Ethon Lowe | Why bad things happen to good people

The headline on Monday, July 13, read: ‘Miracle baby killed in freak accident’. The grief-stricken mother, RB, was barely able to speak. “She is my only child. Dem (doctors) seh me couldn’t get pregnant and me beg God fi me baby. And she jus get tek back jus like that.” M, the miracle child, was one year old. She was hit down by an SUV on Saturday, July 11, in Denham Town, Kingston.

My Christian friend, trying to make sense of this unspeakable tragedy, voiced his opinion quoting from Job 1:21, “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh, blessed be the name of the Lord.” I guess the Biblical writer meant life is a gift from God. He gives to us and He takes from us. We must accept with humility and faith what happens to us in life, both good and bad. Is little M now safely in the loving arms of God in Heaven? I found this explanation unsatisfactory, almost patronising. Should we let God off the hook so easily? Would this explanation be consoling for the distraught mother? I doubt it.

God created us, or so we are told. He is described as loving and powerful, so why did He allow this innocent child to be killed. Was He either unable or unwilling to prevent this accident? Perhaps He is not all that loving or powerful. The Rabbi Harold Kushner, in his book When Bad Things Happen to Good People (which I read years ago), argues that God may not be all that powerful. He cannot keep us from suffering, but He can give us strength to deal with it. If I were a believer, this would be the view I would take.

WE ARE SINNERS

Why is there suffering? Because we are sinners. Adam and Eve’s transgression in eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge of good and evil (revealing their nakedness) was the mother and father of all sins. Now we have to contend with the mundane: lying, pride, adultery, use of drugs, and even premarital and non-procreative sex. This might justify human suffering, but why non-human suffering? Do puppies and pine trees suffer and die? Do animals and plants sin? Is it sin that causes rivers to overflow their banks and volcanoes to erupt and kill thousands? Is sin the cause of birth defects, childhood cancers and pandemics? I would invite any Christian to accompany me to the children’s ward of a hospital to see the suffering and then persist in the assertion that these children are so morally abandoned, having sinned, as to deserve what they are suffering.

As for intentional (moral) evil, theists have a ready solution — free will. Evil (murder, rape, genocide) is the result of an ungodly behaviour that humans in their freedom choose to do. But why did God, who should have known better, make such a flawed creation as man. God could have made an improved human who still possessed free will. By analogy, we as parents who raise good children who are more prone to act morally and positively, we have not taken away their free will.

God doesn’t only punish you for your sins. On a whim, he engages in a petty agreement with Satan, and permits him to prove Job’s loyalty to God. The pious God-fearing Job is punished by Satan by having his possessions taken from him, and his servants and children killed. Job remains loyal, refuses to curse God, and is commended and rewarded by having his wealth and 10 additional children restored. A Biblical parable perhaps, but what a horrible story.

I espouse the biblical view of suffering taught by the author of Ecclesiastes. A lot of this world doesn’t make sense. Sometimes there is no justice. Lots of bad things happen, but also lots of good things. Enjoy life while you can, to the fullest and as long as you can. In the end, we may not have the ultimate solutions to life’s problems, but just because we don’t have an answer to suffering, it does not mean we cannot have a response to it.

Ultimately, the problems of suffering and evil remain. Explain or justify it as you wish; even insist that anything God does is good. Still, we have pain and misery imposed on the innocent and the guilty alike. By human standards, the Christian God cannot be good. By divine standards, God may be good in some unspecified, unknowable way. It seems theists must settle for evil and suffering in this world, while pinning their hopes for the next. He will comfort Christians in Heaven. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death, sorrow and pain shall be no more.” (Revelation 21:4).

Ethon Lowe is a medical doctor. ethonlowe@gmail.com