Why, God? Trust.

I wrote earlier about some of my thoughts on suffering and why it happens.  It's such a big topic that even two posts doesn't do it justice.  But here's some more thoughts.

How do you explain natural disasters, things that just 'happen?'  Are they the result of choices too?  How?  Earthquakes and volcanoes, floods and hurricanes are all the result of living on a dynamic world- plate tectonics and weather are essential for life to exist.  But if God is all powerful, why did he design a world like this, with what you might consider a built-in flaw?  Couldn't he have done it some other way?

Then there's the idea that the world has to include bad things and suffering for us to know what is good, to know right and wrong - that there has to be bad for there to be good.  I suppose there is some merit in that, but it doesn't really answer the question.  Why would anyone design a world like that, if they cared about the people in it?  

So the biggest question is still why, if God cares about the world, he allows suffering to happen?  I think possibly the only answer is what we can learn from what God does about suffering.  He, as Jesus, came to Earth as a baby born to a poor family.  He went into the desert to suffer hunger and thirst.  He was criticised by the authorities, betrayed by his friend, beaten and mocked and finally killed in an incredibly cruel manner.  No one can say that God hasn't shared our sufferings.

I don't agree with the view of a God who just makes the world, winds the 'clockwork,'sets it running and sits back to watch.  The God I believe in didn't.  He stepped in to deal with the problem of suffering.  Couldn't he have done it another way, that didn't involve suffering himself?  I don't know.  But he chose to do it that way, to suffer with us, as one of us.

So the real answer to the question is that I don't know exactly why there has to be suffering.  But I trust that if there is suffering in the world, it must be there for a reason, even if it's not one I can understand.  And I don't believe that God is cruel and enjoys watching our suffering.  Otherwise why would he give the life of his own son, who he says he loves, to try to sort the problem out?

The answer I give is that I trust God.  Not blind, unthinking trust, I think about it a lot.  Why do I trust God?  Because I believe he is trustworthy, from my own experience and that of others, and from the Bible.*  So my response to suffering is similar to that of the clergyman mentioned in the BBC article: to pray.  To tell God that I don't understand, and to ask for his reassurance.  And to ask for him to intervene in the world to alleviate the suffering.

As a footnote to this, see this WordLive session on the last plague on the Egyptians.

*To go into further detail on this would be opening up a whole other can of worms.  Later!