Life’s Big Questions
IS GOD A DELUSION?
This is a incredibly important question.
· Maybe you have believed there is a god all your life but something has happened. Now you are not so sure. Have you and many others been deluded?
· Maybe you have always been unsure – you are an agnostic - and you like to ponder these things?
· Maybe you are now a convinced atheist. God is a delusion. There is nobody and nothing there and you hope your atheism will be confirmed by my inability to make a good case for believing in God.
· Maybe you are desperate for God but can’t find him – if he is there you would just long to meet him and know him but you fear it may all be a delusion, a vain hope.
It is an intensely personal and relevant question – in fact it is really life’s big question since it is fairly obvious that if there is a god at all it must have some bearing on why we exist and how we are to live and what our destiny is going to be. Eg if you had grown up all your life in a lovely house which you thought was your own; then one day a letter arrives telling you it belongs to someone else, and you had better start paying the rent or you will be evicted. Well it matters whether or not that is true.
That is why it cannot be lightly dismissed. Eg There is probably no god. Now just stop worrying and enjoy your life. So says the current advertising campaign on buses all around England. This slogan is saying that although you can’t be sure there is no god, it makes no real difference; It’s not worth thinking or getting bothered about and that you can actually enjoy life without God or without really worrying about the answer.
Other atheists are not quite so easygoing about it. Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins are absolutely passionate, zealous in their desire to persuade people that God does not exist, that all religion of every kind is a monstrous evil in the world today and that the Christian God is particular if he does exist, is an especially repellent, unworthy and horrendous figure.
Now let’s step back and ask why people believe or don’t believe. Every society in world history until the modern west has believed in a god of some kind. Religion has been universal. I think a majority of people still say they believe in a god of some kind. So why has the modern western world seen a rise in atheism?
- Science they think has disproved God – evolution, big bang – we don’t need a creator to explain the world. All the things we used to put down to the supernatural science has simply explained them away.
- Suffering has discredited God – people accepted suffering in the past but today we are more civilised, more tolerant, less brutal; and we are more aware through TV and papers of the vast scale of suffering
- The variety of views and religions has convinced people that there cannot be one correct view – with all the religions in the world, either none of them know what god is really like or they are all equally deluded.
- The progress in technology and the rise of affluence has made people feel no need for god in order to be happy
- The life, hypocrisy, weakness, deadness and decline of the church has made people feel that the church’s message and its god belong to the primitive, pre-modern past and should be consigned along with the church to the dustbin of history.
- The hiddenness of God has made many people feel he cannot really be there for if he was, he would make himself clearer instead of seeming to hide away
But then there are more personal reasons – the god you believed in has let you down – prayer was not answered, you sought but did not find, you witnessed some devout believer behaving in a really dreadful way.
Or maybe you decided that the god you heard about was a threat to your freedom and you decided at that moment to live as if he did not exist and hope it would make no difference. A modern sense of freedom lies behind much rejection of god.
In an argument against Christianity, Bertrand Russell, the famous 20th century atheist, asserts
“Of course I know that the sort of intellectual arguments that I have been
talking to you about are not what really moves people. What really moves
people to believe in God is not any intellectual argument at all. Most
people believe in God because they have been taught from early infancy to
do it, and that is the main reason.” He adds a second reason, “the wish for
safety, a sort of feeling that there is a big brother who will look after you.”
Again, he writes near the end of the essay, “Religion is based, I think,
primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly terror of the unknown and
partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother
who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of
the whole thing — fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death.”
So where are you in this modern mix – convinced, confused, content to sit on the fence, concerned, eager to break free from the constraints of religion, or wishing there was a god but just no longer able to believe that there is or that if there is, he is neither interested in you nor cares anything about you?
Before looking at why Christians believe that the God of the Bible exists let’s acknowledge that there are many factors which influence our lives. Russell is right but fear, social pressure etc influence people toward atheism as well as faith.
Amiable agnostics will talk cheerfully about "man's search for God." To me, as I then was, they might as well have talked about the mouse's search for the cat. C.S.Lewis
Many people choose not to believe really because they don’t want anybody to restrict their freedom, to lose their friends, because they have never seriously looked for him etc There are moral, social, emotional, relational, experiential as well as intellectual factors influencing your choice.
No belief is acceptable which does not address all the aspects of human life – the mind is not enough. Persuasion must touch the whole person.
I cannot now prove God but I can tell you what the basis is for Christian faith and hope that it makes sense to you and that you can feel its attractiveness and power not just in your mind but your whole being – that it will come home to you as the belief system that fits.
There are 4 broad reasons why I believe God is not a delusion but the greatest reality in existence.
1. The world around us.
Science has not disproved god – it has not, will not and cannot. Tens of thousands of top scientists believe in God. They stand in awe of his creation and everywhere they see signs of ‘intelligent design’.
