Pain and suffering, according to Tim Keller--more from his book

Here's more from Keller's powerful book on pain and suffering as it relates to the existence of God (the full title is Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering):

He says we in the West think we can solve suffering through public policy. But the world's darkness is too deep to be dispelled by such things. In our pride, we think we can control and defeat the darkness. Pain and suffering in this world are pervasive and deep and have spiritual roots. If we're going to face it, it takes more than earthly resources. One of the main teachings of the Bible is that almost no one grows into greatness or finds God without suffering, without pain coming into our lives like smelling salts to wake us up to all sorts of facts about life in our own hearts to which we were blind. I underlined that statement because it seems central to Keller's message, as unpleasant as it sounds to us.

In Chapter 4 he discusses the history of the argument against God due to pain and suffering. The argument from evil never had anything like popular appeal and broad attraction until sometime after the Enlightenment. Things changed when Western thought came to see God as more remote, and to see the world is ultimately understandable through reason. Human beings became far more confident in their own powers of reason and perception.

Modern discussions of the problem of suffering start with an abstract God. Modern people are far more prone than their ancestors to conclude that, if they can see no good reason for particular instance of suffering, God cannot have any justifiable reasons for it either. If evil does not make sense to us, well, evil simply does not make sense. It has been widely conceded that the logical argument against God (the argument against God from evil) didn't work. Skeptical thinkers began to formulate a new version called the evidential argument against God. A much weaker claim was made, namely that suffering is not proof but evidence that makes the existence of God less probable, although not impossible.

Keller's next section of his book deals with traditional answers to the problem of evil. Some people said suffering is good because it provides "soul-making." But pain and evil do not appear in any way to be distributed according to soul-making need. Many people with very bad souls get little of the adversity they apparently need. This also does not account for the suffering of little children or infants who die in pain.

A second explanation is the free-will version. Free will can be abused and that brings evil. There are two problems with this. The first is that it seems to explain only a certain category of evil – moral but not natural. The second problem is this – Is it really true that God could not create free agents capable of love without making them also capable of evil? If God has a free will yet is not capable of doing wrong, why couldn't other beings be like that? It assumes that despite the horrendous evils of history, merely having freedom of choice is worth it. But is it?

Another way to argue for the problem of evil was put forth by C. S. Lewis in his book The Problem of Pain. It argues that the world created by God must have a natural order to it. If we break natural laws, it must rebound on us. But most suffering does not happen in an orderly way. People suffer even if they haven't done something stupid.

Well, there's much more Keller covers in the rest of the book. Because the topic is so important, I want to discuss additional portions of the book in future blogs.