The Problem Of God: Evil & Suffering

that's okay let's jump in we are part four of this series called the problem of God have you been

enjoying this series anybody somebody placed a yes anybody three of you come on help me out here I mean

we've worked hard to pull together this content for you guys and uh it's definitely something different of you going

up in church you probably haven't experienced an internet like this if you've ever been in the church you've never

experienced anything like this and again just to kind of recap why are we doing this well usually if you

come to a church like this we are dedicated and devoted to making God's word practical so we can find

Hope and help for everyday life that's what we do here at La house and every Sunday you come we

try dealing with real issues whether it's depression or raising kids or fighting anxiety or how to prioritize whatever it

is that's what we want to do want to figure out what does God say to us practically that gives

us hope and help and inspires us to extraordinary purpose but every now and again roughly speaking every 18 months

we kind of take a time out of normal programming and we have this conversation and the reason why we

have this conversation is because this is the conversation you're having every single day in the world if you're a

person of Faith or if you know a person of faith and is it is the conversation around and I'll

try our ticket as well is the Congress around how can you really believe in God in a 21st century

Ireland like are you mad like did your mother drop you in your head like are you expect like what's

going like how do you still maintain Faith despite all that science teaches despite all the culture is and all

the atrocities that the church have done uh has committed throughout time and so what we've done in this series

we try to have a very rational logical discourse problem we use the word problem in the in the technical

sense a problem is a question raised for inquiry so this whole question this whole it's the Curiosity around God

we want to have this this logical rational as much as possible fact-based conversation around some of the major pushbacks

that our culture and those of you who are skeptical in particular have I'm way back in week one look

at this this the false dichotomy because it's not real somehow science and Faith science and Christianity are juxtaposed are

against each other they're not there are certain parts of science that are right now you know trying to figure

out how to plug certain gaps and we believe as Christians there's an answer to those gaps science men have

discovered and answer that agrees that but for the most part most of what we're we learn in scripture is

congruent and lines up with science or should I say correctly science figures out that what scripture said is true

and again if you missed that message you can go back and watch on our YouTube channel at week two

the whole problem hypocrisy big pushback in cultures hey you Christians are full of Hypocrites and you I can't embrace

the Christian message because your hypocrisy because of the Crusades and witch hunts and and the Inquisition and all these

things again I broke that down historically and accurately and give you data and hopefully showed you that whatever Christians

might have done over a 500 year period 80s have done immeasurably more in the last 60 years through the

regimes of Stalin and Mao and Paul part and Stalin amongst others that were mentioned even though we should never

um what's the word looking for we should never hide from responsibilities of church where we've done wrong things the

best thing we can do as Christians is put our hand uh in the air and say that's on me

I'm bad but the same time a lot of what we're accused a lot of flock we get just isn't

true plus the fact if the church is full of Perfect People you wouldn't want that either right because if

you came to a church where everyone really was good and really was perfect you would never belong there and

the good news for you and me is that none of us would belong there because none of us are

perfect none of us are good enough at being good that's why God sent Jesus last week then a very

fiery we looked at the problem of hell and and that whole conversation and today then week fours we closed

it off we're going to deal with the big one this is probably the stickiest hairiest most difficult one to

have a conversation about we're going to talk about the problem of evil and suffering mode you know most Scholars

call this the rock of atheists this is the plagues where people just are against the Christian faith to Anchor

themselves and say okay I hear you in science I hear in hypocrisy I even hear you on hell but

I cannot embrace the Christian faith because if God is a good and loving and benevolent God why would he

allow so much evil and suffering in the world so let's jump in together straight away with a quote from

Professor Ronald Nash who said this every philosopher believes as the most serious challenge to fears and theism is the belief of any God okay Wars and is and will continue to be the problem of evil so again the

question we're going to ask in his final message is is not what or or even how how is God

it's a why question it's it's why our evil and suffering in the world and like always I'm not just

going to give you the Christian point of view I'm going to go on a bit of a journey explore

all the different World Views so if not the Christian worldview then what other options do we have and we're

going to try to answer the question why are evil and suffering in the world it was David Bentley heart

the philosopher who said one might well conclude that the world contains far too much misery for the pious idea

of a good loving and just God to be taken seriously this is again where some of you scheduled to

say absolutely and that any alleged creator of the universe in which children suffer and die hardly deserves our devotion

and again I agree to a to a point with uh with that comments and I agree to a point

where people who struggle Christianity because of evil and suffering I agree with the idea that this subject is incredibly

difficult to grasp incredibly complex likes to have a proper informed rational conversation about and is also really sticky because

as we're going to see it isn't just a logical rational philosophical conversation we don't just think about it we

also feel about it one of the reasons why I think so many people viciously I'm vicariously push against Christianity

on this front is because it isn't just a cerebral thing it's just a thing of the mind it's also

a thing of the heart for uh David Hume the great philosopher said is God willing to prevent evil but

not able then he's impotent is he able we're not willing well then he's malevolent is he both able and

willing then why is there evil I think in this this thought in this in this quote is basically the

the tension of today's talk and attention of our society if God is willing but enabled then he's not really

God he's he's got to know power no ability he's not really a god if he can't stop it but

is he able not willing well then he's malevolent he's malicious he's evil somehow it arrives satisfaction from watching people

suffer or is he both able and willing when the question is if he was then why is there evil

and suffering now here's a very important thing to note if you're a Christ follower of someone of Faith because

like I've said every week kind of a sub point for why I'm doing a series is because I am

just fed up of watching young people who grew up with faith grow up at church or come to Christ

at a teenage age like I did I came at Christopher at 16 and go to college or go to

university and be told by their professors be told by their history teacher and behold be told by their biology

teacher that you're stupid but you're stupid to believe in God in the modern day Western World you're stupid to

try to be someone who's in a scientific pathway science a science-based career and somehow try to hold on to

God and that isn't true the Christian faith is a robust strong faith that has stood the test of time

for over 2000 years and again is not contradicted by many things that popular cultures say it is but actually

perfectly dovetails in many ways to what science teaches and what I want to say to you Christ father is

when it comes to the problem of even so when we read quotes like this from this great philosopher all

we have to remember is that even suffering isn't a Christian problem it's a human problem the problem against against

Christianity is not just it's not just a problem for us it's a problem for a culture as we're going

to see in a second but again like I said a moment ago the reason why this problem is so

is felt so not just thought about but felt so much is because it's more than theoretical it's more than

philosophical it's personal it's emotional people don't just think about even suffering they feel it why because we've experienced our

witnessed or we know someone who's experienced or witnessed or felt or has been the receiving end of evil and

suffering Earth we don't just think about it we feel it at a very profound level and perhaps for me

one of the most interesting place that I see this tension evident is when it comes to the Injustice of

death now last week in the hell message hours you could say last week when we're in Hell uh we

talked about you know this this internal drive within human beings against Injustice that with something in us something in

all of us regardless where we are on the spectrum of faith that understands that Injustice is a bad thing

we as as a human species we value uh justice and when it comes to the Injustice of debt something

interesting happens because if you are let's say strictly speaking an atheist you're a naturalist you're a darwinian you're an

evolutionary revolutionist perspective person like you're a naturalist well then the most natural thing for human beings is to die

so why do we you ask people in general who have no faith perspective no fight for God who would

say we don't believe in anything why do we mourn death I mean logically speaking it's just like it's like