Why would God create humanity knowing that we would suffer?

Welcome to the C3 Church podcast.

Our vision as a church is to practice the way of Jesus so that we experience the fame and deeds of God in our time.

My name is Colton Seegers.

And I'm Rainey Seegers.

And over the next couple of episodes, we wanted to do a question and response for the people in our church community.

And so what we did is we asked our church to submit questions, and these are our responses to a handful of questions that we received.

Love y'all.

Enjoy the podcast.

All right.

Our next question is could you dive deeper into the question of why the world and all of humanity was created from the perspective of an all-knowing God?

What was the need or purpose to create, knowing that mankind would rebel and choose life apart from him and then suffering?

Great question.

The first thing that comes to mind is, um, and I said this to you earlier, just a similar way to parents having children.

If a mother is going to bear children, she's going to have to she knows that like what I'm choosing in the midst of that is I'm choosing suffering in order to get to this wonderful, beautiful thing.

Um but then also, like, maybe if you've never been a parent, you don't know this, but parenting itself, like having children, understanding like they might um leave home one day and not want to come back.

They may be prodigal children that want nothing to do with you.

Um it's not a given that your relationship is going to be incredibly uh strong.

It's not um, they obviously are going to make decisions that hurt you, that cause suffering in your life.

And I think um 10 years of Teddy's life, one of the things that I felt when he was born was like everybody was like, Did you just feel like so in love with Teddy when he was born?

I was like, honestly, I felt a ton of fear.

I was terrified.

I'm like, I have to keep this thing alive.

And so bearing the weight of keeping this little person alive um wasn't necessarily suffering, but it was definitely hardship.

Like I took on, I felt a great responsibility and a uh a weightiness of having to um provide for this person, and it changed the way I looked at a bunch of different things in my life, my job and um money and housing and all of those things.

And so it can it came with, I guess, um a layer of hardship that if somebody would have said, like, do you realize how hard it's gonna be um for three years when he's not talking?

Do you realize what that's gonna do in your heart?

Do you realize how much that's gonna hurt sometimes when he makes decisions that are uh hurt you or when he makes bad decisions even though you told him not to do that?

Do you realize how hard that's gonna be for you to watch that?

Um wouldn't you rather just not have children?

I think I'd be like, no, I I underst I I don't fully understand what you're saying, um, but I'm gonna choose this anyways.

Um the outcome to me of having a kid um was greater than even though I know like I'm I'm choosing to step into hardship.

Um and so I think in in similar ways, like I think the Lord understood what was coming, but also out of the communal love that he felt between father, son, and and spirit, they're in community, enjoying that community, enjoying the love they share together, and they're wanting to create out of that so that other people have the opportunity to experience that thing.

Recognizing that people are gonna enter into suffering, but more than anything, recognizing that one of that they are going to have to choose the greatest suffering, humanity is gonna rebel.

This is gonna cost God, Son, and Spirit a lot more than it ever cost humanity.

They're gonna suffer a lot more than humanity is gonna suffer.

Um but I think they uh clearly believed that it was the end of the goal, I guess, it was worth it.

That the temporary suffering, Paul says it somewhere in Corinthians or something like the light.

Temporary momentary suffering.

The light momentary trials that we experience in this, yes, in this, in this life, doesn't compare to the weight of glory that we will experience in eternity.

It'll far outweigh them all.

And so I do think that there's like he created knowing that suffering's coming, but he also created knowing, yes, but the victory will be won one day.

I will I will take on, my son will take on the greatest suffering so that these humans that I created can actually experience something that far outlasts and outweighs the present momentary, temporal suffering they'll experience on this earth.

The outcome is far greater for them on the other side of this.

And I think we just get that wrong.

We think like we're suffering now in this world, and it's like there is an eternity coming our way where we will look back and not it that will swallow, eternity will swallow the temporary, momentary suffering, though the glory that awaits life with the Father will swallow the light and momentary affliction that we're experiencing here, and that's what Paul says.

And so those are my thoughts.

What do you what about you?

Yeah, I think I agree with everything, everything you said is what I would say too.