A world famous atheist Anthony Flew has recently come to accept that the world has a creator. He believes that arguments from design are very powerful. Principally
1. The complexity of human DNA – the information in one human cell equals what would be written in 500 volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britanica
2. The fine-tuning of the universe to allow life to exist and flourish , known as the anthropic principle. There are over 75 different variants all of which had to be precisely right for human life to appear on earth. The odds against them all coming together are totally impossible
Evolution is a red herring since it is perfectly possible to believe this was the method God used. The most difficult issues for those who rely on science to see evolution as a total explanation are.
- Why there is something rather than nothing – how can something come from absolutely nothing. We now know that the universe had a beginning – it is expanding since the big bang – so the universe came into existence at some point – why and how? Could not an eternal, intelligent God be the creating cause behind it?
- Science can explain how the physical universe works – it cannot say why it is here? That is not a scientific question.
Let me tell you that atheism may seem superficially attractive but in the end it leads you into a very dark, grim and ultimately despairing world as many 20th century novelists and philosophers have written.
2. The world within us.
The argument from conscience – the moral argument. All mankind accepts some kind of law of right and wrong but they have not invented it. Where did it come from? It seems to exist independent of us? Maybe there is a lawgiver in whose image we are made and this is his imprint on our inner being?
The existence of human consciousness – a river cannot run higher than its source – without a creator human beings are just complex machines and everything we think of as human is unreal eg love, freedom, personality, moral choices, a hunger and desire for something spiritual – these are the delusions. Can you accept that and really live with it? But if a creator God exists who made us, then these are all real and reflect that we are made in his image to know him and truly know each other.
3. Jesus Christ.
The Christian conviction that God exists rests mainly on the life, death and resurrection of one human being. Jesus of Nazareth. His existence is historically as certain as anything can be. We have 4 independent records which tell of how a group of young Jews came to believe after 3 years in his company that he was the Son of the creator God.
Why did his disciples come to believe he was equal with God?
a. His virgin birth
b. His sinless life
c. His miracles
d. His amazing teaching
e. His wisdom, love and power demonstrated consistently – his power to completely change life for the better
f. His claims – especially that he could forgive sins and would return to judge the world
g. His resurrection
Any of us could claim to be God but no-one would believe us – but those who lived with him believed, not only his disciples but also his family.
4. Personal experience
I guess the clinching argument is that there are multitudes who claim that God has become real for them in personal experience – including me. What do I mean?
I have never heard his voice, seen him, touched him, witnessed a miracle had a vision.
I mean that in my life I have felt needs of various kinds which are matched by the gospel of Jesus Christ – not just in my mind but which actually work when you put them into practice.
Within me there is a need for love, for forgiveness for a sense of moral failure, for power to enable me to truly love others and overcome my selfishness, for moral courage, for hope in this life and beyond the grave, for a perspective that makes sense of suffering and explains why there is evil in the world, for something that explains why there is beauty, for a message that makes sense of human history - I need a big picture, that is able to make sense, put together the tangled threads of my experience – this is what Jesus and his gospel do for me.
It’s like putting on a pair of glasses – suddenly what I see in front of me makes sense.
Face up to a number of things. You must not allow atheists to dismiss your desire for God so easily. Its existence is a pointer to the existence of its source.
“The Christian says, ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find until after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that other country and to help others do the same.’” C.S.Lewis
Finally I challenge you to truly seek God. Maybe he has made himself perfectly clear in Jesus and in the world but you have allowed yourself to be deluded by other voices, by running after the wind, chasing a mirage, imprisoned by guilt or some past pain for which you held God responsible. Are you willing to really, genuinely look for God?
You must choose – all religions can’t be right – they are too radically different – no god, millions of gods, one true God.
Maybe the god you have believed in is a delusion – a distant God, a God who wants you to go to church and try to be good – maybe your god is a delusion but it wasn’t the real god at all.
What should you do?
- Begin your search by reading, thinking, and examining your own arguments against God. Continue your search by refusing to let past pain become an obstacle
- Maybe even the moment has come for you to put God to the test and ask him to reveal himself to you – if you dare.
What is life all about?
Who asks the question – what is the point of life?
· A depressed, suicidal person or anyone without hope for the future.
· Person who has achieved all their dreams and is still unhappy.
· Person whose dreams in life have died, not been achieved.
· Person whose life has been going fine and is suddenly hit by tragedy.
Who ought to ask the question? Everyone.
How can you make any decision in life whatsoever without a belief in the purpose of life? But few people reflect deeply on this question. So what happens? How do people actually live?
People unconsciously absorb a vision of the good life from the world around. They develop without realising it an answer to the question ‘what is the point of life?’ not by deep thought but by being moulded and shaped by society and the groups they are part of and also by their own inner instincts.
