If God was really there he'd stop people fighting
The human record for violence certainly doesn't make a pretty story.
If there really is a God who wants peace and unity, why doesn't he do something? Why has he allowed the fighting to continue without taking some direct action?
To answer this question, we need to remember what sort of a world it is that God has actually created. He has created us as people - responsible individuals with the ability to make choices for ourselves. He could have made us plastic dolls or robots, and simply programmed us to do exactly as he said all the time, but he didn't. He entrusted us with a tremedous, awesomely valuable gift - freedom to choose.
(If he hadn't done this, incidentally, he wouldn't have been able to have a personal relationship with us; and this is what he wanted. It's like the relationship between my parents; she could have married somene else, and he could have chosen not to ask her to marry him, but they both chose each other, and that's what gives their marriage its magic. It wouldn't be quite the same if he had married a computerized robot, somehow. And in the same way God wanted u to be free to choose to have a relationship with him which would satisfy and complete our existence.)
The trouble is, as all these wars demonstrate, human beings keep making the wrong choice. We have turned out backs on God and tried instead to run this planet on our own. The results, inevitably, has been confusion, pain and heartbreak.
So what could God do to stop the wars?
I suppose there are four ways in which he could intervene. First, he could wipe us all out and start again. But he loves us too much to consider that possibility. As long as there's a chance of doing something with us, he won't wipe us out.
Second, he could simply re-programme our brains at a stroke; he could perform an instant lobotomy which would remove our aggressive instincts and make us automatically chose peace for the rest of our much-diminished lives. But this would mean taking away the precious gift of freedom he has given us. Instant lobotomies would produce a very neat, orderly, tidy planet. But also a very boring one. All individuality, all creativity, all sparkle would be gone from the race of obedient puppets once known as humankind.
Well, suppose he were simply to punish warfare as soon as it happened? So that everybody picking up a gun in anger was immediately zapped by a thunderbolt. Every general climbing into a jeep was instantly turned into a pillar of salt. Every tank in the world burst into flames as soon as someone tried to operate its guns...
People would get the message, very quickly, sure enough, and then there wouldn't be wars any more. But agin God would have infringed our freedom. We might be peaceful now, because we'd be scared of the consequences of fighting; but our peacefulness wouldn't come from any internal motivation - it would be produced by pure fright. And if God wants us to be responsible moral beings, we need to be able to choose what's right for its own sake, not just because we're terrified of disobedience.
There is one other thing God could try. He could find a way for human beings to have their lives voluntarily transformed. A way for them to hand their whole being back to him, so that his Spirit could come and live inside them (yet without infringing their freedom to make their own decisions). A way in which he could work with them to produce the sort of character they should have had anyway, it they hadn't turned their backs on him and gone off in their own selfish direction. A way, in short, of changing human beings, one by one, from the inside out. And that - says the Bible- is exactly what he did.
Why does God allow natural disasters like earthquakes and volcanoes?
A few years ago, several hundred people were attending a church in Italy. Praying to God. And what happened? God allowed an earthquake to erupt and destroy the very church in which they were singing his praises. Hundreds of people did. What sort of way is that for God to behave?
Many of the world's problems are caused by human wrongdoing; and God can't really be blamed for that. (Except, of course, that he created us to begin with). But many of our problems are not our own fault. Volcanoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, hurricanes, typhoons - why should God allow his world to be devastated by things like these? Does he enjoy watching human beings suffer? Of is he somehow powerless to stop it all happening?
The Bible traces natural disasters back to the Fall, the time when human beings first rebelled against God and disobeyed his instructions. As a result of the human attempt to hijack the planet, nothing has worked quite right since. In the Book of Genesis, God warns Adam that now he has sinned life will not be so easy - the ground has been cursed, it will take 'painful toil' to make plants grow as they should, weeds will proliferate, men and animals will war on one another, women will suffer painful childbirth and sexual conflict will disfigure marriages. In other words, human rebellion has had its impact on every dimension of life on earth. It's as if the whole mainspring of creation has been broken, and although nature is still working, it is not working properly.
Like a car making strange noises. It groans because there is something seriously wrong with it. It may still work, but even if it worked, it would be damaging itself. Likewise, the earth still works - but not properly. Volcanoes, earthquakes and the like were no part of God's original blueprint. They are just another demonstration tha human sin has spoilt everything.
