In Times of Trouble featuring Lucy Stimpson- Maynard from the album “I Look Up To The Heavens” recorded and produced by John Hodgkinson

Last week I suggested that there is evil in the world as a consequence of God giving us the capacity to love.  Love is not love if it is forced and that’s why God gave us free will. The problem with having free will is that some will choose to harm one another rather than love.

But what about suffering – why does God allow that? One could hardly say that suffering is always the consequence of evil ,although of course it can be.

When I first attended an Alpha Course a number of books were recommended, including one by a guy with a great name – Stephen Gaukroger.  It’s called “It Makes Sense” and its chapters include “What about other religions? “Can we trust the Bible?” and “Science and Faith – is there a conflict?”  There is also a chapter “What about all the suffering?”  Looking through my bookshelf I also found “The Case against Christ” by John Young that has a chapter “Why does God allow Suffering?” Alpha originator, Nicky Gumbel has something similar in his book “Searching Issues”

All three authors accept that there are no easy answers to this most difficult of questions; however Glaukroger suggests that what we can do is fit together some jigsaw pieces in order to get a picture.  So let’s have a look at some of these jigsaw pieces.

Jigsaw piece one:

A lot of suffering is our own fault – it is not fair to blame God when a drunken driver kills an innocent pedestrian of if somebody is knifed over the colour of their skin, religion, or politics or because they looked at someone the “wrong way.”

It is man’s inhumanity to man  that condemns  people to poverty and hunger and even war.  No doubt we can say that we are not to blame for such horror but can any of us say we have never caused anyone any suffering – have never said an angry word or being guilty of selfishness?  Glaukroger concludes that we are all guilty of contributing to the suffering in the world and the only way that God could get rid of all the suffering is my getting rid of us- humankind, or by turning us into robots with no free will.

But of course  not all  suffering  in the world  is caused by us humans and next week  I will look at jigsaw piece number two which is “What about natural disasters? ”