Modern people imagine themselves to be free but they are anything but.
They are created by forces all around them. Brainwashed, conditioned by a media saturated society; controlled and driven by their own instincts and appetites. Why do young people almost down to every last one of them grow up thinking that life is about drink, having a good time, sex, etc?
They are moulded as well by their experience of family, school, friends, wider society and especially the media. The cult of celebrity probably epitomises for many their vision of the good life.
There are nevertheless competing, varied visions of what the good life is in our very fragmented society.
Some want to see the world, others to change it
Some want simply an action packed life
But the elements most people are looking for are shaped by their expectations of what they can achieve
Money
Possessions
Friends
Leisure and holidays
Entertainment, amusement, diversion
Good health
Work - not too hard and early retirement with a good pension!
In simple terms people want to be happy and these are the things that they believe will lead to happiness; most are attained by money so the vast majority do the lotto in the hope of escaping their dreary existence into a better world free of care and drudgery.
You would think that life in the western world ought to bring happiness – this is what the rest of the world is striving towards – prosperity and all that goes with it. But under the surface something is wrong.
The church may be dying but spirituality is still around with many seeking their own personal form of spiritual experience away from the structures of organised religion.
The level of unhappiness is evidenced by the scale of alcohol and drug abuse, depression, ill health, suicide and relationship breakdown all of which are at alarming levels.
These things all indicate a desire to escape – to cope with life by escaping the bad feelings and creating good ones.
But the view has taken hold – I have a right to be happy; society owes me a happy life and the means to happiness. Let’s have a look at this way of life.
- It’s incredibly short-term – the desire to feel good all the time is orientated around emotions and experience, no wonder music, drugs, alcohol are important – they alter your mood.
- It’s superficial – the approach that says I just want to have fun and feel happy – what about other people? What about the world? Is there nothing more to be said about life? Is that the answer?
- It’s senseless – it cannot bear a moment’s serious thought.
Materialism denies the spiritual side – man’s hunger for transcendence
Hedonism provides no answer to the pain and tragedy of life – what do you do then? If the sole purpose of life is to be happy, then what place has pain? What benefit or meaning can there be in pain?
- It leaves out morality - it asks only what makes me feel good and never asks what does it mean to be good.
- It omits love – everyone would accept that love is the greatest thing in the world. So how can any answer to the meaning of life be right which is the complete opposite of love and is totally self-centred?
4. It is utterly selfish – people don’t admire selfishness. They know they admire sacrifice. Selfishness hurts other people and destroys society. So whatever the purpose of life is it cannot possibly be a way of life that we do not admire or cannot look up to. When tragedy strikes or when you simply look at the world around and see the mess, the horror and the suffering you have to ask if there is an answer.
So it looks like this – everyone not only wants to be happy, but they actually make every single choice on that basis – even the choice to end your life is made in a belief that you will be happier dead than alive.
Many people after a narrow escape from death fundamentally reassess their life and resolve to live a better life. They look back and feel they have been selfish, they have wasted their lives. They feel they have been given a second chance and that they must do something better. This is a sign that within us all there is a vision of the truly good life but in many it has yet to be born and shape our lives. We have been too busy with the urgent matters of each day to attend to the important longer-term issues of what life is really all about.
Our reflections so far would seem to suggest at least 3 things – that for any answer to the question of what is the point of life it must pass 3 tests.
- Does it recognise the supreme value of love?
- Does it give hope and meaning to suffering and pain?
- Does it give a purpose to live for that is greater than yourself and that would enable you to make the world a better place for the future?
Some will say – each finds their own path and that is the truth for you provided you don’t hurt anyone but that assumes there is no bigger truth. Life can be personally meaningful without recourse to saying there is one truth for everybody. But this evades all the tough questions – is life just about being at peace with yourself? If you look at the wider world and ask what you should do about it you need an answer that applies to everybody.
The Christian answer to the question can be summed up very simply – the purpose of human life is to know God in a personal relationship through Jesus Christ and to join with him in his great project of redeeming the world.
This answer, simple as it may sound, meets every criterion you can think of for a satisfying answer to the human quest for life in its fullness. It is simply bursting with everything that a human being could want in life.
- It gives meaning – it offers us a big picture and big story that tells us what is going on in the world and where we find our place in that. It’s about something bigger than us.
- It’s about relationships – really without love, friendship, relationship, life would be meaningless. Think of the many incredibly rich people who said they were terribly lonely and unhappy. God was in relationship – Father, Son and Spirit from eternity – so at the centre of the universe is a relationship and into that circle of friendship we can be drawn.
So it’s not just any relationship – it’s an intimate friendship with the eternal, triune God.
