“God on Trial… wrestling with the existence of Evil”

Recently a friend of mine sent me a film entitled "God on Trial."  It was extremely well done.  It was also gut wrenching and thought provoking.

The film is set in a WWII concentration camp.  The characters are primarily Jewish prisoners.  In their dim and dingy barracks they sit waiting to find out which ones didn’t make the latest cut; which ones will be the next to enter the gas chamber. 

While they wait, someone comes up with an idea… anything to take their minds off the inevitable.  Why not put God on trial?  God had promised to protect the Jews.  For some it was obvious that he didn’t keep his promise.  He should be prosecuted!

And they did.  I won’t give away too much information, in case you want to watch it for yourself, but the hour and a half long film is made up mostly of these inmates accusing and defending God until they reach a verdict.

I have to admit that there have been times when I’ve put God on trial myself.  For me it wasn’t so much an exercise to determine if he was guilty as it was to determine if he was there.  And there have been times when I decided he wasn’t.  Among other factors, the seemingly unchecked existence of evil in our world has, at times, moved me to pronounce God… “Nonexistent!”

Maybe you’ve been there and done that.  Maybe you’re there now.  If so, I hope you will read a little further.

I think serious reflection about the questions of suffering and evil in our world can actually help us go farther than our current questions and conclusions.  What if we used the reality of evil and injustice to move us to another, deeper question and conclusion? 

What if we asked the question like this… Since evil and injustice are unarguable realities in our world (I don’t think any rational person would argue that Nazi fascism was not evil), then isn’t that strong evidence that the opposites of evil and injustice must exist?

And if good and justice do exist, how do we know which is which?  I mean, how do we determine what is good and what is evil?  How do we know what is just and what us unjust? 

It seems to me that the topics of good and evil or justice and injustice are even more problematic for a naturalist (I guess we could use the term atheist or agnostic) than it is for a theist.  If I have no explanation for the existence of humanity beyond natural causes then how do I determine what is "good" or "evil," "just" or "unjust?" 

To a true naturalist, I don’t know how those categories make sense.  To put it another way, for a true naturalist, human suffering can't be good or bad.  It just is.

In fact, for an atheistic evolutionist (as opposed to a theistic evolutionist) human suffering and death, particularly death at the hands of a stronger power (in the animal or human kingdom), is simply the process of natural selection; the survival of the fittest.   It is not unjust at all.  It is evolution at work, a completely “natural” process.

But if we conclude that evil is real then there must be a reason we reach that conclusion.  There must be a cause (some would say a “great cause”) that moves us, like currents move ships, to that inevitable destination, that logical conclusion. 

I would argue that the “great cause,” “the one” who moves us to that conclusion is God.     

I know that answer is not very satisfactory for some.  But think about the alternative. If I reach the conclusion that there is no God, then I have to carry that thought out to the logical conclusion.  In reference to suffering, evil and injustice, that means that all suffering is meaningless. 

That means that there is ultimately no justice in the world.  That means that the lives of the 16,000 children that died today from hunger and hunger related causes meant nothing.  They lived briefly, they suffered terribly, they died and that’s it.  They passed into and out of a hellish existence and they’re gone.  For them, if there is no God, there will be no justice.

The Bible shares a more redemptive perspective that, for me at least, makes the most sense.  According to the Bible, there is suffering in the world because the world we live in is broken, imperfect, and in desperate need of healing.  From the Christian perspective that healing came into our world through Jesus Christ and someday the healing will be complete. 

I may be telling you stuff that you’ve already heard.  I know it stretches the modern (or post-modern) mind to its limits.  Some won’t embrace it as truth.  But for me it is the only conclusion that makes sense of the world we live in.

For me there must be a God who allows himself to be tried and convicted wrongly, who suffers with and for our broken world; for human beings who have decimated the planet we inhabit, who have violated one another, gone to war with each other and against our creator. 

As strange as it sounds, I believe that this God came to us through Jesus Christ; born to a virgin, laid in a wooden trough, nailed to a wooden cross, resurrected to bring healing to a broken suffering world.

I’m interested in hearing your perspective.