Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 1-095 (Apologetics)

THE CRY FOR A REASON IN SUFFERING (Part 1)

by Ravi Zacharias

With these words, the eighteenth-century Scottish skeptic David Hume summed up humanity’s greatest obstacle to believing that God exists:

Were a stranger to drop suddenly into this world, I would show him as specimen of its ills – a hospital full of diseases, a prison crowded with malefactors and debtors, a field strewn with carcasses, a fleet floundering in the ocean, a nation languishing under tyranny, famine or pestilence. Honestly, I don’t see how you can possibly square with an ultimate purpose of love.1

Yet another says this:

It is not science that has led me to doubt the purpose of God. It is the state of the world. It is the pitiful unending struggle for existence among the nations. It is the collapse of our idealisms before the brute facts of force and chaos. It is the feeling that there is something demonic in the heart of things which is working against us; that there is a radical twist in the very constitution of the universe which will always defeat man’s hopes, make havoc of his dreams and bring his pathetic optimism crashing in disaster. Purpose? Look at the world. That settles it.2

In Fyoder Dostoevsky’s masterpiece The Brothers Karamazov, Ivan Karamazov says:

Tell me yourself–I challenge you: let’s assume that you were called upon to build the edifice of human destiny so that men would finally be happy and would find peace and tranquility. If you knew that, in order to attain this, you would have to torture just one single creature, let’s say the little girl who beat her chest so desperately in the outhouse, and that on her unavenged tears you could build that edifice, would you agree to do it? Tell me and don’t lie!3

It is very hard not to have some sympathy with the skepticism expressed here and with the question that is raised. (The particular slant of Ivan Karamazov’s question is more complex, and therefore, I have added a postscript at the end of the book to respond to it in greater depth.) The abundance of evil, and the extent to which so much of it seems apparently gratuitous, compels the thinking person to question the coexistence of a good God with a world of evil. Which of us has not looked at a deformed child, swallowed hard with pity, and pondered the purpose behind it? To live is to sooner or later experience or witness pain and suffering. To reason is to inevitably ponder, “Why?”

I do not know of any question that is asked more, nor of any obstacle to belief that is more persistent. The best of the prophets raised this very issue, with different slants. Habakkuk asked, “Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?” (Hab. 1:3). David cried out, “How long will the enemy mock you?” (Ps. 74:10). Jonah was exasperated by the violence of the Ninevites and wanted them wiped out. Jeremiah challenged the Lord, saying, “I would speak with you about your injustice: Why does the way of the wicked prosper?” (Jer. 12:1).

I have never been in a conversation with a skeptic who failed to raise this as the principal reason for his or her skepticism. The number of those who have ceased to believe in God because of the death of a loved one or the maiming of a friend is legion. The question is without doubt one of the most honest and genuine questions that can be raised of a Christian faith that talks of a loving God who is in control of all things.

Unfortunately, glib and incoherent answers to such heart cries have resulted in a breakdown of communication between honest skeptics who are seekers of the truth and those who claim to know it. We often dismiss the questioner as one who does not want to believe and, hence, finds a reason for his or her unbelief. There may be many who are determined to disbelieve, but there are also those for whom the mind and heart wrestle sincerely with the problem. Someone has put it more succinctly: Virtue in distress and vice in triumph make atheists of mankind.

But if the Christian can be charged with ignoring the genuineness of the questioner, the questioner must also face the indicting possibility that he or she has often not thought through the question fairly. There is a blatant oversight that often accompanies this challenge to the mind, and that is that the skeptics who have raised the question must also give an answer to the same question. How do they explain the problem of pain? Not only must they give an answer, but they must ultimately justify the very question itself–all that, while leaving God out of the picture. Here the voices get silent and their own answers border on the irrational.

G.K. Chesterton summed up this counterpoint well when he said, “When belief in God becomes difficult, the tendency is to turn away from Him; but in heaven’s name to what?” The Christian does not deny that a meaningful answer must be found, but has the one who denies God found a better answer to the problem of evil? With a touch of humor, and in recognition that many answers come close but not close enough. Chesterton went on to say, “My problem with life is not that it is rational, nor that it is irrational…but that it is almost rational.” Just when we are able to form a cohesive framework, someone or something pokes a hole in it, and we take a step back.

The Bible does not ignore this question in silence but addresses it with great seriousness. Possibly the most misunderstood yet oft- quoted book that deals with the question of human pain and suffering is the Book of Job. His name has become synonymous with suffering, and yet so few have chosen to systematically weigh out his arguments. When we consider how old this book is we ought to be fascinated by how profound is his treatment of the subject.

It is my hope that we can dig deep and mine the arguments that provide the only viable answer to this mystery that plagues us all. But before we enter into that quest, let us at least face the question forthrightly in its philosophical ramifications. This will have to be brief and will demand immense cooperation, but we must put the question in context. Once we get past this philosophical hurdle, our answers will be felt with greater force.

1 David Hume, source unknown.

2 Source unknown.

3 Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, trans. Andrew R. MacAndrew (New York: Bantam, 1981), 296.

To be continued in Part 2 – Questioning the Question

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(“The Cry for a Reason in Suffering” is Chapter 3 of _Cries of the Heart_ by Ravi Zacharias. Copyright 1999 Word Publishers. pp63-90. Used with permission)