- It’s about calling – the world has been destroyed by an enemy but God is restoring it, redeeming it, taking it back. There is a place for you in this – your calling. Your calling is glorify God, show forth in your life where you are the beauty of a life lived according to the will and rule of God and to win back the little part of the universe that is your life.
There is also a place for you in the service of the king as we fight against the evil in the world – so you can spend your life and be spent doing something really worthwhile as you see people set free from sin and suffering.
Barack Obama encourages responsibility, challenge, purpose – that is a key part of his appeal – take responsibility to change the world for the better and this stirs something within people. You can see this for yourself.
- It’s about hope – there is a hope here that nothing can destroy. Hopelessness about the world can’t overcome it because after the resurrection we know God is going to win. Pain and sorrow in your own life can’t destroy it because God uses all these things to draw you deeper into an experience of his life and make you more fit for fulfilling your calling.
The outcome of such a life is that there is peace and joy in our hearts, power from God to live, love and serve others, and we are joined to a community of people who share this new vision – other Christians.
There is challenge, excitement here, a grand, sweeping vision of the purpose of human life, something to lift your head, to lift your heart, something to pick a life out of doldrums and give it new direction and something truly to live for.
There is something here that satisfies the longing for contact with something above and beyond this world in worship – contact with the source of all goodness, power, beauty, knowledge and truth; something that provides us with a point of reference for seeking wisdom in life’s decisions.
There is something here that covers every area of your life, not just a part – that gives it integration, wholeness and togetherness.
Multitudes without number have been lifted out of a life of meaninglessness, hopelessness and futility and given something to go for by finding Jesus. He said he came to give life in all its fullness. He can do it for you. It can be the same for anyone who answer his call.
IS THERE LIFE AFTER DEATH?
4 questions
Does it matter?
What is the evidence?
What kind of life is it?
How does life here affect the next life?
Does it matter?
Yes – very much – for if there is another life and if it is connected to this one, then it may hold the key to telling us what this life is about.
Bertrand Russell said “When I die I rot.” What are the implications of saying this?
- There is no meaning to life
- I am not accountable to anybody
- I can make up my own rules
- If I can get away with it I can do whatever I like.
- Life can only be about pleasure here and now since there is no life to come. Enjoy life now, this is not the rehearsal.
That is how people live today and it does not make for a happy society.
On the other hand – if the life to come is in some way the consequence, result of my life here – if this life is the seed and the next life the fruit or harvest, then it becomes the most important factor in deciding how I am going to live.
If I knew one bank was going to go broke and the other going to be successful, which one will I invest all my money in?
What is the evidence?
Humans down the ages have believed in and felt a need for an afterlife – for various reasons – it is a universal human experience. Now some may say that a mere desire for something does not mean it exists but there is more to it than that.
- It is not just a passing desire. It is almost universal; and it is something very deep indeed; for when people think about life they feel often that if there is no life after death that everything in this life becomes empty of meaning. There is something inside people which makes them feel that what they do and what they are should last for ever. If there is no afterlife it seems to deprive this life of significance – everything seems incomplete, and the
efforts we make seem futile. Why sacrifice for the needs of others if in the end nothing makes any difference?
- This desire goes even further and extends to the world in general. No afterlife deprives the world of justice – for clearly justice is not meted out in this life. Everybody feels deep down that there ought to be justice in the world and that if there isn’t that well, you would lose heart. But unless there is justice in a life to come, it certainly doesn’t exist here and now.
- If there is no afterlife it also seems to deprive us of hope in our trials and struggles – once again, it is clear that some people suffer terribly in this life. Is there no future compensation for losses in this life? When does goodness find its reward?
If we are the product of nothing other than physical and chemical forces and reactions, then how do we explain the presence within human beings of such longings? Why aren’t we just like animals?
Is there any hard evidence for those who may easily dismiss the longing as just something we have to get over? How can we know? Well obviously such a thing cannot be proven since you can only know it after you die and then it’s too late Truth has been claimed from various sources
- The argument from the experience of medically 'dead' and resuscitated patients, all of whom, even those formerly skeptical, are utterly convinced of the truth of their 'out-of-the-body' existence and their survival of bodily death. To outside observers there necessarily remains the possibility of doubt; to all, who have had the experience, there is none. It is no more deceptive than waking up in the morning. You may dream that you are awake and in fact be dreaming, but once you are really awake you are in no doubt. There are websites that record thousands of near-death-experiences. All of them taken together tend to say that everyone goes to a place of happiness and light, there is no hell, no such thing as evil, and Jesus appears in them in various forms.
- A similar sense of reality attaches to an experience apparently even more common than the out-of-the-body experience. Shortly after a loved one dies (most usually a spouse), the survivor often has a sudden, unexpected and utterly convincing sense of the real here-and-now presence of the dead one. It is not a memory, or a wish, or an image from the imagination. It is not usually accompanied by an image at all. But it is utterly convincing to the experiencer.
