If God Is Love, Why Is There so Much Suffering? | Table Talk S03 E03

In this conversation, we're going to tackle what is arguably the most difficult question for a lot of people, maybe for everybody, because you can't go through life, not on planet Earth, and not encounter suffering or experience it yourself. So the question, the hard question that we're going to process right now is simply, if God is love, why is there so much suffering in the world? I mean, really, is there a more personal question? People suffer, people go through things. You get the diagnosis of cancer, you have family members who in a car accident and somebody ends up paralyzed. Everybody asks the why question. But what I find fascinating is that there is a why question. The fact that we ask why at all indicates that we're not totally comfortable with things going wrong. There's a baseline assumption that things ought to be going right. So we live in a psychological dissonance, so to speak, where we have some sense that suffering ought not to be, that death ought not to be. And it's on that premise that we say, well, why does it happen at all? And then the thing gets more complex when you throw God into the picture and somebody says, well, God exists, God is good, God loves you. And then, boom, you're suffering. So if God is good, if God is love, and if God is God, if God is powerful, why doesn't he intervene to stop A, B and C, X, Y and Z from taking place?

That's the question.

Several different layers of questions.

I love the way he's framed the question.

Yeah, that's like four or five layers there. But I think fundamentally one. I think, interesting preliminary point is what you were alluding to there, that if.

God is out of the picture, we're merely the products of nature. We wouldn't be aware that there's something wrong. We wouldn't be aware that starvation is wrong or something's not right with that. It's kind of like one philosopher said that fish are not aware that they're wet.

So if I fell into a pool, I'd be immediately aware that I'm wet. Because that's not my natural environment. I'm not in the natural. Something's wrong with my environment, I'd be aware of that. So similarly, in the sense of the existence of God, it's usually articulated, because the world is so messed up, God can't exist. Is there a sense. I'm just posing the question. Is there a sense that the fact.

That we're aware.

That we're what?

Yeah, that something's wrong with this world is in itself indicative of the fact that intuitively we Know that there has to be something beyond nature. That is.

I think that's the question Ty began.

With in the supernatural.

Yeah.

I want to say two things at the outset here. The first thing I want to say is I love the fact that we're framing this question as we are, and that is that we seem incapable of being indifferent to or ambivalent about suffering. We seem incapable of not attaching some moral framework to the existence of suffering, whether personal, familial, or something we just see on the television.

We.

We immediately have the response of justice, fairness, equitability. That's the first thing I want to say, and I think we're going to have to wrestle with that. The second thing that I want to say is that this is the hardest of the hard questions in my evaluation. For the committed believer, for the person that professes faith in a good God, suffering is not a particularly difficult philosophical problem. For somebody who doesn't believe in God.

It'S just a natural process.

Yeah, it's just what it is. The moral component only comes in if we try to affirm two seemingly contradictory things. God is good, God is love, God is powerful, that is capable. And yet this is the world that we live in.

Now.

We have tension. If we take that kind of a God out of the. Or maybe you have a capricious God or an unkind God or a malevolent God, or then you have no problem with suffering. Not a philosophical problem. You'd still have the experiential problem. But sitting here at this table, we are forced with a question that is the hardest of the hard questions. And I think we need to say right up front that I think at best what we could do here is allow scripture to point us in a direction, a direction in which we can see that the truth is just over that hill. Actually, more correctly, it's on top of that hill. It's on the cross on top of that hill. But as far as the specifics of why did that child get cancer and that child didn't, and why did that newlywed couple get killed in a car accident and that one didn't? Nobody knows.

We're not going to be able to answer that.

I like to build on that because I think we need to confess our ignorance right up front.

Yes, that's what I'm trying to do.

In confessing our ignorance, we're suggesting that every human being shares this same level of ignorance regarding any given incident of suffering. And that ignorance is grounded in the fact that we live in a world that involves a complexity of intersecting events that come to bear upon any given situation. In other words, to know why that particular car accident occurred, you would have to know all the causal chain of events in each situation that led up to going back. Who knows how far back. You'd have to know why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why? Way out.

Some philosophers have called it the butterfly effect.

Yeah, Chaos theory.

Yeah.

It's the idea that everything is connected to everything else. So we have to. We have to confess that only on the level of infinite wisdom and omniscience, God alone knows precisely why that event happened. Good point. People deal with this all the time. They say, okay, so this one family got in their car and they prayed that God would keep them safe as they drove to their destination. This family got in their car across town and prayed the same prayer. One gets in a car accident, the other didn't. What gives? Something happened there. How can we.

And that introduces a whole third difficult element, which is the issue of prayer, which we should definitely address at some point in our conversation. But keep going, keep going.

Okay, so my point is that reality is sufficiently complex that the only way for us to make sense out of why any suffering takes place is to understand the principles, the macro principles, the big picture principles that would help us to say, okay, we know why, in the big sense, suffering takes place, but we don't know all the details that led up to that particular incident of suffering. So we can bring to the table principles of love and freedom, for example, and that answers the question on the big picture level. But then, well, wait a minute. Sometimes people will say, that child was innocent. Why did that child suffer that particular situation? And we just need to come to the conclusion to the realization that there are intersecting wills. There's more than one will at play in this complex world in which we live. It's not just God's will. What about your will?

