Is evil and suffering really a challenge to our faith?

Is evil and suffering really a challenge to our faith?

Every single person on this earth, at some point in their lives will have experienced some form evil and suffering. Whether it is the loss of a loved one, or not achieving a mark you revised hard for on a test. Of course, everybody’s situations are different, leaving some people to possibly think, ‘why me and not him/her?’ or ‘what did I do to deserve this?’ however as Theists we know that we are not alone when we are faced with evil and suffering and can always turn to God which can act as a reassurance to us.

However, evil and suffering has been known to be one of the biggest challenges to belief in God and is described as ‘the rock of Atheism’ as it seems to contradict the characteristics we associate with God. When we ask ourselves the question ‘Is there a greater challenge to belief in God than evil?’ we can seem to struggle to find something else that challenges God’s existence this much. Many would say that if God was omnipotent, he should have had the power to create a world in which evil and suffering does not take place. If God was omnibenevolent, shouldn’t he love us too much to put us through the harshness evil can bring to our everyday lives? If God is omniscient, shouldn’t he know evil and suffering was about to take place and therefore stop it? These questions are serious challenges to belief in God as we refer to God as a loving father therefore he shouldn’t put us through suffering.

JL Mackie even produced an ‘inconsistent triad’ which states that we can have two of the following; God’s omnipotence, God’s omnibenevolence or evil and suffering. Considering that we know evil and suffering exists, this would cancel out one of God’s characteristics and if God cannot be omnipotent and omnibenevolent, is he really a God worth worshipping?

Even historic events such as 9/11 seem to work against the existence of God ‘In less than two hours Aquinas’ proofs of God were blasted, seared, choked with arid smoke and snuffed out forever along with more than 3000 lives now reduced to power in the rubble of ground zero’ Ross Mackechnie (a 9/11 survivor) as people could not cope with the idea that a loving God would let this happen and take the lives of so many.

However, I believe that instead of looking at evil and suffering as a challenge to theism, why do we not see it as something that enhances and strengthens our faith?

Using the Free Will Defence, which is taken from the fact both Iraneus’ and Augustine’s theodicies contained the concept that evil came from humans misusing their free will; we can strengthen our belief in God when faced with evil and suffering. Many people think of God as a responsible parent; one who wouldn’t let you stay out until 3am or wouldn’t let you do wreck less things without some form of punishment or lessons learned. I strongly believe that God helps us to learn from our mistakes: We would never touch a hot iron again if when we did the first time we got badly burnt? Or we would never drink heavily again if the first time we did this we got ourselves into a bad state? So it is in fact possible that God allows us to suffer so we can learn lessons and take something positive away from a bad situation. It all comes down to the idea that God does not give us a sheltered life, as we have to grow as people and to do this we must make mistakes.

‘If large scale horrors were not allowed, basically we would have a ‘toy world’ where things matter, but not much. It would be like an over protective parent’ Swinburne.

In response to Swinburne’s idea of a ‘toy world’ which I have to agree with, I believe that our accomplishments in life would not be so great if we didn’t have to suffer a bit for them. Take GCSE and A Level results for example, I know that when I received my GCSE Grades, I was a lot more thankful and happy for myself because I know I worked hard for many months to achieve them. God wants us to grow and develop as humans, not as people who are simply programmed to love him and have no free will, therefore we all experience suffering to actually bring us closer to God. If God created a world in which we were forced to love and obey him, would we really be free? God doesn’t want this sort of life for us; he wants us to grow and appreciate things more when they are not just given to us. Take climbing a mountain for example; would we enjoy the view as much if we didn’t struggle to get there? Would we still find the view breath taking if we flew to the top by helicopter? By allowing us to suffer God can actually give us a greater sense of accomplishment when we do tasks that require hard work and perseverance. God teaches us to work hard for things that we want giving humans a lot more substance that what we would have if things in life were just given to us with no hard work.

However, the Free Will Defence is not an excuse for evil; it simply states why it is there. Evil is not inflicted upon us for no reason. God gave us Free Will so we could choose to either follow him or turn away from him and can make decisions for ourselves with the idea that the wrong decisions teach us lessons; allowing us to grow as people. One can take evil and suffering and use that as a reason to not believe in God, however I think that evil and suffering can actually bring us closer to God and strengthen our relationship with him.

KF.