Max S. Dunn

God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer
by Bart D. Ehrman

Wow, this is quite an intense book. It is written by a biblical scholar who once was a once a devout and committed Christian and has now lost his faith because he can't understand how God could allow so much suffering in the world. In explaining his transition, Ehrman gives a solid summary of the various views of suffering in the Bible (which is also a good distillment of the entire Bible itself). The views of suffering he discusses are:

• Suffering is punishment for sins
• Suffering is caused by because people have the free will to hurt, main, tortue and kill others
• Suffering is ultimately redemptive
• Suffering is a test of faith
• Suffering is caused by forces opposed to God
• Suffering is a mystery

Ehrman spends a lot of time rightfully lamenting over all the suffering in the world and explaining how in his mind, this suffering negates all the points above. However, at the end of the book, I think he answers his own question without realizing it:

We should do what we can to love life -- it's a gift and it will not be with us for long. But we should also work hard to make our world the most pleasing place it can for others.

But just because we don't have an answer to suffering does not mean that we cannot have a response to it. Our response should be to work to alleviate suffering wherever possible and to live life as well as we can.

This brings to mind the book "Ender's Game" where the military of the future sets out to create a great tactical leader to defeat an alien race that is feared will destroy us. To do this, they put a boy in situations where he is continually picked on and has to defend himself over and over again. The adults are careful to never step in or to give any sign that they will ever help him in any way. Through these harsh methods, the boy learns to defend himself no matter how dire the situation, and never expects any higher power to come to his rescue, which allows him to ultimately defeat the aliens.

Maybe Ehrman's conclusion is exactly the truth that God wants us to reach: maybe God is doing all this so mankind will eventually learn how to "alleviate suffering wherever possible" by ourselves rather than relying on a higher power. After all, if God were to step in even occasionally to relieve some suffering, would we ever learn to do this ourselves?

Of course, Ehrman could ask the question as to why God needs to us to learn this lesson at all which involves such an incredible amount of suffering? Why couldn't God have fenced off that tree of knowledge in the garden of Eden so we could have remained there forever? And that is a question that no-one can answer.

But if I were to guess, I would say that God is compassionate and anguishes over our suffering even more than we do. And maybe, our evanescent stay on this planet is not the end of our journey with God but only the beginning, and that Ehrman's "work to alleviate suffering wherever possible and to live life as well as we can" is exactly the lesson that God wants to imbue in our souls in order to take us along on the next unimaginable journey.