Séances, visions – but are they reliable? Could they not all be tricks of the mind? A great number of people lay claim to being mediums ie able to contact the dead and transmit messages to us from them. Obviously it is impossible to prove this either way.
Now since this is such an important question we need as much certainty as we can. Is there someone who has the knowledge and whom we can trust? Is there anyone who has taught us about life after death and then after their own death, returned to confirm their teaching? I believe this is what Jesus has done.
What did he teach ? The traditional doctrines of heaven and hell
All will be judged – but those who know and serve God will go to be with God; those who reject God will go to outer darkness. Many feel there is a basic sense to this but the concept of hell troubles them. But what both heaven and hell are about is that we will enter fully into the outcome and consequences of our choices – if we choose God we shall go to live with God; if we say no to God we shall live on but in an existence where his blessing has been totally withdrawn – something of truly terrible horror and darkness.
Well, what is the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth?
The belief in the resurrection is objected to on various grounds eg
· He never died, he just swooned and revived in the cool of the tomb.
· The disciples went to the wrong tomb
· The early stories were of his message living on and these became changed into a myth about he himself living on
· The so-called appearances were the hallucinations of grief-stricken people.
· Miracles simply do not happen. We should have some sympathy for this point because we do not want to see miracles as an easy explanation. But we also must not rule them out and this is no ordinary set of circumstances.
But the resurrection is based on very strong reasons and has stood the test of much enquiry
- Jesus said he would rise from the dead and this was a necessary part of his teaching that the kingdom of God was now here – a power which would conquer the evil in the world, of which death is the most powerful fact. If Jesus did not rise then his entire message is false. The resurrection fits the expected pattern that Jesus having suffered, must rise to defeat death and become the seed from which a new creation would emerge – it is the sign of God’s victory.
- The tomb was empty – and no-one ever produced a body – the enemies could have done; the disciples could never have stolen it in the first place for it was closely guarded. The disciples proclaimed the bodily resurrection of Jesus right from the start and no body was produced to prove them wrong.
- The appearances do not fit known hallucinatory patterns – they were varied in time, place, large numbers of people, and suddenly stopping after 40 days. Furthermore no Jews believed that a person could be resurrected until the end of time when the whole world would be renewed and all the dead raised. So they weren’t expecting Jesus to rise again.
- The disciples changed dramatically and were filled with power, courage and conviction so that they travelled the world and preached and all died for their beliefs.
- The explosive appearance and spread of the Christian church is further, if more indirect, evidence.
Well what does this mean? If Jesus rose from the dead then you have to accept everything he said; if he didn’t you can ignore it all. If he rose, then it becomes the central fact of reality – we can’t go on living as if it didn’t happen.
The resurrection of Jesus was not accepted as some isolated event but as the key to a whole new vision of the meaning of the world viz. that Jesus was the beginning of the renewal of the whole creation, hinted at in his miracles, and now evidenced in the outpouring of his Spirit.
It has very personal consequences. The belief that there is a heaven to be gained and a hell to be shunned lifts life onto a new level and gives it real meaning. It also makes life a much more serious business. It matters hugely how we live for all our actions have results that will last for ever.
There is a point to being good – for its full reward lies in the life to come. This does not mean we are saved by good works but it means that if we follow Jesus in a life of faith and obedience, then we will also share the same future as the one he has already entered into – resurrection in a new life with God ruling over the new creation.
There is a hope to sustain us in suffering and death.
It means that the purpose God has for our lives can enable us to build something that will stand for ever. Life is not futile. Everything will find its reward.
Finally the resurrection of Jesus is not just about surviving death , it is the pledge and beginning of the restoration of the whole created universe which means that there is a point and promise in working for a better world. Karl Marx said religion was the opium of the people, meaning that by promising people a better life in the world to come, you avoided the challenge of trying to better their circumstances in the here and now. This is not true. The resurrection of Jesus is not about escaping this world but about God remaking it and reclaiming it. Therefore all followers of Jesus must continue his healing and caring ministry.
The question is whom will you trust and what basis will you live on? You cannot sit o the fence. Speculation and the mystical experiences of others are a poor guide. The various religions offer totally differing points of view. In the midst of the mirages stands a solid rock – the risen Jesus. Trust him and you will be on the right track.
WHY IS THERE SO MUCH SUFFERING?
My journey – do I know much about difficult times? I suppose 4 times of major testing stand out in a fairly ordinary life.
· My father’s death from cancer when I was 22
· My involvement as a pastor at the time of the Enniskillen bomb
· Surgery for bowel cancer at age 36 just after I had got engaged
· My son Peter being diagnosed with autism 8 years ago.
