Government, Suffering, and Jesus

If recent news stories have taught me anything in the past several weeks, it’s this: our government is trash and humanity is doomed.

Let me explain…

I am typically someone who only gets the news in bite size pieces. This isn’t because I don’t care about world events…but more like I don’t have cable where I can watch CNN or MSNBC. I’m too poor to afford copies of the New York Times or the Washington Post. And frankly, I went to school for public relations so I’m EXTENSIVELY aware that the media does report facts with a bias point of view and with sensationalism to generate ratings. At the end of the day, all of these media platforms are businesses with an objective, and if they can weave facts to fit their bottom line then they will.

In the past few weeks (in case you missed it), the government has been trying to enact a bill called the Restrict Act or what is commonly known as the TikTok Ban. Banning TikTok is only the surface level of the bill as other parts extensively show that it’s true intent is to implement laws that further restrict American’s right to privacy and freedom of speech. If you want more details on that, look it up. In addition to that, they are attempting to put into legislation another bill with the goal of replacing the American dollar with an electronic currency which on paper appears to just update America to the 21st century. However, it also allows the government to have control and to charge your bank account at any point in time. Tennessee law makers have not only recently passed legislation that removes an age restriction on marriage. Not only that, but then they are forcing out representatives for engaging in peaceful protests, and not allowing the communities within Tennessee to vote for new members of their own choosing. Mississippi is re-establishing old Jim Crow laws. There have been, minimum, 146 mass shootings in the United States since the beginning of 2023. Yet, somehow a gun still has more rights and privileges than a woman who needs medical care.

And, somehow a fungus has infected humans in India for the first time because it has learned to adapt to warmer environments because of global warming. Who is ready for Pandemic Part II?

It is no wonder that many people have given up their faith in an all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing God when the world around them is crumbling. This leads us to the Problem of Evil. How can there be a God when evil exists in our world? The logic flows through 3 major points.

1. If God is willing to prevent evil but unable then He is not all powerful.

2. If God is able to prevent evil but unwilling then He is not all good.

3. If He is willing and able then why does evil exist?

Before I became a Christian, I really struggled with this. It wasn’t just based on the world that was around me, but my overall upbringing. I had grown up and seen some terribly wicked things happen. Both my parents came from extremely abusive backgrounds. My grandfather died from kidney cancer. I grew up experiencing violence and manipulation. My mother still suffers from an autoimmune disorder that is slowly crippling her. Why did God allow any of this?

I think the first thing to point out is that God is clearly very powerful. The Kalam Cosmological and the Teleological Argument clearly shows this as we see that the universe would have had to have been created by a powerful, intelligent force in order for life to be present within our universe. For the universe to come into existence, God clearly had to be very powerful. As a general rule, I don’t think most people question God’s power.

Like myself, I think most humans question God’s goodness. Is God truly unwilling to do anything about evil? I think what this logically comes down to is it really impossible for a good god to allow evil.

Inherently, there is a fallacy in this thought. For us to be able to even point to evil being in the universe, we would have to have the absolute standard of God as the good. Anything that is more good would otherwise be God. So, the very fact that there is evil in the universe and that we can identify it suggests that God must be good.

This still leaves us with the question of why then would a good God allow evil? Well, free will is a common answer. For God to be truly loving, He would have to allow us to have the choice to have a relationship with him or to choose to do what is good. Otherwise, humans would be robots in a hostage situation where we are only able to do what we’ve been programmed to do. Biblically, we see that the origins of humanity tells us that Adam and Eve chose to forsake their relationship with God in favor of acting as the rulers of their own lives. When they chose to do this, sin entered the world (much like a predisposition for drug abuse enters a familial line) and now all humans carry this sin nature.

Unfortunately, we are now all affected by this decision. But also, could God have good reasons for allowing bad things to happen? Logically, this makes sense. Emotionally, though, this can be a tough pill to swallow.

For myself, I experienced some severe situations where I was abused as a child. Unfortunately, this led to me entering three separate rounds of therapy with a lot of tears and a diagnosis of C-PTSD and general anxiety disorder. Why did God allow these things to happen?

I can’t tell you that I have all the answers in that. But what I have experienced is that the fact there is a God has given me hope. Because without God, all this suffering has been for nothing. But, instead, it has allowed me to have compassion for others who have gone through similar situations as I have. I have gotten the opportunity to experience God’s mercy. God has cultivated endurance, love, and forgiveness in my own heart that I can’t honestly say I would have gotten to experience had I not gone through the things in my past. Not only that, but I get to live with the hope that one day, I will shed no more tears.

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21: 4

I guess, what I’m getting at is that if God doesn’t exist, what hope do any of us have? Without Him, all our suffering is for nothing. You’re born, you live, and you die. But with God in our lives, we get to experience the hope in knowing that one day, we will be perfected. One day, we will experience His redemptive love with no barriers. And finally, we will see the full picture of how He was working in our lives in the midst of suffering. I don’t know about you, but that’s a lot more comforting than anything else that’s offered to us.