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How suffering points to God’s love for his people
by Alan Billings
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Arguing against those who say that the world’s pain demonstrates that God does not exist I heard part of a conversation between John Humphrys and the Archbishop of Canterbury on the radio recently. John Humphrys spoke about how his childhood faith was eroded by “the presence of so much suffering” in the world. He believed his response was widely shared. ‘If anything makes me believe in God, suffering does’ I realised that my own experience was quite different. If anything makes me believe in God, suffering does. Or rather, the existence of God seems to me the most rational explanation for my reaction to suffering. But if the common response is not this, we need to consider how we help people think afresh about their reaction to suffering — not least at Christmastime, when many recollect with deep sadness the loved ones they have lost, often after painful illness. What does our reaction to suffering mean? What struck me about the broadcaster’s account was the passion. Human suffering makes him angry. If God is compassionate, how is that compatible with suffering in the world? Why doesn’t God intervene in the present as he intervened (according to the scriptures) in the past? Let me first turn the questions back on the questioner, especially one who asks with such feeling. If there is no God; if the world and human life is simply a chance affair; if the universe is indifferent to our sufferings and moral strivings — then what account are we to give of our reaction to suffering? To feel anger, to cry “unfair”, is irrational. The fact that some people suffer horribly is simply a matter of bad luck; it makes no more sense to feel outraged by it than it would if we were caught in a thunderstorm. We don’t cry “Why?” We just think “What rotten luck!” Yet, in the face of great suffering, we don’t just say: “What bad luck” — we are made angry. John Humphrys was passionate about children suffering. And his anger was directed towards: the non-existent God. But that irrational reaction is perfectly rational, if the non-existent God in fact exists, and has brought into being creatures that recognise that suffering frustrates what God wants for us. It also accounts for a second aspect to our feelings: bewilderment. If God exists, it makes sense to wonder “Why?” as well. Yet God does not intervene — at least not as the broadcaster wanted. We need to acknowledge that, and not be afraid of using words such as “luck” when speaking about what happens to us, rather than implying that everything is the result of divine manipulation. This is because the world is a creation, and not some emanation or extension of God. In bringing the world into being, God gave it a certain autonomy and freedom. As the universe evolves, there is room for chance and randomness. Those who think that God organises their parking space have not understood the doctrine of creation. The question that needs an answer is not “Why doesn’t God intervene?” but “Knowing that terrible suffering might result, why did God create the world at all?” To understand that, we need to search our own experience — where the most helpful analogies lie. I saw a father teaching his son to ride a bicycle. The father did what parents do. He held the saddle, and ran slightly behind, while the lad pedalled vigorously. Eventually, the boy took off on his own, though he was unaware of being unsupported. Then he struck something, and went over the handlebars, grazing his knee. He looked up, and, in a second, I saw forming a succession of questions he wanted to put to his father. First: “What did you do that for?” — until he realised his father was not holding the saddle. The question became: “Why did you let that happen?” Then his expression changed again. His tumble was the result of his making his own way on the bicycle, and his grazed knee was the price he paid. He could not become a cyclist and have his father intervening whenever anything might go wrong. But — one can hear John Humphrys spluttering — it is monstrous to compare a grazed knee with some of the dreadful things that people endure. What kind of a God is it that allows such suffering, when earthly fathers would do everything necessary to save their child from it? Yes, but let us turn the matter back again on the questioner. Is there no analogy in our ordinary experience? Surely there is an analogy in John Humphrys’s own life, because in recent years he became a father again. The accusation is that God has brought us into a world in which great suffering is a possibility — and no earthly father would do such a dreadful thing. Really? Do parents not know the possibilities for suffering which bringing a child into the world entails? Of course they do. But bringing children into a world where they might suffer does not indicate lack of love on the parents’ part, though it does suggest a calculated risk. When someone tells me with great feeling that human suffering shows that a loving God cannot exist, I note the passion. This is not the indifference of those who have no feel for God, but the eloquence of an atheism that also bears witness to a God of compassion — who, like a parent, knows the risks of creation. Canon Dr Alan Billings is Director of the Centre for Ethics and Religion at Lancaster University, and Vicar of St George, Kendal, and Priest-in-Charge of St John’s, Grayrigg. |