My will, Billions of wills.

What do you guys think about the question? Would it even be helpful to know specifically the answers to all of those specific, detailed situations? In other words, the big question is, in spite of pain and suffering and chaos and the seemingly arbitrary nature of life, do I have sufficient grounds. Grounds to trust God?

Yeah, I'd like to speak to that too, because that's.

Yeah, because to me, it seems to me that at that level, that's the question. Because if something specific happened to me, leaving this place here where we're filming, I'm driving home and I get into some car accident, what have you or something happens to a loved one. If I were to ask the question, why did this happen to this individual today? And somebody could literally give me the actual answer, give me the causality, the causal ripple effect, chain domino effect of all events, and then I'm gonna sit there and say, I'm so glad you explained that to me. Thank you so much.

That makes me feel there wouldn't be satisfaction.

No.

What kind of satisfaction would I get from you explaining the causal cumulative effect of the last thousand events that took place that led to that one. You see what I'm saying?

Yeah. You're still experiencing that suffering. It still hurts. You still hate it. You still wish it didn't happen.

I've lost somebody. They won't be there tomorrow morning. So my point is that it's even questionable if that would even be helpful because we're basically confessing. There's no way for us to know. I'm simply going a step further.

Even if we did know, even if.

We did know, it wouldn't be particularly.

Helpful, I don't think.

I think there's two ways to look at that. In 2003, I was diagnosed with cancer, thyroid cancer. And one of the things that really helped me to deal with thyroid cancer. So I'm a Christian, I'm following the Bible, specifically, really into eating healthfully, living healthily, getting exercise, that kind of stuff. My mom, who found out about this, her first response was, okay, so you're a vegetarian and you are a healthy person. You don't smoke, you don't drink, she does. So the inference was there, you've got cancer and I don't.

She's diagnosed with nothing.

Right. You've got cancer and I don't. So, you know, it was hard. That was difficult. And one of the things that helped me.

Thanks, mom, for that.

No, she was.

But she had it.

She was more sympathetic toward me.

She was like, right, I can't believe this.

This is really bothering me. Because she was really troubled by it. And so one of the things that really helped me was to know that thyroid cancer is primarily.

A result of.

Being exposed to radiation and not a result of lifestyle. So it was really helpful to know that.

So there are times when it is.

Good for us to know, but then there's. Let me get to your point you're making, I think, is really true. So then I'm in this situation where as a person who's known by different people, the word gets out. People are praying for me or whatever. But then I start receiving emails and I start Receiving input from people about my situation, a thousand suggestions of what to do and a thousand reasons why it happened. Because you didn't do this and because you didn't do that and because, you know, this idea, curse causeless, does not come. Which I believe is the macro. The macro is, yeah, this world, we're in a curse, and there's a cause for this evil and free will, et cetera. But in my situation.

I don't want to know who specifically exposed me to that radiation, where it happened. I don't want to be having to deal with the bitter thoughts toward your dentist. Toward my dentist. Or toward the.

Or the airport security that you have to deal with.

The airport security. Yeah, yeah.

Or toward the nuclear science that we're using freely or whatever it is. I don't want it because then I've.

Got to deal with.

Oh, man. You see what I'm saying? So, like you said, there are certain things that aren't helpful to us.

We don't have the capacity to even deal with that pressure, even if it.

Were accessible or it's more for us to process.

In other words, now I have to process not only this factor, but also I've got to deal with people. And I had to deal with people who were saying, you know, the reason why this happened to you is because you did do this or you did do this. And I now have got to process that and deal with those people. And so for me, it's. Yeah, I agree totally. Sometimes it's not helpful to have the full picture.

You were saying something about multiple wills taking place. I think that's a powerful thing. I wonder if we could maybe look at some biblical.

Well, what are the macro things that he's talking about? Like you said them there, love and freedom.

Love is the basis. It's the foundation. God is love. And love, in order to be genuine love, requires freedom. I can't force you to love me. I can't take out a gun and say, david, I'm going to pull this trigger, unless you love me. Because that's not. Love has just. In that moment, love has been completely eliminated from the possibility. You can't do it.

I could be afraid of you, yes. I could respect you, maybe, but.

Yeah, or you could be, you know.

Anyway, I could be in awe of your power to kill me.

I'm trying to think of what would the emotions be, how could I respond to that?

It would be a bunch of bad emotions.

Bad, negative, but not love. There's no love there. It doesn't develop love. It doesn't create love.

Now, I could love you. I could love you for other reasons.

I couldn't love you as a result of that kind of request. And that's what you're saying.

And that kind of request could actually diminish the other reasons why you would.

I normally would under normal circumstances.

But you're asking what are the macro. The macro in regard to this question is the big picture of scripture. We live in a fallen, broken world.

But we're going back to why. Why, how that happened. How could a God of love create a world that is fallen and broken and full of sin and pain and evil?

Well, a question that has been asked of me. I know it's been asked of Ty because we've had this conversation and probably of you as well. And I've heard it debated philosophically in books and in videos that I've seen and even in live events. Is okay, if God possesses omnipotence, if he has the resources of all power at his disposal, then why didn't he just configure the world so that these things don't happen?

