Does Suffering and Death Equate to God’s Non-Existence?

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@RosaRubicondior from Twitter wrote an article on her blog (rosarubicondior.blogspot.com) titled, “Why Your God Doesn’t Exist” in which she equated God’s not taking action and stopping suffering and death to His non-existence.

Rosa’s article really shows that she has not read the Bible… or at least if she has read the Bible, that she does not understand it; be it her not understanding the Bible by choice or not I don’t know nor do I know if that she does understand the Bible and yet still miss portrays it on purpose. Either way, that’s between her and God, not me.

The answer to why there is suffering and death is clearly and plainly described in the Bible; Genesis chapters 1–3. God created a “very good” world, but Adam’s rebellion brought a curse and death. Disease and death in the fossil record reflect this curse as does death and suffering which exists today. In fact, anyone who considers suffering and death as problems, is actually confirming God’s existence.

As some think God is incapable of stopping suffering and death, or that His slowness to respond to suffering and death is immoral, or that God is non-existent because there is suffering and death; reality is, God is being patient with those people who have not yet chosen to have eternal life with Him who He knows will. God is not wanting anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance and have eternal life with Him (2 Peter 3:9 and John 3:16).

A person only needs to open the Bible and read Genesis chapters 1–3 to know the beginning of things—God created everything in six ordinary days. We read of a perfect creation in which there was no suffering or death. God looked at His creation and called it “very good” (Genesis 1:31). Then death came as a direct result of Adam’s disobedience (Genesis 2:17).

Adam knew there was a consequence (death) to his actions. When Adam took and ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, suffering and death entered God’s perfect creation. To remedy man’s tarnishing His perfect creation, Christ Jesus (God’s only begotten Son) came to pay the wages (Romans 6:23) for Adam’s and our actions “For since by man came death, by Man [Christ Jesus] also came the resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:21).

Our world is broken, marred by suffering and death. We must understand that our sin is what broke and is breaking God’s perfect creation. The original suffering and death in this world is the first Adam’s fault, the consequence of his disobedience to a holy God. The continued suffering and death are your and my fault. We are all sinners because we are descended from Adam and a whole line of sinners and we, too, rebel against God’s command (Romans 5:12). Not a single one of us is innocent. As a result of our sin “the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now” (Romans 8:22).

God in the Bible actually informs everyone that suffering will occur (Genesis 1–3), and that He has overcome the world (materialistic dogma) and those who believe in Him can have peace in knowing peace will come (John 16:28-33). God in the Bible says one of the reasons He allows us to suffer is so that He can comfort us and thus equip us to comfort others in their suffering (2 Cor. 1:3-4). Whereas atheists teach that suffering and death is expected and natural. The atheist teachings per Richard Dawkins teach; “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”(1) Thus within atheist teaching, there is no comfort expected to ever occur. With atheist teachings, there’s no reason to even help others in times of suffering and death because to atheists there is no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference. Thus is why so many atheists exhibit such harshness to people around them; specifically people who are not atheist and especially to those people who actually trust and follow Christ Jesus’ teachings to love God and love all people (Luke 10:27).

As an anonymous person commented on Rosa’s blog stated, God has given to each of us “free will” to choose to either do what is correct or to not do what is correct. The fact that everyone chooses to do what is not correct causes the majority of suffering; i.e., enough food exists yet choosing to be greedy corruption stops it from getting to the starving; a majority of scientists choose to create military weapons instead of medicine and vaccines, people choose to have sex outside of a lifelong marriage commitment, drug abuse, etc.

God is not wanting anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance and have eternal life with Him (2 Peter 3:9 and John 3:16) yet He has given to us free will and has given to us free will to the extent that we can diametrically oppose God’s will if we choose. God is however being patient with those people who have not up till now chosen to have eternal life with Him which He knows will. There will come however, the time of death and judgment for everyone as God’s patience with our sinning is not everlasting. Reality is that everyone must die once and then face the judgment of God (Hebrews 9:27).

Here is an important point to consider: until you understand original sin, that the account of history in Genesis is true, you won’t understand why children die from starvation or why cancer kills, nor will you understand why murders, rape, theft, lying, slander, etc. are problems. God in the Bible teaches us that no one is “innocent,” as all of us have sinned (Romans 3:23 and Romans 5:12), and that suffering and death are caused directly by our sins and not what God originally created (Genesis 1-3). If the teachings of atheists were true, there would be no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference to children starving, suffering, catastrophes, and death. The only reason people see the children starving, suffering, catastrophes, and death as problems is they have a “God consciousness” as Paul tells us in Romans 1. So anyone who sees children starving, suffering, catastrophes, etc., and death as problems, is actually confirmed that God truly does exist.

But alas, I can’t convince an atheist of anything; for the atheist belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep-seated need to believe God does not exist. It’s up to the atheist to use their God given free will to choose to change their deep-seated need to believe God does not exist. It is at that point in which God will reveal Himself in all His glory.

The good news is that the Last Adam, Jesus Christ, came to earth to bear the penalty of our sins and be nailed to the Cross. He defeated death by His resurrection. By His atoning blood sacrifice for us, He has made a way for us to spend eternity with Him in heaven. Further, He promised to those who place their faith in Him that in the future there will be no more death, tears, or suffering.

The perfect world will be restored. “The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9

God is being patient with those atheists He knows will eventually set aside their deep-seated need to believe God does not exist. “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans 10:9: That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.

Be ready! God’s patience with us is wearing thin.

Resource
1. Richard Dawkins. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved May 6, 2011, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/richarddaw402494.html

2 Comments

  1. Sorry, but no matter how many Bible verses you cite, you can’t change the fact that a god who is supposedly maximally good would not allow suffering to exist.

    For suffering to exist, at least one of the following must be true. God is:

    Unable to prevent it, so it isn’t omnipotent.
    Unaware of it, so it isn’t omniscient.
    Unconcerned about it, so it isn’t all-loving

    Therefore, for suffering to exist, your god can’t be as described and must be deficient in at least one of these.

    It might have shown slightly more confidence in your argument had you included a link to the blog you were purporting to refute and had you actually refuted the points made in it.

    • @RosaRubicondior in the first sentence of my article I point to your blog and give the article name: ‘(rosarubicondior.blogspot.com) titled, “Why Your God Doesn’t Exist”’ so seems as though you didn’t read my article or didn’t listen well to the video.

      You may want to read my article, “God, Why Pain and Suffering?” to get more of an understanding of why your logic about God and suffering is incorrect.

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