Like just about everybody else I have known times of challenge, criticism, conflict, loneliness and disappointment.
This is a talk aimed at the questions about God that suffering raises but let it be said first that intellectual answers are not the only thing we need. In life’s anguish and trials a little bit of courage and steadfast, loving support from friends is what counts more than anything in the initial stages. The search for answers may come later.
But I suppose that is where the problem with God starts – why has he allowed this? Why hasn’t he answered my prayer? Why does he seem to have abandoned me and gone away? I am going to make many references to the Nazi Concentration camps because they epitomise suffering on a vast scale which God did not stop. Elie Wiesel records in stunning words his first night in Auschwitz.
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seen times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever... Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.”
I recently came across an interesting piece of research that shows that the experience of the holocaust did not destroy the faith of everyone who went through it. Almost half survived the experience with their religious convictions unchanged; 11% lost their faith, and 5% found a faith in God in the concentration camps.
So for some suffering leads to atheism but to others it leads to rebellion; there may be a god of some kind but he certainly can’t be trusted and loved.
The core problem for Christians is expressed well in the words of a young woman. Quote Keller p. 22. This is one of the most common objections to God and it cannot simply be ignored. Why did God make the world knowing how awful it would turn out to be? How can the end result possibly justify the scale of suffering that it produced?
Why doesn’t he appear to act powerfully to stop evil and suffering?
Suffering comes in different ways
Personal – the issue is how we shall actually manage and get through
Worldwide – famines, wars, etc – we are appalled at the scale and apparent injustice of it all .
So any faith must pass two tests – intellectual -can I sustain it? Practical - can it sustain me?
Is it God’s fault? It is often pointed out that most suffering in the world is caused by humans inflicting injury and cruelty on others; some of it is even deserved; this is true. We must not blame God where it is clearly not his fault. But the question still seems to remain – why does God let it happen? Especially when the innocent suffer in huge numbers? And what about natural disasters like tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, hurricanes and floods?
Herein lies a real twist – suffering is also a problem for those who don’t believe in God at all. Here are two difficult questions for the atheist.
1. Since most suffering is caused by man how can you continue to believe in the goodness of human nature?
2. If there is no God then there is nothing to protest about – suffering is just part of the world evolving in an empty universe with no ruler or maker. There is no reason or basis for being angry about suffering. How can you protest about cruelty and injustice when there is no such thing as justice or kindness in the universe? How can there be tragedy in a world where no-one is in charge? “Only a personal God can be asked by the rebel for a personal accounting.” Albert Camus
So strangely suffering actually needs there to be a God in order for us to make sense of its anguish – this is why some people do not conclude God does not exist but rather they either turn against him and rebel, protest; or else they conclude he is not the God the Bible says he is.
Man’s Search For Meaning is the name of a famous book written by an Austrian psychologist Victor Frankl. His book Man's Search for Meaning (first published in 1946) chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate and describes his psychotherapeutic method of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most sordid ones, and thus a reason to continue living. It was due to his and others' suffering in these camps that he came to his hallmark conclusion that even in the most absurd, painful and dehumanized situation, life has potential meaning and that therefore even suffering is meaningful. Another important conclusion of Frankl was:
If a prisoner felt that he could no longer endure the realities of camp life, he found a way out in his mental life - an invaluable opportunity to dwell in the spiritual domain, the one that the SS were unable to destroy. Spiritual life strengthened the prisoner, helped him adapt, and thereby improved his chances of survival.
So it seems that beyond the immediate need of finding ways to cope we do need to search for meaning. This cry for meaning would also appear to be a cry for God, a God who knows all things.
Job’s experience shows us that the final answer to all these things is actually beyond us – so we may need to adjust our expectations – that we can have a sufficient answer, if not an exhaustive one. If God could be fully understood by us he would not be worthy of worship. We need to know that God knows the answers.
God permits suffering
Could God have made a world where there would have been no suffering? Most of us believe it is a good thing to be free and it is hard to imagine freedom without the possibility of wrong choices.
Why doesn’t God intervene to stop it all? Stop what? If he stopped all sin then all life would halt. God’s plan to eradicate sin and suffering are long term. He quite clearly has chosen not to intervene to stop every sinful or cruel act in his world. If he did the world would immediately grind to a halt. Unless God permitted the exercise of freedom life could not continue at all.
God does intervene and it may often happen in ways that we never see
You perhaps want him to allow some sin but not others but where is he to draw the line? If someone wanted to say “well, God could and should have stopped this particular event; or at least he should be stopping more of the really terrible things that happen in our world.”, we would ask
· Do you want him to stop you when you choose to do things that are wrong or are your sins ones which should be permitted?
· How committed are you to eradicating wrongdoing from your life? Are you as committed to this as you want God to be to eradicating sin from his world?