Um I've got three thoughts.

I'll try to be quick.

Number one, I agree.

I think when something's not sin, if we see something in human beings that isn't sin, that's a human instinct, a human impulse, a human pattern, aside, not sin, sin aside, um, I think we can typically, I want to say always, but I I can't promise that.

But I think we can typically say, like, if if we are image bearers, we are designed to reflect what God is like.

We're we're similar to Him in a way that creation's not.

And so if there's something that human beings tend to feel or tend to do that's not sin, I think frequently, maybe always, we can take that thing and if we gigantify it, if we expand it to the level of infinity, something that we feel is a tiny version of something that God feels in a big version: love, patience, self-sacrifice.

Um, and we do see a really patterned human desire to make more life.

And so, yes, like why would a couple that's perfectly happy and has plenty of money and gets great sleep, why would you get pregnant?

It's gonna cost you sleep, it's gonna cost you conflict, it's gonna cost you money.

I didn't even think about the sleep.

Yeah, like why would you do that?

And yet, not only do people do it, the vast majority of people do it.

You we feel an impulse to take joy and relationship and resources, and there is an impulse to create life and share it with more life that we've made.

Yeah.

That is a really consistent human impulse.

I think that is a tiny version of a same impulse that God feels on a really gigantic level.

I think we can do that with most human patterns, again, that that aren't same.

Um number two, and similarly, I've heard Tim Keller talk about this, that like because God is triune, that means the most like before creation, pre-creation, pre-worship, pre-power structure, pre-anything, the deepest core in the heart of the like the deepest reality in the heart of the universe is community and relationship and love.

If God were singular, then the even if he were benevolent, if he were singular, the deepest core of the universe would be power.

But because he's not singular, he's triune, the deepest core of the universe is relationship.

And that doesn't mean he's incomplete, he's not incomplete.

But like in the universe's, in the guts of reality, the deepest thing is community relationship and shared love and joy.

And so, like, that that would be his identity, and that that would then like he is life, and then life bubbles out.

If he is community and relationship, that more community and relationship and shared joy would then necessarily bubble out.

I think that's a logical extension of like the universe is full of color because he's color, the universe is full of light because he's like those things come out of him, out of his identity and self.

And I think the nature, like a necessarily shared, like it's joyful, it's wonderful, and it needs to be shared.

I want to share it.

Y'all want to share it.

If a restaurant's great, you want to bring friends.

There's a, there's an in reality, there's a sense of wanting to share joy with people that we love.

Um, I think that's an extension of his own nature.

I think that's an extension of his own Trinitarian identity.

Um that's what I said, number two.

And number three, I think when we read scripture, one of the things that I ask the Lord to give me, one of the things I pray for.

Um, I think we need to not just read Bible verses and look for Bible verses, although Bible verses, of course, are great.

Um, but we need to get a sense of like mindset.

Not necessarily, can you proof text this Bible verse?

But what does Scripture's attitude towards this seem to be?

What is a general mindset that scripture seems to have about this or whatever you're talking about?

Um, and one of the mindsets that I get from reading the New Testament consistently is that Jesus and the New Testament writers seem to feel that once the Lord has returned, reclaimed his temple and his creation, been victorious over evil, and is enjoying a renewed creation with redeemed humanity.

That is that is promise that is going to heaven.

They seem to consistently believe that will be so wonderful.

It will be worth all the stuff that it costs.

And I've looked up, this is not quite the same thing, um, but I just happened to read it yesterday.

Um, in Matthew 10, 26, uh Jesus is saying, like, hey, they called me Satan, they're definitely gonna call you Satan.

They didn't like me, they're definitely not gonna like you.

But he says, so don't be afraid of them.

Don't be afraid of them.

For because there is nothing concealed that won't be disclosed.

There is nothing hidden that won't be made known.

I realize it's a different topic, but he seems to say consistently, I think, everything is going to be made right.

It will be made so right and so good.

Everything, all your problems, all your suffering, all of what would have been your fears now, it is going to fix and heal and make worth it everything that's come before.

That's how good and how right it will be.