They're not possible.

Yeah, they're not possible. Not only that they're not likely, but that they're not possible.

Well, let's rationally think it through. What would the options be? We've got our kind of world, our existing world with its upside and downside. Potential freedom comes with the risk of an upside and downside. That's the world we live in. What would the options be to that? I can't think of a lot of options except for no world at all. God could have just said, I'm not going to create anything at all. Number two would be a world of puppets.

Micromanage.

Yeah, mechanical devices.

Anytime we go in a direction that is not in harmony with that principle of love, anytime we go away from that idea. Stop. No, back here. This is what you do.

Yeah.

So the puppet example you gave there is that there's not multiple wills.

No, there's one will, there's one way. Somebody's pulling strings.

Everything that happens has to conform to God's overall will, and that eliminates our will.

And I can only think of one other option. Maybe you guys can think of other ones. No world at all. A puppet world or a slave world?

Puppet and slave's the same thing.

I see that same thing.

Well, no, no, they're not. They're not. Because the puppet world is a world of material things that don't possess free will.

Okay.

They're mechanical devices. A slave is A free will creature that's dominated.

Okay, gotcha.

You see what I'm saying?

I think you're right. But I think that if, at least the way that I'm seeing it, that slave world would eventually just become the puppet world.

Yeah, we would.

Yeah. In other words, you would just be so immune to even trying. Trying to do something that was outside of the parameters of the sovereign will. But it's a point. Well, take it.

Ask yourself the question, David. You're getting married. Your wife's name is Violetta. We have choices before us. What kind of home are we going to have?

That's right.

Are we going to have a home in which we give birth to children? And those children are going to live in? What kind of environment, what kind of environment will we create for our children? Will we micromanage every decision they make or will we give them freedom? What kind of home do you want?

And you're right. One way that we can ensure, or could have ensured, that we would have no rebellious teenagers, that we would have no drug addict sons or whatever would be to have had no children. We could have created all those problems right up front. And by having them here.

I love that connection.

You're assuming that it's worth the risk. In other words. So by bringing children into the world, you've said it's worth the risk. The potential for love actuated from a free will is worth the risk of the potential that you just described.

Okay, so here's how we framed this question. Negatively in much of our conversation, reflective of the difficult, dark trialed world of trial that we live in. This is an appropriate way to frame the question, if God is so good, why is there so much suffering? But we could easily ask another question. It's not the question that begs to be asked, but we could ask the question, why is the world so awesome?

Yeah.

Why is there any good at all?

Man. What about the beauty of a symphony or a sunset or a beautiful child? In other words, people don't tend to ask themselves, why do I have such a great life? Why does this mango taste so amazing? Why am I surrounded by people that love me? I love them.

Why do bad things happen to good people? But why do good things happen to bad people?

Exactly. So we're framing the question which is appropriate from the suffering aspect. And the truth of the matter is, Ty said, the highs and the lows, these are two sides of the same coin. In other words, the risk involved in having a world with mangoes and happiness, and you just. That list is the Flip side of the risk, Pain, suffering, suffering, rape, genocide, abuse, oppression, injustice. It's this and this.

I think we could summarize this point by simply saying, confessing that our world is not the best possible world, but it is the best possible world for getting us to the best possible world. Does that make sense?

It makes perfect sense to me.

Yeah. In other words, the ultimate thing that we know could be and that we long for is only accessible through a state of affairs in which it could go bad. If it can't go bad at all, then it can't genuinely be good. There would be no goodness if there is no potential for badness.

Yeah, that's great. I love that. Going back to our macro values, freedom. I think when we return after the break, we have to say if we were going to create our most perfect world, we would say that freedom would be a preeminent value in that world.

I would have to be.

So then we have to have a situation where people learn how to use their freedom in responsible, loving, other centered ways. And we are in the midst, according to scripture, that is the midst of the experiment in which we are in right now.

Yeah, I mean, nobody given a choice would choose to live, for example, in North Korea over living, say in France.

You know that there's a big downside to a society in which people can do whatever they want. But you're not gonna choose the situation where you can't do whatever you want. You're gonna choose the free society over the controlled society. You're just going to because you're willing to take those risks because you know that there's a greater potential for beauty and goodness and all this happiness right there in that situation. So, yeah, let's pursue this further after the break.

Hi, I'm Ty Gipson. Welcome to Dygma.com I am so excited about this website because you're about to discover a powerful new way to share life transforming messages and videos with your family, friends and anybody else on the planet who has access to a computer. Dygma is a Greek word. It basically means to show or to reveal something by means of a pattern or an example of some kind. It's the second half of the word paradigma from which we get the English word paradigm, as in paradigm shift. And so what you're going to find@dygma.com is a growing library of short videos and transcripts dealing with paradigms and fundamental questions. What's the meaning of life? What is our origin and destiny as human beings? What happens when we die, does God exist? Or are we alone in this vast universe? Why is there so much evil and suffering in our world? An estimated 70% of Americans have a computer right in their home and stay in touch with family and friends by email. And more than 400 million people are active on Facebook and 5 million new users are signing up every week. We are literally in the midst of a communications revolution of massive proportion. This is granting the Gospel direct and easy access to millions upon millions of homes and hearts. And that's what Dygma.com is all about. It's a tool for leading our family and friends on an exciting paradigm shift by revealing the truth of God's creative power and his incredibly beautiful character, in contrast to our world's popular misconceptions about who God is.