Can I prove it was human sin which produced natural disasters? No, of course not. But it is at least as good a theory as any other. When you are confronted with a world like ours - in which there are good bits (joy, creativity, satisfaction) and bad (frustrations, pain, disappointments, natural disasters) - you can come to any of three conclusions about it. You can conclude that the whole mess is just a complete accident (that doesn't seem like a very likely story). You can conclude that the world was actually created by an evil sadistic God, who like viewing suffering; but you'd have even more problems explaining the existence of beauty and joy in a world built by a sadist, than you would explaining the existence of pain in a good God's world. Or, third, you can conclude tht th world was indeed produced by a good God, but that it has been reduced to a mess by creatures to whom he gave some freedom. And that, it seems to me, covers more of the facts than either of the first two options.
If the world was created by a good God, where did evil come from?
All religions have to find some answer to the question of where evil came from. Some get round it by dualism, that is, by the idea that there are two creative forces, one good and the other evil, and they are engaged in a shoot-out for ultimate domination of the universe. So the good God is not responsible for evil; his opposite number created it...
It's an interesting theory. But it is one which Christianity cannot accept. Because Christians have always insisted that God created everything. He alone was there in the beginning. Nobody else lent a hand.
So does that mean God created evil?
Evil can be thought of... an absense of something, a lack of what ought to exist. So it wasn't actually created as such. It was just there as the opposite of good.
As soon as you define what one thing is, you automatically create its opposite - out of what your definition excludes. The Welsh never thought of themselves a nation, I'm told, until the English banded themselves together against the tribes who lived in Wales. Those who were excluded from the definition 'English' had to find a name for themselves... so they became 'Welsh'! The English never intended to create a rival nation who would beat them at rugby and inflict Welsh male voice choirs on the world. But defining themselves, they created their opposite!
Do you see what I'm saying? As soon as God defined what was good and acceptable to him, he left open the possibility of evil. Because as we've seen he created human beings with freedom to choose, and that meant giving them genuine alternatives to choose between. If human beings had been able to choose only what God wanted, that wouldn't have been freedom. So God did not create evil; but he created beings who had the potential to do evil.
The rest, as they say, is history.
Why does God allow faithful believers to suffer?
Christians have never been promised an easy time. Right from the start of the Christian church - just a few years after Jesus had warned, 'All men will hate you because of me' - believers were being burned, flung to the lions, torturned and executed. Since those days, the list of Christians who have given their lives for their faith has lengthened with every century. Missionaries speared by cannibal tribesmen; Bible translators burned at the stake because of their desire to get God's Word to the people; doctors and pastors struck down by dreadful plagues because they refused to leave their posts in times of epidemics. But why does God allow it? If these people are faithful followers of Jesus Christ, why doesn't he look after his own?
One answer is that God has made the universe to run by certain natural laws, and these laws operate in the same way for everyone. Jesus taught that God 'causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous'. If a Christian runs up against these natural laws in the wrong way, he is just as liable to be hurt as an unbeliever. For instance, a Christian who puts his finger into a live electricity socket cannot expect to be miraculously protected.
If God changed the rules arbitrarily every time a Christian was liable to hurt himself, the universe would soon be in chaos. The whole system of science depends on order, design, repeatability. If rainclouds refused to release their load in case Christians got wet; if cars turned to jelly every time a Christian was involved in a road accident; if tornadoes suddenly changed their course to avoid Christians who were standing in the way - life would be impossible. The universe wold be an unpredictable, capricious place, and nobody apart from Christians!) would feel safe to go outside their doors. You'd never know what God might do next.
And thus, if you want to have a universe of regular natural law, you must expect it to be one where Christians will get hurt sometimes. In fact, Jesus never promised is followers free insurance, provided by management, against all the disasters of life. Quite the reverse; he warned quite realistically that following him meant a difficult time ahead. The way Jesus described the job prospects, nobody would have joined his movement simply for the fringe benefits!
