Smoodock's Blog

Some folks may believe an argument could be made against point of view on suffering as expressed in my previous blog. It could be said that I dodged a more difficult proposition that, supposedly, God could selectively intervene in cases of extreme suffering, as the God of the Bible often did for various reasons throughout Biblical history. However, to claim that God can’t intervene because that would somehow make us less responsible would effectively be the same as a god that doesn’t exist. If we push the efficacy of God back to the unknowable afterlife, then what value is God here and now?

Of course, this proposition presupposes that God has not already intervened to alleviate “some” suffering. And, my argument would be—I believe he has. Prayer changes people and events. What God does on our behalf may not always be completely to our liking, but it is according to the will of a benevolent and all wise God. There are testimonies of complete healing and others for partial alleviation of the suffering endured. But even this doesn’t take into consideration the possibility that God would not allow certain matters to occur in the first place. If they didn’t occur, how could we know God had already prevented the matter in the first place? All we are permitted to know is what has taken place in time and space, but this does not mean we have access to all knowledge about any matter.

The Christian point of view is, therefore, God does, in fact, intervene to alleviate some suffering, and this according to the testimonies of some people—often people we know. But what about that suffering caused by people whether by accident or through evil intentions? According to my previous blog, I said that, because we have freewill and are made to be responsible for the choices we make, some suffering will occur over and above what would have been necessary had humanity not rebelled against God. Does this mean that God cannot or will not intervene to alleviate suffering/evil, because to do so would make us less responsible for what we do?

No, but I believe answered prayer is at work here once again. A case in point would be the outcome of World War II. Many would like to believe that the West or the Allies won the war through superiority of intelligence and power, but anyone who has listened to or watched the news reviews of what actually occurred would know the war could have gone either way. In fact, it seemed several efforts were biased in favor of the Allies for no apparent reason. Peculiarities occurred that favored the Allied position, and in the end they were able to capitalize upon and bring about the eventual defeat of the Axis powers. Much suffering occurred to bring about that defeat, but untold suffering was prevented through the defeat of Hitler. My personal judgment of the peculiarities that biased the war in favor of the Allies was due to answered prayers. Nevertheless, how does one prove such an opinion? I cannot objectively prove my case, but can it be objectively denied that God did not intervene, unnoticed, and grant favor to the Allied efforts over the Axis powers?

One may support either position subjectively, but subjective judgments are, at best, simply interesting opinions. Nevertheless, we simply have no objective proof either way. All we can conclude is suffering does exist, and God has not intervened to remove its presence. We may claim what we wish concerning this, but it does not preclude God being in control and already having intervened from time to time to prevent some evil and or suffering from occurring.