So we started the conversation talking about these macro values such as love and freedom. And I agree, and most of our listeners, everybody's going to agree with that. You ended with the France versus North Korea illustration. What I'd like to do at this point and tell me if you guys are feeling this is let's go and sort of look at some of these principles that we've been laying down and let's find them in scripture. The idea that there's more than one will and the idea that freedom is the highest value, love is a high value. What are the texts of scripture that we could say? You see, it's right here. Here's a text that says that this is the case.

There are two, I think, of that we could begin the conversation on. Almost everybody is aware of the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, Thy kingdom come. There. I'm doing it in King James English. But this is very interesting. How does that.

Keeping James hand.

How does that prayer end? This is very interesting language you have here. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Forgiveness presupposes that something was done that ought not to have been done. So right there is the free will concept. Forgive us as we forgive. You're presupposing freedom and something went bad. Okay. Number two, do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Well, that presupposes that encountering temptation. I can do the bad thing or not do the bad thing, right? Temptation, you can exercise your will in the wrong way. I can say yes or no to that temptation. So don't leave me there, Lord. I don't want to go that direction and deliver us from evil. That's a prayer that's saying God, could you use whatever leverage you have to move me in the right direction so that I don't make bad free choices? But then here's the biggie for yours is the kingdom and the power forever and ever. Amen. Now I missed something. Oh, oh, here it is. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So there's the word we're looking at. Will.

Your will.

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Isn't that clear that there are opposing wills? There's God's will on the one hand, which apparently, according to the scripture, is being done perfectly in the heavenly realm. But the prayer indicates that God's will is not being perfectly done on earth. And so we're saying, God, let's make the good stuff happen. That is your will. That tells us a lot. That tells us that God is not the source and the origin of the bad stuff, that that's not what's going on in his will. The bad stuff has its origin in opposing wills.

I love the way that's written, Ty, the way you went through that. You didn't quite follow that order, but going back, you did. And that is this. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Forgive deliverance from evil, deliverance from temptation. I mean, that's powerful because it's not just saying that there's two different wills being done, but it's saying that the will that is being carried out on earth, that's not being carried out in heaven, involves evil and temptation. It involves the need for forgiveness. And those are the things that have come to this earth that were never intended to be here and that we want to be restored back to the heavenly picture, the heavenly pattern, the way we were created.

And that's even demonstrated in the. Isn't the fact that Jes died on the cross the ultimate statement that God's will is not always carried out on earth? The fact that Jesus had to die on the cross.

Didn'T he have to die on the cross? We use a different language in order to redeem wills that were exercised the wrong way. Yeah, I mean, sin. What is sin? Right.

Yeah. So you point to the cross and basically you're saying that the best and ultimate answer to the question of if God is love, wise or suffering is that God entered into solidarity with our pain. He didn't remain aloof from it. He jumped into the middle of it. And he has become a partaker of our pain and suffering rather than remaining apart from it. Yeah, that's remarkable.

And also the cross shows. That's the story.

Even though local individual things are done where God's will is thwarted, the cross also shows that in the grand scheme of things, God's gonna take those in. He takes curses and turns them into blessings. Because the cross, which becomes the symbol of God's wills being thwarted because of the need to die for sin, also becomes the mechanism through which God conquers sin and allows righteousness to triumph. You have the two sides there.

This brings me back to something though, real quick here. You mentioned earlier that would we even want.

A detailed explanation of the causal chain for any particular episode of suffering. But now think of this. Somebody is suffering horribly. They're lying in a hospital bed. What is going to be the greater healing and solace for them to sit by the bedside and to give an explanation for why?

Precisely.

Or to sit by their bedside and enter into solidarity and sympathy with their suffering, to cry with them, to feel what they're feeling, and for them to look back into an understanding face. Is it that understanding face that's going to be better for them? Or you bust into the hospital room with a chalkboard and you just start mapping out what happened and why in a diagram.

I want to share something with you that I think is really powerful in relation to this. And it's a scripture that's found. I'm sure we're familiar with it. It's found in Zechariah, chapter six. And basically it's explaining in the context of sin and suffering that God in Christ had this council of peace. The prophecy is a prophecy of God and Christ coming together.

