
Instead, God’s purpose was not to create a world free from sin from the start, but to create a world that would teach his children about evil so that his new creation will be freed from sin for eternity. It is to our shame that we tend to think of this life as “all there is”. We know there is so much more than this life. God tells us. Yet we tend to get bogged down so easily by the present suffering!
I say we, because I’m more guilty of this than many Christians around the world. A day of frustrated efforts at work, and I’m already struggling to look past it! Instead of looking at this life as an incubator preparing me for an eternity of perfect life with the creator of the universe, I look at it as a seemingly insurmountable burden.
We will make all our own choices on an Earth made perfect and we will choose good each and every time, because the God who knows all things and can do all things made all things work together for our good!
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28
That includes, perhaps especially, the hard things.
