Basic Beliefs: The Problem of Evil - AFC 1997

Suffering and Becoming

Romans 8:28; Mark 8:34,35; Ps. 51:4; Luke 14:27

Suffering may be the fruit and means of love.

Limits induce suffering

To suffer is to have one's aspirations, expectations, or needs go unsatisfied.

Four negatives that come with being created:
We are alone. Though we may reach toward one another, we remain distinct, distant.
We live with limits. We have limited capacities, opportunities, and time.
The human situation includes temptation - to reach beyond the limits and break something.
We suffer anxiety. - We live in a history that provides no manual - that can be scary.

Occasions for good
Hunger for God can result from our aloneness.
Limitations can foster thankfulness and force me to look beyond myself.
We can grow in the tension produced by temptation. Easy life is weak life.
Paradoxically, a deeper peace may come from facing our fears and hearing God's good news.

Limits and freedom - and what about love?

"The pain then is part of the joy now." - C. S. Lewis, Shadowlands

The doctrine of providence maintains that God accompanies us into history as a loving God.
God risks in creating humans.
We learn to love within the freedom, limits, and possibilities that are characteristic of human existence.

Redemptive suffering
Voluntary suffering for others makes for community.
Acceptance of suffering yields a curious freedom.
Suffering from love points to the One who suffered for us.
Shared pain may cease to be seen as suffering, but as a detail of love.

• Can love exist without accepted limitations?
• Can suffering be redemptive?
• Is submission to the will of God the same as passivity in the face of evil?
• Are we not the center of the universe?
• Is it OK to be angry with God?

Bearing the cross for others means some kind of suffering.