I'm just going to read it to you right here. And the Lord of hosts is basically talking about the branch which is Christ. And it says that he will build the temple of the Lord. And then it says even he shall build the temple of the Lord and He will bear the glory, and he shall sit and rule upon his throne, and he shall be a priest upon his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both. And that's Zechariah, chapter 6, verse 12. And it's really interesting because when you look up that council of peace and you read about it, and I'm just going to just share with you a statement. This one is in the desire of ages on the life of Christ. But it basically says that this council of peace was God the Father and God the Son coming together before the creation of mankind, before the foundation of the world, and basically saying that if they choose to sin, we've created them in our image in love. And that allows for freedom of choice and involves a risk. And if they choose, if the devil actually takes them, if Lucifer actually takes them as the devil in this direction, they choose to go in this direction. We are making a covenant, a council of peace, right now. And so before this whole thing, before we go forth in this creation, we have a plan B. And Jesus, you are going to become the Son of God is going to become Jesus Christ. He's going to become the one who takes away sin, the anointed one that comes down to this planet, and he's going to be the one that reveals a full revelation and manifestation of what God is really like and wins the hearts back. And what's really powerful about this is this counsel. Job went through this terrible experience in his life. I can really relate to that. When I was talking about my cancer earlier. And Job goes through this whole thing where you were talking about, he loses his family, he loses his health, he loses his wealth, his wife, everyone, all his friends turn against him. And even his friends, they come, they sit for a week, they sympathize, and then they start talking and start trying to explain all this stuff. Hey, Job, you know the reason why your son's. And the reason why you.

And the reason why.

And you know what you need to do? You need to do X, Y and Z. And finally Job says. He says, you guys just need to be quiet.

Your miserable comforters, your worthless physician.

And then God shows up because Job gets really intense about his questions. And God shows up. And what's interesting is, while we as human beings aren't, I don't think, capable of going through explanations, God is. God actually steps into our situation, like you said. But he also. He gives Job this picture of himself. And the first thing he asks Job is, he says, job, he says, who is this who darkens counsel without knowledge? Now, that word, counsel, is the very same word that's used in Zechariah. He's talking about this council of peace. He says, you've darkened this council of peace. You've misunderstood me just a little bit here. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the world? Tell me if you have understanding.

And then he goes through this incredible revelation of how God is with every creature that suffers. He knows the horse, he knows the eagle. He knows everything that's happening on planet Earth. He is there. And Joe gets this picture, and he realizes, wow, God has always been with me through this whole event. I have been on his heart. And even before the foundation of the world, he had this council of peace. And I misunderstood this. I've confused the word darkened means confused. I'm confused about this. And when we look at Babylon, that whole process but is confusion. But I think the world today, we are talking about this as being a vital question. The world today is looking for an answer to this question. And the gospel, the cross answers this question. God doesn't explain to us all of the micro details, but he says, I'm with you in your suffering job. I'm with you in your suffering. From the beginning I knew about this. I made a plan to be with you.

And that's what they need at the bedside of me when we're suffering, that God understands us, he understands what we're going through.

I just thought as you were saying, that explaining that James of the scripture in Psalm 56 that I love, where David has been going through a lot of suffering and he's grappling with it, he doesn't understand why, and it's just freaking him out and he can't make sense of it. And then it dawns on him. In chapter 56 of Psalms and verse 8, he says to God, you have numbered all my wanderings and you put my tears in your bottle. Are they not all in your book?

So isn't that amazing? That's a solidarity thing. Suddenly he realizes, David realizes, wait a minute, he's been ranting and raving about God, where are you and how come this is happening and why is that happening? And then it's, as it were, that God is at the bedside of this suffering man. And David realizes, wait a minute, you have actually been taking note of all my sorrows. And very poetically, he says, you've collected all my tears in your bottle. What is that about? That's a beautiful poetic way of saying that every single thing, God that touches me and every tear that I've shed through my suffering, you have actually taken note of every tear and you are with me in my suffering. That's one of the most beautiful texts in scripture for me that just shows that God. You brought up Jeffrey earlier. Trust. We can't comprehend all the causal chain, but what about trust? And sometimes I think of a statement that I heard somewhere that.

When we can't trace God's hand, we can trust his heart. In other words, we don't know why, why, why, why, why? But we do know what is going on in God's essential character. God is good, God is love. So we know for sure Something that's not true. And that is that it's not true that God has orchestrated my pain and suffering because God lacks essential integrity. God has essential integrity. God is love. That's a solid, immovable reality. And you have to trust that even when you can't trace. Yeah, that's our chain solidarity thing.

Jesus articulated that in different ways, right? He mentions the lilies of the field and how the Father takes note of all that. He says, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So there's a lot of different ways that what you just read in Psalms is, I think, reaffirmed in the New Testament. Jesus is basically saying.

I know where you're going, Sidon, and going back to Calvary. The main lesson in Calvary is the fact that Christ identifies with our suffering.

