A conversation about Faith and Doubt between a believer and a skeptic

“The Problem of Suffering” 

(Note: this conversation dates back a few years as references to historical events indicate)

 You said last time that we need to search for the right questions to ask. What did you mean by that? 

 I think that I myself have often been asking questions for which we cannot find good answers. For example, the question of why God allows so much evil and suffering in the world. You said that it was especially your concern for human suffering that contributed to your loss of faith. As it has for masses of others, of course. It’s probably the single most difficult problem that calls into question for nearly all of us the concept of a God who is both omnipotent and loving. Philosophers and theologians and thinkers of all kinds have struggled with this problem and written many volumes. For myself, all this evil and suffering has haunted me ever since I woke up to the invasion of Holland in WWII. But I’m coming to accept what Job discovered: so much of God’s being is shrouded in mystery, beyond our grasp. Maybe we should stick to what we can know and understand. 

That sounds like a possible copout to me. Whenever you can’t come up with a good answer to a really important but tough question, you resort to hidden mysteries. But so, what questions to you are the “right” ones then? 

 Maybe we should begin with the question why there is so much evil and suffering. 

 And? 

 The answer is because of us. We, the human community, are responsible for all the man/woman-made suffering. We have choices, and we keep making the wrong ones. There is nature-made suffering as well: disasters, epidemics, incurable disease, animal attacks. Even here there may often be a dimension of human responsibility involved. There is also the suffering caused by acts of mental derangement. And then there is of course accident-caused suffering. All of it shows we are part of what you’ve often heard described as a “fallen world,” a creation that, as St. Paul describes it, is groaning for liberation from its bondage to decay and suffering. 

 But you believe that God made us and nature too, and that he made it good. Apparently not good enough? 

 He made us not as robots or puppets but as moral agents of decision-making. God must’ve decided that puppets with no freedom to choose between good or evil could not glorify Him in the way He intended. He made us good but with the freedom to choose evil. 

 But if, according to the story, God created Adam and Eve good, how could they choose evil? 

 Because evil had already entered the universe. Exactly how and why we don’t know much about. The Bible tells us evil was present and in combat with God. John Milton in “Paradise Lost” gives us a vivid poetical account of this warfare. The conflict between good and evil has always been part and parcel of our human existence. And evil is something like a rotten apple or an epidemic: it spreads and has a way of contaminating all it comes into contact with. 

 How can God stand it? 

 Well, the Bible tells us He couldn’t, and so he destroyed pretty much the whole mess and started over, but promised he wouldn’t destroy again. 

 Does He care about suffering? 

 Yes, a lot. The Bible speaks again and again of a God who grieves, whose “sorrow is beyond healing,” as Jeremiah has it, whose essence is love, and who hurts when the object of his love hurts or turns away from him. The gospels certainly leave no doubt about the love and compassion of God revealed in Christ. 

 Well, if there’s a God who loves the world enough to have his Son killed in order to save it, why didn’t he do something to save those five or six million lives in the concentration camps? Or why doesn’t he do something now to stop the genocide in Darfur that’s been going on and on? Couldn’t he prevent these awful things? 

 I’m sure he could. Just like he could’ve sent his angels to rescue Jesus from crucifixion. But that’s not the set-up. God is not Spiderman. If there are cancer cells in your body, God’s not going to reach in to reverse all the natural laws of biochemistry, etc., and snatch those cells away. He’s not going to snatch you away if you should step in front of a moving truck. He’s not going to immobilize the killers that descend on a village in Sudan. He could, and sometimes he does intervene. But he’s established natural laws, and he’s given human beings the responsibility to make moral choices. There’s a relationship between cause and effect. That’s the set-up. 

 And so human suffering goes on and on? 

