A theodicy

My cousin, Tommy Barnes, passed away last night. He fought bravely against cancer and faced the end with faith and courage. He was a Baptist minister and a powerful influence for good in many peoples' lives. His loss is grieved by many tonight and he will be dearly missed.

The problem of evil is one that causes many to doubt God's existence. If He is all-powerful, He must not be all-good if He allows suffering in the world, the atheistic argument goes. This argument is not nearly as dispositive as the atheist imagines and is in fact quite weak. However, as Tim Keller points out in his book The Reason for God, when people are suffering or are witnessing suffering in those they love, logical arguments for theodicy fall flat.

The pat answer is the classical theodicy that points to the Fall in Genesis 3. The argument is that God created a perfect world without suffering and this perfection was spoiled by sin. Unfortunately, this argument pretty much assumes a literal 6-day creation and a complete lack of death and suffering in the pre-Fall, Edenic Earth. If you do not interpret Genesis 1-11 as literal history, this argument loses its appeal. The fossilized record of millions of years of suffering and death before the appearance of human life weakens this approach considerably.

Better, more durable answers can be found elsewhere. As Keller argues, in order to complain about God allowing suffering in the world, one must establish that the suffering is unjustified and/or serves no higher purpose. To do so requires God-like knowledge on the part of the complainer. Eventually, Keller powerfully argues that in order to have a God that is transcendent enough to be held responsible for all suffering, He must be transcendent enough to have reasons for allowing it to which we do not have access.

In addition, though we can not know why suffering exists we can at least know that God has participated in it himself. From his incarnation to his crucifixion, God the Son fully participated in the suffering of this world. In this podcast (MP3 link), Keller provides a good summary of this argument.

It basically comes down to God's answer to Job: I'm God and you're not. God has either not chosen to tell us why suffering exists, or we are anyways incapable of understanding it. God asserts that his purposes are just and lays himself on the line to prove that He's serious about it. What He expects from us is that we trust him.

Tommy did not face death cursing his bad luck, but rather with praise on his lips. Didn't he want to watch his little children grow up? Didn't he want many more years with his wife? Didn't he want to stay and lead his church?

I think he took his model from the Lord. When He face the cross, He asked God one last time if there was some other way. Dying an agonizing, undeserved death was not what He wanted to do, but He trusted the Father.

A theodicy is an argument for the goodness of God in spite of the presence of suffering and evil.

I think we've seen one.