And so navigate this current stage of suffering with an awareness, something so right is coming, everything that came before it will have been worth it to get to that spot.

I I see the scripture consistently feel that that's true.

Yeah, um, it doesn't always feel that way to me on this side of eternity, right?

Um, but that is a that is a mindset that I think scripture has, and so I am a you know, my thinking is under authority.

If that is scripture's mindset, I buy it.

I agree.

I and to the person who asked this question, I do think it's important to like in Revelation, the first thing that God does when he dwells with his people is he wipes away every tear.

So he is not like absent-minded, not really thinking about the suffering in the world that people experience in the world.

Like, one of the things in setting the world to rights is like I want to actually remove suffering for the from the world.

I created a world without suffering.

Um humanity broke it.

Yeah, you chose death.

Um, therefore, in in love, I have to let you choose what you chose because there is no love without free will.

Yeah.

And then to fix it, I didn't tell you to go fix it, like every other religion in the world tells you, you need to fix it.

Right.

I is what you need to go do it.

I chose to go and suffer.

Yeah, I'll fix it.

Y'all brought humanity, brought suffering, and yet God will suffer to remove remove suffering from the world, and we're in this in-between space before the world is set right.

And still, the first thing that he does is when he's finally dwelling with his people, is not go like, aren't you thankful I fixed it?

He's like, No, like I am wiping.

10,000 years of chores.

Thanks a lot for right.

Also, if you didn't notice, all my stuff he broke.

My son died the most horrific way ever to repair the thing that you guys broke.

He doesn't say any of that.

The first thing he does is like, it's been a long road.

I will wipe away every tear, every bit of suffering.

I will wipe those things away.

Which I think is so sweet because he's I think we can get this picture in our minds of like, do you even care about the suffering in the world?

It's like we've lived with that suffering.

Me, I'm 38.

I've lived with seeing that suffering for 38 years.

You turned 39 yesterday.

You've lived with that, seeing that suffering, long experiencing some suffering for 39 years, other people for longer.

He has experienced suffering for thousands and thousands, and depending on your view of old earth, eight, the age of the earth, millions and millions of years.

He has suffered a lot longer than we have because he is a parent whose kids do not want him.

He's rejected by most of them.

Yeah.

And like, if that were true, like that would be so hard.

And so I do think there's this space where we have to remind ourselves like, do you not see the suffering in the world?

Like, if we feel it a tenth, he feels it infinitely.

Right.

He weeds.

Well, I think that's back to what we were saying before.

Like, if you we are bothered by suffering, that is a tiny micro version of image bearing.

Yes.

We are feeling you are feeling a micro version that of something he is feeling on a macro level.

Absolutely.

You're not more bothered than he is.

Yeah.

No, if our heart breaks, his is just wrecked with the.

I mean, and I realize words fail.

Um it is important for us to know that, um, or at least to be reminded of the fact that like no one has ever been more rejected than God.

No one has has seen more suffering than the one who sees everything.

No one has experienced more suffering than him who's not sure.

You're not aware of more injustice than he is.

Yes, like he is vastly aware of all of it.

We can't go, you know, the last couple of weeks with everything that's going on in Minnesota and all that, we can't go a couple of weeks without our hearts like wrecked over some of these things that we see.

We despair like super fast.

But and we and we and we are, we're like, this is this is injustice.

We're seeing these things, this is not good.

And and we're feeling something that I believe is is you know uh part of how he created us.

But we need to know that whatever we're feeling, yes, he is feeling that infinitely.

Um and so great question.

Um, I think what he sees on the back end of I think what he's he's able to see into the future, even though he's outside of time.

I think he's able to see if we could see what he sees, he'd be like, we would go, Oh.

Well, I really actually really appreciate what you are trying to get us to.

Because one, I do want to be created for that.

I don't want to experience suffering in this, but I do want to experience that.

He's like, All of that is on it.

I was made for this.

All of that is on its way.

Yes.

Um, and now what Jesus has done is make death the doorway, instead of it being an end, it is a doorway into greater life.

Um, but he did that through suffering rather than asking us to suffer.

So, anyways, great question.