 Yes, until people change. That’s why Christ came. And until a new heaven and earth are born. But the question you ask often haunts nearly all of us, people of faith included. It’s a question about how to reconcile those two, as you framed it: the love of God and the proliferation of evil. I won’t pretend that we’ll resolve the limitation of our understanding. What we can do is to try to see how for believers evil poses a big question but does not necessarily threaten their faith; in fact, pain may often intensify it. But let’s look at that more next time. ...to be continued

A Teacher Forever

This article was originally published in Christian Educators Journal in '87 and reflects my 1985 experience in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. China was not then what it has become today. So much has changed,and some of my former students have died. I had the chance many years later to visit one of my older students, who had become a special friend,in his home city. Some came to the U.S.to pursue advanced education and made this country their home. One calls me Dad and became a high school teacher here.China will always have a special place in my memory. ................................................................................... My eye happened to fall on one of my Chinese students, relaxing in her seat during the ten-minute break between afternoon lectures. She was a beauty with that creamy, almond-colored complexion and big shiny eyes. It was a steamy summer afternoon in Chengdu, China, and my student in the Sichuan College of Education classroom stood up, lifted her dress, and sat down on her panties, This wholly unselfconscious gesture had startled me when I first saw it for it seemed so out of keeping with the well-known Chinese modesty. But I had grown used to it, though I never understood how sitting on a sticky seat became more comfortable that way. What I saw next, I never grew used to: this charmingly dressed and beautiful young woman cleared her throat, bent over, and expectorated on the classroom floor, rubbed her feet over the spittle and casually resumed conversation with her nearest neighbor. There were thirty of us American teachers on this Chinese campus, and all of us encountered many such paradoxes. For example, to Chinese students the teacher is a formidable authority figure, yet many of our students, who themselves were teachers of high school English, would blithely ignore our instructions and commands; though they prize integrity as a viirtue, yet no honor system worked in any test-taking situation; though they surely meant to pay me their highest compliment when they said I was strict and hard, yet they seemed to appreciate especially those times when the demands were low and the laughter flowed freely; though they could be quite status conscious and discriminatory among themselves, yet from us they demanded equal attention. Yes, what I remember about my Chinese students is not so much such inconsistencies, nor their tendency toward pretest panic and last-minute cramming that would both amuse and annoy us, nor their apparent imperviousness to specific explanations and instructions that often surprised and frustrated us; rather, what I remember most is that which in time engendered in me a lasting admiration, respect, and love for so many of them. I came to admire many of my students for their earnestness. They would break off their afternoon sushi early to get the front seats in the lecture room for what they expected would be maximal learning. They would copy everything I would write on the board, especially the famous quotes of the day and the words of the songs we would teach them. And they would study diligently under such noisy and crowded conditions that effective study seemed all but impossible. My students knew hardship and suffering. The Culteral Revolution had ended less than a decade ago. The older students talked of its excesses and cruelty, of the painful personal toll it had exacted from them and families. For most it had meant an end to their education, to their ambitions and dreams. After the revolution they had been assigned to teach, often far from family and friends. And there they were stuck, at twenty-five dollars a month or less, in a profession for which they had not been well-trained, which was not yet particularly highly regarded by their country, and from which they often failed to derive mush personal satisfaction. Yet they were dedicated! They wanted to become better teachers of English and of students. And they still knew how to enjoy life. As often as time would allow, they would take an evening stroll with each other or with us, or they would gather to play games, to sing, to dance, to laugh. Highly musical, they would be apt to launch into a song, or dance even during class breaks. And they reveled as children when we taught them such American grade school games as Blind Man's Bluff, Drop the Handkerchief, and Spin the Bottle. I came to respect them for their fortitude, their strength of character, and their love of life, despite its burdens. But before we left in the last part of August, I came to love many of my students as well. As Christian teachers we were committed to model the kindness and love of Christ among ourselves and to our students. Apparently few of them had ever been thus treated by their teachers. They were deeply touched and grateful. Their responsiveness over- whelmed us. They said they wanted to be such teachers, too. And they let us into their lives, into their hearts, and shared wuth us their burdens and their hopes. Out of their scarcity, they generously treated us to outings, parties, and beautiful presents. On our departure day many delayed their own trip home to stay with us as long as possible: they cried, and they told us that we would be their teachers forever. I pray that they're right. We wrote to many of them. And because they now have a special place in our hearts, we surely hoped to return and see them again some day. I often think now of that inspiring Chinese saying: "Teacher for a day, a father (mother) forever." Is there a more important challenge?