Nielsen’s Nook

God and Suffering, Pain, and Evil
The pastor who wishes to comfort the afflicted, that they be not crushed; the perplexed, that they be not driven to despair; the persecuted, that they be not forsaken; those who are struck down, that they be not destroyed; must have clear in his own mind the pure goodness of God and the place of suffering in the divine economy to the degree to which the Lord has revealed this mystery. For Wiesel and many others, an all-good God, who is also all-powerful could not exist and at the same time have allowed such horror to occur as Wiesel describes from his own experience.

However, this way of thinking appears to affirm the Lord God, Almighty rather than argue for his non-existence. When a cat kills a canary we have no moral qualm with God. People overwhelmed with great suffering, tragedy which has come lacerating their lives, the indignation one may feel against God, itself presupposes Him. “A cat cannot sin, even though it may swallow the canary, for a cat does not know the difference. But a man knows evil, and therefore knows—God. Pain and death come from sinful failure” (emphasis added).¹ Wiesel, in agony few will every know in their lifetime, seems to turn his back on Judeo-Theism and embraces some form of agnosticism or atheism. Yet, neither of these worldviews can comfort the tormented soul. They can offer Wiesel no more hope than a theism without a Crucifixion. To view the Holocaust a vile evil and then conclude that this historical event proves that God does not exist, is to presuppose the Lord God Almighty in all the purity of His goodness, as the moral standard. To turn the back in unbelief against the Lord God on account of His choice to allow heinous suffering, does in no way address for Wiesel the vile evil that tormented him. It is painful autobiography of his own rejection of his Creator on the basis of the performance he feels God should have done for him. Indeed, this is Wiesel’s frustration when he writes, “I did not deny God’s existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.”² This is not submitted to minimize the torment that someone like Wiesel endured but to ask the question from where does the one who rejects God on a moral basis derive his morality? It is a pastoral call to counsel people at the root of their pain, to proclaim to them the Holy One in all His power, who alone can heal and comfort them.

Wiesel also records that many of the atrocities against the Jews were committed one to another. In the twilight of starvation, son would murder father for bread. May we rail against the Lord, for not helping us while killing one another? In the midst of his unbelief, Wiesel erupts into prayer, “My God, Lord of the Universe, give me strength never to do what Rabbi Eliahou’s son had done.”³ (Rabbi Eliahou’s son had abandoned his father to his death during a forced march). Ironically, the one prayer that Wiesel cries out in desperation is the very thing that came to pass. He stayed true to his own father until his death.

Man’s concept of goodness is derivative of God as the archetype of goodness. Apart from the Triune God there is no basis for determining good and evil. Consequentially, statements of what is good or that the Holocaust was evil reduce to meaninglessness. “…He is himself the absolutely good, the perfect one, he cannot and may not love anything else except with a view to himself. He cannot and may not be satisfied with anything less than absolute perfection.”⁴ Scripture instructs us in this way, that goodness is understood with God himself as both its source and goal:

6 Many are asking, “Who can show us any good?”Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD. 7 You have filled my heart with greater joy than when their grain and new wine abound. 8 I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. (Psalm 4:6-8, emphasis added)

The child of God may rejoice in the wonder of the revelation of this passage. In these few lines of Hebrew verse the Lord teaches us that there is absolute good, and that this good is an ontological facet in the blinding spectrum of the diadem of His own being. It is the Lord who fills the heart with joy. The basis for peace and rest is that God causes one to dwell in safety (Hiphil imperfect – ynIbeyvi/T).

With the sovereignty of God in His decrees there is always the other side which is not as easily stomached. There are those such as Wiesel who have indeed not found themselves dwelling in safety nor sleeping in peace. Nowhere does God promise His people ease and prosperity, on the contrary, from cover to cover, God’s own testimony in the Scripture is that the world is fallen, and He is working throughout history, even by way of sin, suffering and pain, to redeem a people for Himself. We may, therefore, understand the Bible’s testimony that pain and evil may come our way, resulting from the sinfulness of fallen man, actively permitted by a sovereign God. Bavinck succinctly points out with regard to election and reprobation a principle which transcends “in a sense”⁵ to the problem of pain and evil when he writes, “If God foreknows and permits something, he does this either ‘willingly’ or ‘unwillingly.’ The latter is impossible. Accordingly, only the former remains: God’s permission is an ‘efficacious permission,’ an act of his will.”⁶

Do I have the reason for why God, in the purest light of his goodness, allowed the Holocaust to occur? Indeed, this is not the case; however, the Word of God makes graciously plain to man that war, sin and atrocity serves a purpose in the divine economy. The scriptures soberly remind all who would read that God is not the author of evil but that he does use evil to glorify himself. “God predestined the Fall, and though, as supreme ruler, as Supreme Ruler, he executes his plan even by means of sin; nevertheless, he remains holy and righteous; of his own accord man falls and sins: the guilt is his alone.”⁷

In summary, God in his sovereignty does actively permit pain, suffering, and evil, and that active permission is nothing short of ordaining these things to happen. How is it then that God is not guilty of Auschwitz or any other evil in this world? Much of the answer to this question lies beyond mankind’s ability or privilege to understand. The Apostle Paul gives us the most direct, and arguably the only direct answer, in the ninth chapter of Romans when he writes by way of divine inspiration:

19You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” 20On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? (Ro 9:19-21 NASB95)

In Job’s case the Lord responded to Job’s inquiry by informing him (in the last three chapters of the book) of the nature of Creation, that he was largely ignorant of the nature of the world and the evil in it. John Frame comments with a view towards this question via analogy⁸ between Shakespeare, Macbeth, and Duncan, whom Macbeth murdered. No one would charge Shakespeare as guilty for the murder of Duncan even though Shakespeare is ultimately responsible for his death.⁹ Essentially, what the Reformed tradition argues is that there are two kinds of causalities; i.e., first and second causes. The Westminster Confession of Faith seeks to articulate this same concept when it states:

God from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures; nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.¹⁰

Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He ordereth them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently.¹¹

__________
¹ George Arthur Buttrick. God, Pain and Evil (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1966), 77.

² Elie Wiesel. The Night Trilogy (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 53.

³ ibid., 97.

⁴ Herman Bavinck. The Doctrine of God. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1997), 204.

⁵ Bavinck makes certain, as do I, that the reader understand that we do not advocate that God is the author of sin and evil, but that these are instruments, actively and efficaciously permitted, by which he purposes to manifest the excellencies of His glory (see discussion of God’s glory at the top of p. 390 in Doct. of God).

⁶ Herman Bavinck. The Doctrine of God. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1997), 388.

⁷ ibid., 385.

⁸ Analogies are tools for understanding in derivative fashion and not 1:1 in their correspondence.

⁹ John Frame. The Doctrine of God. (Phillipsburg: P & R, 2002), 179-81.

¹⁰ Westminster Confession of Faith III.1.

¹¹ ibid., V.2.