Mark Smith examines how a loving God can allow suffering such as the Holocaust.
The question of suffering always emerges in debates about religion. It is possibly the major reason many in the West reject religion, or a God of any kind.
In stating what many think, C. S. Lewis says, "When I was an atheist, if anyone asked me, `Why do you not believe in God?' my reply would have been something like this - look at the universe we live in.
Creatures cause pain by being born, and live by inflicting pain, and in pain they mostly die."
The Jewish lawyer Edward Tabash, who lost two family members in the Holocaust, says, "I want to sue him [God] for negligence, for being asleep at the wheel of the universe when my grandfather and uncle were gassed to death in Auschwitz."
Many feel the same way, in that when things are going fine in their lives, they never give the idea of God a second thought, but when things go wrong, they immediately put him on trial, accusing him of neglect or even reject him outright.
On the other hand, in the midst of extreme pain and suffering, others find the reality of God to be so authentic and powerful they see no need to question His existence.
For instance, Corrie ten Boom, who helped the Dutch resistance movement during World War 2.
She lost her father and sister trying to protect Jews. She survived the Ravensbruck concentration camp where 96,000 women died. Her sister Betsie, who died there, said, "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still."
Afterwards, Corrie travelled the world sharing about God's forgiveness and love.
How can someone come through the horror and cruelty of that ordeal not rejecting God but with a deeper belief in Him?
Well, in many ways, whether you accept or reject the possibility of God, or whether you believe he is awake or asleep at the wheel of the universe, is often connected to what you think about life, and how you interpret the events themselves.
I realise I stand a long way from the horrors of Auschwitz or Ravensbruck.
But if you assume there is no God, and then you use suffering and evil to back up your assumption, there is a problem.
Because if there is no God, what is evil? In a godless universe, the ethics behind Auschwitz or Ravensbruck are irrelevant.
If life is just random, accidental, chance happenings, then looking for an answer to suffering is futile.
We have no real reason to be upset, or complain.
If we are complaining, who are we complaining to? But somehow deep in our wiring we sense that suffering and evil are not the way things should be, and there is something deeply wrong with Edward Tabash's grandfather and uncle being gassed at Auschwitz.
As a Christian, I would argue that, in general, our consciences are programmed to be appalled at what happened in the Holocaust and every injustice since, but getting rid of God doesn't resolve the difficulty.
I do acknowledge suffering and evil do raise a lot of complex questions.
Corrie ten Boom was confronted first-hand by a guard who was partially responsible for inflicting the pain.
Lieutenant Rahms, after the death of Corrie's father, asked "How can you believe in God now?" and "What kind of God would have let that old man die here in Scheveningen [prison]?" She admits she didn't understand why.
The Christian claims not to have all the answers, but to know the One who ultimately does.
The message of Christianity is God has come into this broken world and experienced betrayal, injustices, humiliation, hatred and torture but triumphs.
In Mel Gibson's movie The passion of the Christ, he has a scene where Jesus is carrying his cross on the way to His execution.
Mary, his mother, runs out to meet her battered, bleeding son.
Jesus says, "See Mother, I am making all things new."
Gibson is summing up what Jesus is ultimately doing in this extreme episode of His suffering.
Christianity claims that God, through Jesus, is making all things new, will bring justice and healing, and holds out an offer for people to share in it.
Every one of us will experience pain, grief, heartbreak or loss and sense that something is deeply wrong with the world we live in.
For some, that pain is more extreme than for others.
It might come in the form of a controlling abusive relationship, street violence fuelled by alcohol, or even financial hardship due to an economic crisis.
Not many of us experience it at the level of Corrie ten Boom.
She, however, could come through saying God's love is deeper still.
Maybe that is something worth looking into?
- Mark Smith is pastor of Grace Bible Church.