Well, in a former conversation, we had talked about each of our conversions. And what was the thing in Scripture that sort of gave Scripture at least initial credibility in your own experience and at least in our three cases, not so much. In Jeffreys, though that came later. It had to do with seeing a picture of God that was compelling. You know, love versus power and the God of patience and long suffering. In my case, it was boiled down to Luke 19, where Jesus wept over the city. And I tweeted probably a month ago now that if all we had in Scripture were these two verses, New Testament. If all we had was two words. No, these two texts. Text number one, in the beginning was the Word. These three texts, Jesus is the Word. So in the beginning was the Word, number one. Number two, the Word became flesh. And then number three, Jesus wept. If all we knew was that there was a God, that he became flesh and he cried, we would know enough to trust him. Because I know what it is to cry. I know what it is to be lonely, to be hurt, to be upset, to be frustrated, to be in pain, to suffer. And if there's a God in the unit, if God possesses all power, all resources of intellect, strength, all of that, and yet there's still a vulnerability. God is vulnerable. Well, he couldn't be vulnerable from any external thing because he possesses all power, nothing. He must be internally vulnerable. He must be the kind of person, person who would make himself subject to forces that would otherwise have no right to approach him. He becomes flesh. He goes to the tomb of Lazarus and weeps. He goes to the city, the hill overlooking Jerusalem. Well, he doesn't have to be there. He's God, man. He can be where he wants. He can be doing what he wants. So if all we Knew, going back to the looking in the eyes versus the explanation is that God cries.

He's voluntarily vulnerable.

That's right. Unlike us, we can get ourselves into trouble, but often the vicissitudes of life just smite us. And we're like, whoa, what happened? And we would choose to be out of that circumstance. You know, you're diagnosed with cancer. If there could be the button in front of you to be cancer free or to have you push the. I want to be out of this circumstance, but God says, I'll push the get in to pain, vulnerability, weeping button.

Wow.

Yeah. I read somewhere that another author worded it, we need a savior that can weep. We needed a savior that knew how to weep.

When I wrote my first book, and it was coming down to the time, you know, I'd already written much of the book and we were really struggling with a title. And it's with some of these very same issues, you know, the existence of suffering and the existence of God. And God is an omniscient being, omnipotent being. And we were wrestling and we had several different titles, but neither myself nor the publisher were ever really happy. And then just in a moment when we were on a phone conference, this title, God in Pain.

Yeah, I love that title, came to me.

It just. That's the God that we serve. And when I asked a good friend of ours, Clifford Goldstein, to write the foreword, he said, why did you write the book? All you needed to write was the title. The title alone encapsulates the essence of the answer. We're asking the question, if God is so good, why is there so much suffering? But whose capacity for suffering is greater, the finite creature or the infinite creator? If we are suffering and God has the ability to give that causal chain, then his ability to be at every funeral, to be at every rape, to be present. Now, of course, that introduces the question, well, why doesn't God just stop it? Why doesn't he intervene?

Or even worse, why does he sometimes and sometimes doesn't intervene?

Yeah, apparently, I think we have to insert the word apparently because. And I think we have to come back to this, either in this conversation or at some subsequent conversation, we have to ask the question, why doesn't God whatever, fill in the blank? Or why didn't God fill in the blank when that little cancer cell came into James Thyroid there and began to multiply? Why didn't God, you would have been none the wiser. Why didn't he just come in and just eviscerate that cancer cell and all is good. I mean, that's a real question.

It's a very real question. We have to take a break. Although these are, I don't know if you've noticed, but just in this conversation, there's almost a solemn tone, a heaviness that's come over us because we realize that we're dealing with something that is, in fact, very difficult. There are people probably who are sitting in on this conversation right now via the television, and I can imagine there are tears coming to some people's eyes because if you only knew, somebody could say to us, if you only knew what happened to me.

So I say also, some of those things we do know. For me at least, that's why it's become so solemn, because some of those things we do know.

Yeah. Yeah, we do. So let's just keep on talking about it. When we come back after the break.

Dygma videos are short, engaging messages designed for opening up discussion with individuals and groups regarding the character of God, as well as for your own personal statement, spiritual growth. For your free DVD sample collection of DYGMA videos, call 877-585-1111 or write to Lightbearers, 37457 Jasper Lowell Road, Jasper, OR 97438. Once again, for your free DVD sample collection of DyGMA videos, call 877.585.1111, or write to Light Bearer, 37457 Jasper Lowell Road, Jasper, OR 97438. Simply ask for DYGMA DVD 1.

So we're tackling pretty much the biggest question imaginable. And I'm of the opinion that this is. Can I say it this way? It's the most naturally occurring theological question. It doesn't matter if you're raised in a Christian home or a Buddhist home or a Muslim home or an atheist home, everybody encounters suffering and everybody at some point in their life is going to ask the why question. Even if you somehow get through.

The world unscathed, you're eventually going to grow old and be on a deathbed. And everybody at some point is faced with the reality of pain and suffering. And at that point, human beings naturally ask the question, why is this happening? And the bigger question is, why is the world like this at all? Why is the world like this at all? Now, in our discussion, we've confessed that we're ignorant and we think everybody's ignorant regarding the details of every single episode of suffering and why that happened or that happened or that happened. But we do believe very strongly that there are some big principles that very clearly give us guidance to know why bad things happen.

On the more big picture level, God created a particular kind of world. God, out of his character of love, created a world in which created beings would have the potential to love like God loves having created that kind of world. There had to be something in place as the basic mechanism of human thought and behavior. And that's freedom. That freedom which makes love possible also makes evil possible, suffering possible. There's that big risk. But with those principles, I think we can safely say that it's possible for God to be exonerated. In our basic theological picture. We don't have to hate God. In fact, as soon as you believe in the love, freedom, risk equation, you don't have to hate anybody. You can actually be in a frame of mind where at least you understand that God chose the best possible situation for creating the best possible world. Now we live in that world.

