The late Bertrand Russell said that, “No one can sit at the bedside of a dying child and still believe in God.” This is a very powerful repackaging of the ever-persistent problem of evil. Another way to state it would be to ask, “How can you say there is a good God when there is so much evil in the world?” And that’s not an easy question, is it? There is force there, because we know what death is like and we know what it’s like when we see suffering of the most innocent and helpless and know that it’s not right. And yet Russell’s statement is demonstrably false, as our local church can bear witness.
For some years now we’ve experienced one family’s ongoing trials with their son’s failing health, a son who very recently lost his life fighting the cancer inside him. Yet contrary to Russell’s statement, his family has demonstrated a greater faith in God, not one lessened. This family has shown strength, courage and an ever increasing trust in Jesus — an unfailing testimony to where their hope really lies, where their comfort really is. Far from hopelessness, they have been beacons of hope and faithfulness to the entire body of people around them, Christian or no.
It’s the trust in God that does in fact give comfort in times like these, for the problem of evil is everyone’s problem. For what does the atheist say at the bed of a dying child? Tough luck? That’s life? It happens to everyone? I don’t like it? It is what it is? Get over it you evolved pile of crashing atoms? There is no comfort to be had in atheism, unless ceasing to exist is the greatest comfort we could desire. To that end, Camus said the greatest question in life is whether or not to commit suicide, right? What do atheists say to that child in his death bed? “Don’t fret, young man, soon it will all be over?”
Only the theist, indeed the Christian, can in fact offer comfort. First, the Christian can uniquely say that this is not the way things ought to be. Second, the Christian can say that one day things will be set right. Christianity’s answer to evil is in fact the greatest answer imaginable. And in contrast to atheist’s “there is no evil,” or the eastern religion’s “it’s karma” or “evil is an illusion,” the answer Christ offers is a dream come true. Jesus says that yes, something is wrong, and no, it will not stay broken.
To that note, the charge that religion (at least Christianity) is “wish fulfillment” is quite right. And yet it’s not just that, for Christians have, I would assert, the greatest evidential reasons to believe what we do, despite what atheists like to tell everyone.
This post isn’t about offering evidence, but it’s worth noting that it is there. Christian’s don’t rely on just telling people, “We’re the smart ones, we’re the smart ones.” Neither do the leading advocates of Christianity just call non-Christians idiots and morons, as do (many of) the leading atheists say of their opponents. For a classic example of the atheist that tries to brand themselves as rational while demonstrating the inverse, see my debate with a mercifully unnamed person here.
For the Christian: take heart because their is hope. More still, take note of those Christians that in the face of the most extremely painful circumstances imaginable, run not away from God, but to him in almost Job-like devotion even in the face of clear evil, like in the suffering and death of a child.
For the non-Christians: you can have a part of this hope. You’re important and you matter. Christ’s death is powerful enough to cover your sins, that you also will be resurrected to reign with him forever, but you must first believe.