In fact, Jesus knew that sometimes pain, stress and struggle are actually necessary experiences if life is to be all it should be. It is often in trying times that we learn the most important lessons, and get in touch with our feelings at the very deepest level. Looking back on my own life so far, I can think of a lot of fun times; they were enjoyable, of course, and I wouldn't have missed them for anything, but they didn't honestly benefit me much. The deepest and most precious experiences of my life are all associated with times of difficulty and pressure.
The Apostle Paul had a 'thorn in the flesh' (he doesn't state exactly what the problem was - it could have been anything at all) which he very much wanted God to take away from him. But God wouldn't. And in the end Paul came to see that God was allowing his suffering for a reason. He was teaching Paul invaluable lessons about God's faithfulness, and providing Paul with an understanding of God at such a deep level, that the Apostle wote, 'Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.'
Let's be honest. These are some reasons for the suffering which God allows even believers to go through; but they don't provide a complete explanation. There are still things we will never understand, events in which we will never see any meaning. But to a Christian who knows the daily reality of Jesus Christ by his side, the worst of inexplicable calamities can be bearable. God may not take Christians out of the disasters of life. But he takes them through them into a deeper and firmer confidence in himself; and at every step, every crossroads, he's there. All the time.
Answered prayer is just a delusion
Isn't it a bit like believing in fairy stories, to say that God answers our prayers? Doesn't it turn him into a Fairy Godmother, a heavenly Father Christmas dispensing goodies?
Christians have never thought so. Christians have always claimed that God meets their needs and listens to their requests.
The New Testament insists, 'Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.' If you find that ridiculous, you probably have one of three different kinds of objection to the whole idea.
Some people have philosophical objections to the idea of answered prayer. They argue that if God exists he must be far too immense to be bothered about providing good weather for the Sunday school picnic. Associating God with our petty local worries and needs is reducing him to something trivial, praochail, almost cosy.
But surely this is to fall into the very modern trap of assuming that something big and important must be bureaucratic. It's certainly true that in the world of government and business, the more important an official is, the less time he will have for individual people and tiny concerns. But the very greatness of God is that while he is big enough to hold all the worlds together he's also concerned enough to listen to the small requests from he least of his children. Jesus remarked that not even a sparrow dropped down and died without God's being aware of the fact.
So it isn't ridiculous to ask God to help Mrs. Jones not to suffer too much with her chilblains. If he had any less concern and knowledge about Mrs. Jones' situation than he has about the precis trajectory of the planet Jupiter, God would not be God.
Second, some people have moral objections. Why should God play favourites? Why should one specially blessed group of human beings have a hot line to heaven, enabling them to call on God for supernatural assistance when most of the human race has to get by on its own?
There are two answers to this. First, the Bible makes it clear that God's favour and ready ear are available to everyone who is willing to turn to him in faith. The very first passage quoted in the very first Christian sermon of all time says: 'Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'
Second, prayer is not just a divine shopping list in which we focus exclusively on our own needs and wants. Christians are told to pray for others - for friends and relatives, for Christians at work all over the world, for kings and governmental authorities. Any Christian whose prayers are all (or even mainly) about himself hasn't even started to discover what prayer is really about. Prayer can be a channel to bring God's help into other people's situations of need- not just out own.
Finally, some people have practical objections. 'It doesn't work.' Well, it's true that God doesn't say Yes every time. And it's good that he doesn't; if he had granted my requests at first time of asking, I'd probably be in heaps of trouble by now, doing a totally unsuitable University course, and living in te wrong part of the country! Looking back nw at what I thought was right for myself, I can see that my original ideas would have been disastrous. I'm grateful to God for not giving me what I though I wanted!
But in my experience God says Yes far too often for it to be simple coincidence. If you came down from bed one morning to find the freezer door standing open, you might just conclude it had been left open by chance, and shut it, thinking no more about it. But if you found the same thing happening every day for a week, you would find it hard to believe that it was 'just chance' any more! You might start to suspect that a younger member of your family was getting out of bed and helping himself regularly. In the same way, without becoming superstitious about it, I believe I have seen too many clear-cut examples of God intervening an answering my prayers to doubt him ay longer. It does work. It is real.
Maybe if you're still uncertain there will be only one way for you to find out. Which will be: to enter on a relationship with God for yourself. And experience in your own life just how ready he is to answer your prayers.
Is there any good reason why you shouldn't?