"5 Reasons: Why I Still Believe in God" - DAY 27

Day 27 – good question, wrong time (III)

This world doesn't look at all like the kind of world we'd have if there were an all-powerful, all-loving God behind it.  –EDWARD K. BOYD

No one who has nursed cancer patients can believe in God. 

                                                                                     –a skeptical NURSE

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust.  –C. S. LEWIS

Is it possible to believe that there is a loving or caring Creator when all this woman needed was rain.  –CHARLES TEMPLETON

When I say that the universe's disarray has no bearing on the existence of God, I am not trying to minimize the significance of suffering and pain in the world. The presence of such widespread agony cannot be dismissed or ignored, for sooner or later we all will experience it in full force. Philosopher Elton Trueblood describes it as "a problem which no theist can avoid and no honest thinker will try to avoid."

I cannot, however, let sentiment about this subject rule over reason. It is obvious to me that the reality of pain and suffering does not bring God's existence into question anymore than the presence of that faulty cake in yesterday's illustration brought into question the existence of the baker. It is the character of God, not His existence, that is put on trial by suffering. People tend to look at suffering and ask, "Is there really a God?" when the appropriate question to raise, the only rational question, is: "What kind of God are You?"

When we get around to discussing the nature of God, we must address the presence in the universe of disorder and disarray, of pain and suffering, of disease, war, and calamity. But this will have to come later, for we have not yet fully ascended the slope of God's existence. The four quotations preceding today’s reading may be unsettling to us, but we must recognize them for what they are (questions about God's character) and not let them distract us from the issue at hand. As the old adage urges, "First things first."

 

Daily Quotation

Edward K. Boyd and Gregory A. Boyd, Letters from a Skeptic, 22.

Quoted in Leslie D. Weatherhead, Why Do Men Suffer? (New York: Abingdon, 1936), 72.

C. S. Lewis, The Best of C. S. Lewis (New York: Hafner, 1969), 429.

Quoted in Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith, 31.

D. E. Trueblood, General Philosophy, 226.