The only difference between humankind and the animals of the world is the ability mankind has to reason. With this comes a number of consequences, but the greatest of these is the presence of mental suffering. While all living creatures experience at some point the feeling of physical pain, only humans experience the psychological struggles that accompany life’s many circumstances. The painful feeling of a breakup, the mental battle that one endures while a friend is in a place of weakness, the heartache of losing a member of one’s family. It is these things that create such a gulf between man and beast.
Yet why does God allow this? How is it that, in the face of all this, people can turn around and assert that there is a good and loving God in control of all the universe? Not only does God subject His children to physical pain, He compounds it with the addition of emotional heartache and mental distress. Yet we say that the world was created by a good and loving God. With all the pain and suffering that saturates the world we live in, we can certainly claim that it is not logic that leads us to such a claim. Call it revelation or discovery or faith, but whatever it is, it is not logic. Logic points to either no god at all, or a very cruel one at best. Yet we stand in the face of this and make the daring assertion that man’s wisdom is futile in light of the greatness of the glory of God. We see, through the eyes of a redeemed heart, that suffering and pain may not be the result of a cruel god or an atheist worldview which credits the effects of an evolution polluted by violent happenstance. Rather, we find in the life of Christ something much different, much more profound.
You see, if it is true that suffering is inherently evil, then why would Christ have chosen it? Not only why would he choose it, but why would he choose something so torturous and barbaric as that of the cross? Would it not be against his very nature to choose a means which entailed associating with his greatest enemy? Does taking on and defeating sin mean that Christ had to be in league with it? Certainly not! So we must consider that there may have been some other way. Either pain and suffering are not inherently evil, meaning that evil is something completely different in and of itself, or Christ was willing to actually become not only sin, but evil itself, and therefore he was not the Christ at all and our faith is in vain. If this is the case, then Paul’s fear has come to life, and “we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Cor 15:19)
At first glance, we have great difficulty deriving the claim that pain and evil are somehow different, since our Western understanding of evil is so deeply conjoined with that of pain and suffering. When this is the conclusion one arrives at, I contend that our understanding of evil is flawed within its very definition. Evil must be that which opposes God and/or His perfect will. But we have taken this one step further, claiming that evil also contains within its essence anything that might be construed as being unpleasant or uncomfortable for us.
But if this were so, why would Paul say, “We exult in our afflictions?” (Rom 5:3) And why does the writer of Hebrews portray suffering not as something that is negative for the believer, but rather a means to righteousness? (Heb 12:3-11) How come Christ claims to choose suffering in order that God “be glorified?” Indeed, he certainly chooses it: “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” (John 10:18) If there were ever a time to avoid suffering, it would be this one, where the very son of God was to be tortured and left to die for crimes he did not commit. If nothing else, we would assume that Jesus would have kept some sort of distance from suffering, since it is not in God’s nature to entangle Himself with sin. Yet he willingly chose to endure the cross for our sake, and in choosing to follow Christ, we choose a life of suffering.
If one of the great questions within the discussion of the problem of evil is “Why do bad things happen to good people?,” then why does it seem that Scripture tells the Christian to expect and rejoice in suffering as a part of following Christ? Of all people, are not those made righteous in Christ the least deserving of pain and suffering? I submit that the suffering that is to be expected by believers is to continually remind us of our dependence on Christ.
When Peter wrote the first of his two letters, he made it a point to those being persecuted for their faith that their suffering was not to be avoided, but rather rejoiced in. This continual theme of rejoicing in and choosing to endure suffering leads us to believe that suffering is not only without evil, but can be seen in a very postive light, in that it is a tool that God uses for the refining of His children. We can also assume that suffering is a reflection of God’s refinement-or cleansing-of evil, but not evil itself. We are content to suffer and delight in it because, as Paul stated, ”when [we] are weak, [we] are strong.” (2 Cor 12:10) It is in weakness that we find ourselves utterly dependent on the strength that only Christ possesses. And it is only here that we are made full and complete, for our delight no longer rests in the comforts of this life, but in Christ himself. We may fall into the tragic mindset that deems happiness in the wealth that Christ can bring, but what if it is not his will? What if he has greater plans? The problem with that reasoning is, as John Piper states, that “it swallows up the beauty of Christ in the beauty of his gifts.”
When we come to those terrible trials in life, we must continually remind ourselves to “consider it pure joy,” as James states in his letter. Does evil exist? Certainly! But pain is not evil. Pain is many times Satan’s perversion of joy in order to discourage the believer and to shake his/her faith, but it is also the means by which our good and loving creator shapes us into a blamelessness that better reflects His awesome glory. What Satan intends for destruction, God wills for life, and life to the full.