Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor

© 2021, Dr. Tamilio

So here is the problem: Christians use several “Omni” words for God.  This is one of the ways that believers define God’s character.  We say, for example, that God is omniscient, which means that God is all-knowing.  We say that God is omnipotent, which means that God is all-powerful.  We say that God is omnipresent, which means that God is everywhere.  And we say that God is omnibenevolent, which means that God is all good.  The presence of evil in the world challenges two of these statements: omnipotence and omnibenevolence.  According to the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher David Hume, if God is unable to prevent evil from happening, then he isn’t omnipotent.  On the other hand, if God is able to prevent evil but chooses not to, then God is not omnibenevolent.  Mind you, this is not my philosophy, but thinkers like Hume have posed serious challenges to our concept of God for eons: all the way back to the composition of the Book of Job, which many Bible scholars say is the oldest book in the Scriptures.

It is safe to assume that most people have been in situations in which they have asked that ubiquitous question: why me?  This is When Bad Things Happen to Good People, to borrow the title of the 1981 bestseller by Rabbi Harold Kushner.  It’s kind of funny: if we connect this homily to last week’s sermon, we could make the argument that none of us are truly good people, in the sense that we are far from perfect.  We are all sinners.  As one of my former students used to say: why shouldn’t “good” people suffer?  What makes them so special?  But that is a quandary for another time.  Suffice it to say, “All of us do time in the gutters,” as Oscar Wilde once wrote.

It’s okay to ask this question: Job essentially does the same thing.  He has suffered beyond imagination.  If you remember the story, God and Satan enter into a bet.  You heard me right: they enter a bet.  Satan questions Job’s righteousness and is allowed to do whatever he wants to him — and he unleashed the hounds of Hell if he wants to, and he does.  Job’s possessions are plundered, all of his children are killed, and even his health is compromised.  Our hero ends up on a heap of ashes wearing sackcloth, a sign of mourning in the Jewish tradition.  He wonders why: why is he suffering?  Even his wife thinks that he must have done something to deserve what is happening.  She tells him to curse God and die — essentially, she is saying, “Blaspheme so God will put you out of your misery.”

But Job does not blaspheme God, because he believes that God is good and his benevolence will ultimately prevail.  The expression “the patience of Job” is inaccurate, because Job is not patient.  However, Job is someone whose faith is without equal.  He knows he is innocent and that, eventually, he will see his Redeemer on his side advocating his cause and righting the wrongs done against his servant.

Every time the book of Job appears in the Revised Common Lectionary, I preach on the doctrine of theodicy — the problem of evil.  I would venture a guess that most pastors do.  Job is ready-made for such sermons.  The irony is that of the millions of sermons that have probably been preached on this book over the centuries, we still do not have an answer.  We do not know why a just, loving, and all-powerful God allows people to suffer.  We probably never will — at least not in this lifetime — but that does not excuse us from asking Scripture the tough questions.  Nor should we settle for the popular (and not too helpful) sayings such as, “God does not give anyone more than they can handle.”  (Please do not say that to anyone who is suffering.)

History is filled with theologians and philosophers who have tried to answer the question, “Why do people suffer?” as we’ve said.  Some say that it is soul-forming.  Our scars say a lot about us.  They are not only witnesses of what we have been through, but they show that we have survived — and some say that we are wiser for them.  While that might be true (that suffering shapes our souls and teaches us some sort of lesson), there is still a problem with this answer.  Does suffering need to be so great?  Couldn’t God have shaped us and taught us with less suffering?  And, of course, there is the fact that not all who suffer survive.  Did God give them more than they can handle?

It may be that suffering is character-forming, but that still does not mean that it is God’s intent for us to suffer or that God causes our suffering.  I think that suffering is due to two types of evil (which we have discussed before): moral evil and natural evil.  Quick review: moral evils are the wrongs we do, and you can even add the good we leave undone.  This has to do with humankind using the free will God gave us for nefarious purposes — hurting others or even hurting ourselves.  Natural evil has to do with natural disasters: earthquakes, fires, floods, and the diseases that plague humanity.  God is not the cause of the pain that all these things cause — nor do I think that God uses them to test us — but evil is the cost of having free will.  Otherwise, we would just be robots.

Maybe that old saying is true: whatever doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.  Maybe we are made stronger by the evil we experience, regardless of where it comes from.  Maybe it teaches us that we shouldn’t take life for granted, or that others suffer, too, so we’re not alone.  Maybe suffering makes us more empathetic.

There are some philosophers who feel that if we were able to look at all of history from the end of time (meaning that you are standing at the very end of time and are looking back on all of human history), you will realize that everything unfolded the way it did for a reason, and that reason is part of God’s overarching plan.  It is very difficult to justify genocides even within such a framework, but maybe it is true.

The fact is, we do not know why God allows us to suffer, even though I do not believe that God is the cause of our suffering.  Maybe it is character-forming.  Maybe we are being tested.  Maybe there is no reason other than that people are sinful and commit horrific acts against one another.

What I do know, though, is that we are not alone in our suffering.  God, through Jesus, suffered beyond anything we can possibly imagine.  He shouldered the sins of humanity and died for them.  If you ever think that no one appreciates what you’re going through, stop and realize that God does.

This has enabled God to identify with us (and us with God) on a personal level.  God is with us through the good and the worst of the worst.  Maybe we suffer so that God can comfort us all the more.  I don’t know.  But I do know that God is good all the time — and all the time, God is good.  Amen.