The problem of evil and suffering has long been used as a reason to doubt and disbelieve in the existence of a good and powerful God. The argument is that either God can’t stop evil and suffering and so he isn’t powerful, or he won’t stop evil and suffering and so he isn’t good. In the past, this has thought to be such a powerful argument against theism that it has been called “the rock of atheism”. And this problem is felt with every instance of pain and suffering in the world. After the devastation of the 2004 tsunami, one reporter wrote that “If God is God, he’s not good. If God is good, he’s not God. You can’t have it both ways.”
However, this objection to theism has largely been abandoned as a “proof” of atheism. While it’s certainly true that a god who can’t stop evil and suffering cannot be powerful, it’s far from established that a God who doesn’t stop evil and suffering cannot be good. There are many reasons why a God who is good would allow evil and suffering (because he loves the perpetrators, because it deepens our appreciation of what is good, because to be free to love you have to be free to hate, etc.) and the burden of proof required to demonstrate that every reason ever suggested is “a bad reason” is simply too high.
Even if this burden of proof could be met, the argument still carries the assumption that God cannot have a good reason for allowing evil and suffering because we can’t think of one. The argument demands that God be big enough to blame for all the evil and suffering in the world, but not big enough to have reasons for allowing it to continue that we’re unaware of. As Tim Keller puts it: “If you have a God great and transcendent enough to be mad at because he hasn’t stopped evil and suffering in the world, then you have (at the same moment) a God great and transcendent enough to have good reasons for allowing it to continue that you can’t know. Indeed, you can’t have it both ways” (The Reason for God, p25).
On the existence of evil and suffering, the bible points us to three points in history: the beginning, the centre, and the end. At the beginning of history we see that there is evil and suffering in the world because we chose it. Our broken relationship with God affects our relationships with each other and with the world. However, in the centre of history we see that God doesn’t leave us in the evil and suffering that we chose, but enters into it in the man of Jesus, and bears the ultimate evil and suffering for us on the cross. And finally, the bible lifts our eyes to the end of history where there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain (Revelation 21:4), and so we can consider our present suffering not worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us (Romans 8:18).
In the parable of the weeds (Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43), Jesus explains why God hasn’t yet ended evil and suffering. God’s angels effectively ask him if they can go and put an end to evil and suffering in the world, but God tells them not to because in doing so they would be putting an end to all of us caught up in the evil and suffering of the world. God allows our evil to continue alongside our good, because he is patient with people not wanting anyone to perish (Ezekiel 18:23, 32; 33:11; 1 Timothy 2:3). But the Christian hope is that God will put an end to all evil and suffering, and right all the wrongs of human history.
Psalm 137 is an instance where one of the biblical authors wrestles with the problem of evil and suffering, giving us permission to do the same. God’s chosen city Zion has been destroyed, and God’s people are mocked for having faith in a God who would allow such evil and suffering to come upon them (Psalm 137:1-3). However, this causes the Psalmist to lift his eyes to the place where God had chosen to place his name and dwell with his people, and keep this as his highest joy (Psalm 137:4-6). He prays that God would remember the evil and suffering that has come upon his people (Psalm 137:7), and he rejoices in the hope that justice will be done and their evil and suffering will come to an end: “Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is the one who repays you according to what you have done to us. Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks” (Psalm 137:8-9).
Most people are shocked by the way this Psalm ends, and a number of atheists point to it as proof that the bible is immoral and therefore can’t be used as a basis for ethics. But this accusation only sticks, if the Psalm is read as Jewish scripture rather than as Christian scripture. A Jewish understanding of this Psalm reads it as a prayer for God to repay Babylon for what they have done (Psalm 137:8), even dashing their infants against the rocks (Psalm 137:9). But a Christian understanding (known as biblical theology) places it in the story arc of the bible: the tale of two cities beginning with the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent (Genesis 3:15), escalating to the righteous and the wicked (in the law), characterised by the wise and the foolish (in the wisdom literature), described as the wheat and the weeds (above), and personified by Israel and Babylon (Revelation 17-19).
In this biblical theological framework, the “Daughter of Babylon” does not refer to the descendents of the Psalmists tormentors, but the enemies of God “doomed to destruction”, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12) whom Jesus has made a public spectacle of, triumphing over them by the cross (Colossians 2:15). Their progeny that remains in the world is the evil and suffering that we experience until Jesus returns, for the last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Corinthians 15:26). Understood as Christian scripture, the one who seizes the infants (the future) of the “Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction” is Jesus, and on the cross he “dashes them against the rocks”, putting an end to the reign of sin and death in the world.
In a public debate in 2010, Dan Barker asked “should a Christian be happy that the bible says to take little babies and dash them against the stones or do you think that verse is a bad verse in the bible which should be ignored”? The obvious answer is that this verse needs to be read in context, since it clearly doesn’t say that we are to kill babies, but that there is one who will put an end to the enemies of God, who – in the biblical theological context – are the enemies of sin and death. According to the New Testament, sin gives birth to death (James 1:15), and this is precisely what Jesus destroys by his death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave. Recently I read a blog written by someone who loved Psalm 137 “despite its violent end”. While this is perfectly understandable, I love Psalm 137 because of the way it ends: lifting our eyes from the evil and suffering that we experience in the world to the final day when there will be no more sin, or any of the things that sin gives birth to: death, mourning, crying or pain. Until then we are entangled in a world where evil and suffering is allowed to continue because though we are more wicked than we dared believe, we are more loved than we dared hope.
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