The gospel is the main way of God changing evil and suffering. If everyone lived as the Bible taught there would be no more suffering
God is with us in our suffering
For those who say all this doesn’t get God off the hook, we now point out that God actually put himself on the hook. He came as Jesus the man of sorrows
- Gethsemane – Jesus understands your sorrow
- He knows what it is to utter a prayer that cannot be answered
- He sets an example of sharing and seeking support
- He submits to God
- He trusted God
- He received special strength from God to go on
- God does love us.
God is able to use suffering to bring good
Families of those who die are desperate for their deaths not to be in vain. Can we say that suffering is not in vain? In the lives of those who trust God – yes. Good comes from it it many ways – Romans 8:28 It is not always immediate or obvious.
Just because we can’t see a reason for something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist – we can’t see everything
Eg God is active in the world in judgment and sometimes he has to bring down the idols that are laying hold of people. We execute punishment on criminals and believe that is a good thing.
Generally without suffering we would not either think or really address things in our lives that need to change. “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience but shouts in our pains; it is his megaphone to waken a deaf world.” CSLewis
God brings about deep lessons in our lives from suffering – the testing produces strength, courage, understanding, faith, hope and love which we are then called on to share with others. The light shines brighter in the darkness and with the darkness all around it brings out the deeper, richer colours.
The cross is the supreme example – the wickedest act ever committed and yet through God was bringing salvation to the world.
Paul Tournier “The purpose of life is not the absence of suffering but that the suffering should bear fruit. “ The greatest saints have all studied in the school of suffering.
The picture is often used of a seed dying to produce a harvest – your suffering may be the price God asks you to pay in order to reduce it in the lives of others.
How will we respond – the sun that melts the wax hardens the clay. What is God really like and what is he doing with this world? To be able to overcome suffering in our own lives and fight against evil we need something more. Here it is.
God will triumph over evil and suffering.
God is doing something about suffering – he is not remote, indifferent and inactive
He has come
it’s Friday but Sunday’s comin – this has the power to awaken faith, hope and love
The sun is still shining at night – it is only that we are not turned towards it – but the dawn of a new day is only a matter of time – He will make all things new. The inmates of the Nazi camps began to change when they heard the fighting in the distance for they knew the regime was falling.
The basis for this is the resurrection
The new creation gives us a hope of justice, a hope of a new and perfect world.
A hope of knowledge when we shall receive an answer to our questions
It also gives us power to love and to do something about the suffering in the world
As with all the other questions it comes back to Jesus – the Christian answer is not a philosophy worked out as we observe the world at large but a conviction that Jesus is the key that unlocks the mystery.
Can I know God?
We have looked at a series of questions and shown that there is a basis for believing the God of the Bible exists and that he is the author and source of true life. The final issue is how can I get that life? How can I make the connection between me and God which will bring me the life for which I was created?
What is Christianity? Some say it is a philosophy, others say it is an ethical stance, while still others claim it is actually an experience. None of these things really gets to the heart of the matter, however. Each is something a Christian has, but not one of them serves as a definition of what a Christian is. Christianity has at its core a transaction between a person and God. A person who becomes a Christian moves from knowing about God distantly to knowing about him directly and intimately. Christianity is knowing God. “Now this is eternal life; that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” --John 17:3
This is different from formal religion and carrying out religious observances to an unknown deity
To know someone is to have personal contact and to be part of their life - so we experience God in our lives and we join in with him in what he is doing in the world. Our relationship with God is patterned on that of Jesus himself so one way to describe it is that we begin a process of becoming like Jesus as one who lived in love and obedience to the Father.
It is clear that the initiative must come from God’s side – he must establish a point where we can make contact. He has - it is Jesus and we make contact with God through believing his gospel. So what does that gospel tell us? The gospel gives us the necessary knowledge and it then tells us what we must do.
It tells us everything we need to know and do in order to come to God through Jesus.
1) Who we are:
God’s creation. God created us and built us for a relationship with him. We belong to him, and we owe him gratitude for every breath, every moment, everything. Because humans were built to live for him (to worship), we will always try to worship something – if not God, we will choose some other object of ultimate devotion to give our lives meaning.
Sinners. We have all chosen (and re-affirm daily) to reject God and to make our own joy and happiness our highest priority. We do not want to worship God and surrender ourself as master, yet we are built to worship, so we cling to idols, centering our lives on things that promise to give us meaning: success, relationships, money, love, comfort, and so on. Accept God’s Word – my life is wrong root and branch
In spiritual bondage. To live for anything else but God leads to breakdown and decay. When a fish leaves the water, which he was built for, he is not free, but dead. Worshiping other things besides God leads to a breakdown: they cannot deliver satisfaction, because they were never meant to be “gods.” They were never meant to replace God. Worshipping other things besides God also leads to confusion. We end up defining ourselves in terms of our achievement in these things. We must have them or all is lost; so they drive us to work too hard, or they fill us with terror if they are jeopardized.