I like the way that it's sometimes said that this world is not the best possible world, but it is the way to the best possible world.

Yeah, that's right.

And I was even thinking, if you could have an empty canvas and come up with the best dynamics of. Wouldn't you do the very thing that God did?

Yeah.

Any people you would do nothing different to.

Use the illustration that you gave earlier when we were saying that the way to be sure that your teenage children never become something other than you'd hoped, or your grown children is to never have them. And you said your illustration was basically. But the risk was worth it. Right.

What about this? How do you feel about this? We have the tragedy of suicide, but isn't the fact. Doesn't the fact that we refrain from suicide on a daily basis in and of itself demonstrate that we think it's worth the risk? Waking up tomorrow morning.

Yeah.

The minute we know good and well.

That there could be a terrible thing in store for us.

The minute I walk out my front door, get into my car and go into the world. Right. I'm entering into a million different varieties of risks. But the fact that I do not commit suicide means it's worth the risk of staying alive and potentially experiencing the benefits of freedom and love. And.

We'Re continually confessing that the risk is worth it. By getting married, by having children, by even entering into a friendship with anybody and not just locking ourselves away in a room and never coming out and having pizza delivered under the door. We're continually confessing that the upside is worth the risk of the downside. Aren't we. I mean, just all the time. CS Lewis moves through this process of reasoning where he says to the person who says, why did God create me in the first place if I'm going to experience suffering? It's not worth it. Lewis responds, not worth it to who?

The idea is that God, above and beyond our processing, thought it was worth it to perhaps have the possibility where you could live forever in a state of eternal bliss. He thought the risk was worth it. And who are we to argue back to the one who made things to operate?

Yeah, he goes on to say, and the one who is the source from.

Which all of our wisdom comes. Right.

For all of our reasoning comes. And then he says the analogy that. That arguing against the very source of your ability to argue would be like cutting off of every branch you're sitting on. Remember that statement?

Of course. Yeah, that's a great one.

So if God considered it worth the risk, then it probably was worth the risk.

Okay, so are there any scriptures that we could wrap around this idea of love, freedom, risk, the basic answer to the question we're giving? Is there scripture that bears that out?

I think there's a lot of scripture. I think the whole tenor of scripture bears that out. The entire canon of scripture, old and New Testaments, are written against a backdrop of love, freedom, risk. And I always add a fourth element to that. Love requires freedom. Freedom involves risk. Risk entails responsibility, and responsibility is that which makes for moral growth. Okay, so just imagine the situation.

How could.

Okay, I have two children, an 11 year old and a 13 year old, and I am seeking to instill in them values that will help them to make wise choices, moral choices, judicious choices. I want them to be good people, wonderful people, good kids. And they are throughout their whole day at school and then they come home, they're hanging out with their friends. They are continually faced, as we all are. But I'm just using the illustration of children here with a series of choices. And in those choices they are faced with morally superior and morally inferior choices in the way that they treat people, the way that they treat their classmates, the way that they respond to their teachers, whether or not to be honest with their parents. It's just easy when we talk about children. So they're faced continually with, okay, should I be honest with dad or should I try to cover that up? Should I make fun of that kid because all my friends are. Or should I reach out to him and be kind? They are continually faced. And what I'm saying to my boys is, boys, you will never grow and become the person that you are capable of being if you're not given the opportunity to make choices in which there are actual benefits from making the right choice and actual consequences for making the wrong choice. The only way to grow is to have a matrix in which moral choices with actual consequences are possible. You follow that? So in that sense, how would God ever get beings like us, human beings, to the place where we would see the consequences of sin, the consequences of selfishness, the consequences of all of the bad choices that we make, unless he created an environment in which that could actually take place? We become better people, more godly people, more loving people, more trusting people, more trustworthy people, as we make decisions that are fraught with consequence and without it, growth can't occur.

You know, I really like that in this sense. And I'm just going to go back to an illustration that I experienced recently. I was just sitting with some friends. We were talking together about spiritual things, and one of them was talking about some challenges they were having at work and counseling they were getting because of the difficulties they were going through and how the counselor was basically telling them that they should just kind of. I don't know how to say this. I want to say it carefully because the way it came across was not. It was just like this counselor was basically saying, you know, that person that's annoying you in your life, you just need to consider that person a non person. And that's the way you'll be able to deal with the situation as a professional counselor. Yeah, you just consider that person a non person. And that's what you'll be able to.

You know, check out the ribs and the drama.

I won't tell you the word, but it was pretty bad. So we're talking about this, and I'm taking it in, and I'm realizing that this person that's getting this counseling is really going through some struggles with this individual. And so for them, it was a great relief. And so now I'm really struggling because I'm thinking, okay, I got to pray about this. And in a sense, there's something inside me that wants to say, yeah, how dare that person treat you this way? I agree with that counselor. That's the way you need to treat that person. That's my natural tendency. But then all of a sudden, there's this thing that kicks in, and I just started talking about the fact that, you know what? The reason why that person treats you that way is because you are loving, you are kind, you are supportive, you are a Christian through and through. That's the kind of person you are. And that person is treating you that way because they either want that and they don't know how to get it, or they're jealous of it and they want to destroy it. I said, either way, the goal for that person and the goal for you, the goal for you, I should say, is you don't want to treat them as a non person. You want to hold on to the person that you are in Jesus Christ. You want to hold on to the principles of love that make you who you are. And I said, because this person was getting in the way of their academic future, I said, that is insignificant in comparison to what God has made you in the person that you are. And that's the real issue. It doesn't matter if you had degrees all the way down your arm. And as long as you hold on to the person that you are, the loving, Christlike, forgiving, supportive person, that is.