2) Who God is:
Love and justice. His active concern is for our joy and well-being. Most people love those who love them, yet God loves and seeks the good even of people who are his enemies. But because God is good and loving, he cannot tolerate evil. The opposite of love is not anger, but indifference. “The more you love your son, the more you hate in him the liar, the drunkard, the traitor,” (E. Gifford). To imagine God’s situation, imagine a judge who also is a father, who sits at the trial of his guilty son. A judge knows he cannot let his son go, for without justice no society can survive. How much less can a loving God merely ignore or suspend justice for us—who are loved, yet guilty of rebellion against his loving authority?
So the initiative will have to come from his side We lack knowledge and the moral qualifications. We are helpless but God has made himself come into the world and done certain things which affect everybody – this leads us to Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ. Jesus is God himself come to Earth. He first lived a perfect life, loving God with all his heart, soul, and mind, fulfilling all human obligation to God. He lived the life you owed—a perfect record. Then, instead of receiving his deserved reward
(eternal life), Jesus gave his life as a sacrifice for our sins, taking the punishment and death each of us owed. When we believe in him: 1) our sins are paid for by his death, and 2) his perfect life record is transferred to our account. So God accepts and regards us as if we have done all Christ has done.
In order to form a personal relationship with God, you must know
3) What you must do:
Repent. There first must be an admission that you have been living as your own master, worshipping the wrong things, violating God’s loving laws. “Repentance” means you ask forgiveness and turn from that stance with a willingness to live for and center on him.
Believe. Faith is transferring your trust from your own efforts to the efforts of Christ.
You were relying on other things to make you acceptable, but now you consciously begin relying on what Jesus did for your acceptance with God. All you need is nothing. If you think, “God owes me something for all my efforts,” you are still on the outside.
Pray after this fashion: “I see I am more flawed and sinful than I ever dared believe, but that I am even more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I turn from my old life of living for myself. I have nothing in my record to merit your approval, but I now rest in what Jesus did and ask to be accepted into God’s family for his sake.”
What do you get in this relationship?
1. Forgiveness – all our sins can be wiped away and we can be fully accepted into fellowship with God.
2. Love – we are adopted into God’s family and treated henceforth as his beloved children
3. Power – the Spirit comes to dwell in us and gives us the power to live a new life
4. Wisdom – God’s Word becomes the means through which he instructs us with the knowledge of how to live the good life. His wisdom gives us an understanding of everything in life and of the big picture of why the universe exists.
5. Hope – no situation however difficult can conquer his purpose for us. Look forward to a new world – made perfect, loving society in a renewed world – hope
6. Community – there are other Christians who become our brothers and sisters who support us along the way
7. Enjoyment – we can glorify God and enjoy him in all the experiences of life.
8. Mission – he gives us a role in his great world-wide programme of bringing forward the new creation
9. Security – we have a deep assurance that our lives and the life of the world is in God’s hands
10. Joy – the NT is full of it – esp 1st Peter 1:8
11. Freedom – freedom from bondage, addictions, sin, the things that destroy our lives
12. Calling – your life gets a purpose. You can begin to serve God through your daily life and with the gifts he has given to advance his glory and rule in the world.
Through worship, prayer, teaching and service we can develop this relationship and it grows deeper throughout our lives.
What if I’m not ready to proceed? Here are some possible barriers.
Content issues. Do you understand the basics of the Christian message—sin, Jesus as God, Christ’s sacrifice, faith?
Conviction issues. Are there intellectual problems you have with Christianity? Are there objections to the Christian faith that you cannot resolve in your own mind?
Cost issues. Do you perceive that a move into full Christian faith will cost you dear
What fears do you have about commitment?
If a person feels no need for God at all what can they do? Are they condemned to wait until God moves them? The answer is ‘seek God’. Hebrews 12:5-6
- Seeking = go where God is
- listen to the gospel
- diligently, earnestly, persistently seek,
- pursue until we find
- Pray that he will reveal himself
Why should you seek God even if you feel absolutely no movement within you to do so?
1. Because he is your Creator and you owe him
2. Because he has demonstrated his love for you in the life of Jesus Christ
3. Because whether or not you know God is a life and death issue for eternity
4. Because rationally we have been able to show that there are strong clues that God is real and the Christian vision of life is immensely convincing and attractive
5. Because you will never find out the answer if you don’t start to make a move – you cannot think, doubt and sit on the fence for ever. Life is passing by.
6. Because it is clear that the alternative visions of life on offer are not worthy. They may be easy and attractive, but they will not truly satisfy nor will they sustain you when trouble comes.