Going to be the God.

And they were just like, yes. And to me, when you're talking about rewards, yeah, we can talk about it on a temporal level, we can talk about it, but that is the ultimate reward. Because after we were finished talking and we prayed together and they were just like, this was it. You could just tell there was peace, there was joy, there was hope. These are the rewards. Peace, joy, hope. It's not so much even the temporary reward. It's this whole idea, and I think we see this even in Enoch, we won't get into the details, but this whole idea that even if there wasn't an eternal life, even if there wasn't an eternity beyond this, the kingdom of God is within you. It's the peace, the joy, and the hope that we have right here on this earth in dealing with the sin, in dealing with the evil, and dealing with the situations that we're faced with here.

I say it like this. Too often in keeping with that thinking there, too often we think of heaven. And this is going way back to the our first conversation that we had about how the evangelist said to your mom, the Bible says it, therefore you should believe it. We present scripture almost too much in a reward. Do this and you'll get this. And if you don't, then you won't. Okay? So on that note, God is going to take everybody to heaven. God is going to give everyone eternal life who would be happy in that circumstance. And when you think about it that way, that's so powerful because what God is basically saying is you are given the opportunity to become the person that I have created you to be. I would say it even this way. We are each given the opportunity to be fully human. There are people in the world who are so devoid of compassion, of kindness, they have polluted their minds and they literally are more like beasts. You mentioned earlier ty that you know there's got to be more to life than just eating and reproducing. Well, there are people that's totality of their church. There's a cruelty associated with it because if you get in my way, you will be smashed this whole way that there are people that are just brute beasts. They actually are humans made in the image of God, but by choices that they have made. They've made their choices and now their choices have made them. And these people would not be. They've not made the choices that could create them, turn them into the kinds of people that would be happy in the presence of God for eternity. So this isn't God arbitrarily withholding from them something that they could otherwise they can't have it because they have incapacitated themselves. And when we think about it that way, we're asking the question why is there so much suffering? Well, there's a lot of ways to answer that question. But at the bottom most level of the answer to that question is freedom.

Freedom. People have made choices. Those impact upon us. They cause sometimes happiness, sometimes joy, sometimes bliss, and sometimes pain. Now again then there's a whole dimension beyond there's natural disasters and there's cancers and there's other things that are not directly traceable to a choice made by a person. To stab me with a knife or hold a gun to my head or whatever. And that's where we say even if we knew the causal chain, right?

But we know it all goes back to sin. We know it all goes back. The curse causes us not come. We know it all does go back to a choice we made to have someone else, as Jesus says In John chapter 12, step in as the prince of this world. In John 10:10, Jesus says he that person has come to do nothing but kill, steal and destroy. And I've come that you have life and you might have it more abundantly.

I read one time that all of life for every individual is going to finally boil down to either the individual saying to God thy will be done or God saying to the individual thy will be done.

Yeah, that's Lewis.

Ultimately every human being is going to be in a position where their free will, their free will is the ultimate factor that determined the kind of person they became and their ultimate destiny and human free will by God's choice. Not because God is weak, but by God's design. Human free will can trump the ultimate will of God. God does want me and you and everyone at this table and everyone in the world to ultimately be eternally saved. Some people simply won't be. Not because God didn't want them to be, but because they aligned their will against the will of God. And God is just, this is almost a trite way of saying it, but God is just the perfect gentleman enough to say anybody, as you said, who would be happy for eternity in this kind of kingdom will be there, is welcome. Yeah, anybody can come. Everybody can come. All you have to do is want to be here in this kind of environment, this kind of kingdom.

And for God to force others into his kingdom, they would be miserable throughout the seasons and ages of eternity. So that would in essence be cruel.

It would be cruel, yeah. That would be God basically saying everything in you is contrary to everything in me, but I'm going to force you to be in a room with me forever. You know what I'm saying?

I know exactly what you mean.

I mean you're going to have to look at me and be with me forever in this space and never escape. And you hate it, but I'm going to force you.

It's like being forced to immigrate into some country where it's dictator run regime and every ideal and value of that country you despise, you're forced to be a citizen of that country.

And of course the illustration is not perfect there because God is not a dictator. But many people think of God in just that way.

That's the point. Yeah, but God is anything they would be miserable because of their perception.

The most the foundational value in the universe is freedom. This is God's highest will for every being is to be free. The problem is that the things that we too often that we choose to, the things that we think will bring freedom actually end up enslaving us. And Jesus came that we might be free.

And that's the bottom line and that's the point of upon which we have to close because our time is up.