How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil
Book Review • D.A. Carson, How Long, O Lord?: Reflections on Suffering and Evil, 2nd ed. (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2006). Kindle Edition. 240 pp. $12.
Read time: 18 min
In his book, D. A. Carson aims to provide readers with “preventative medicine.” He clarifies, “One of the major causes of devastating grief and confusion among Christians is that our expectations are false. We do not give the subject of evil and suffering the thought it deserves until we . . . are confronted with tragedy” (8). This paper reflects on Carson’s able guidance, acquainting us better with the sickness and the cure as we walk with God through pain.
Part 1: False Ideas about Evil & Suffering
In Part 1, Carson lays out some of the false ideas about suffering that contribute to our inability to properly handle it when it comes.
Carson begins his work by exposing several hypo-biblical ideas that fall far short of adequately explaining God’s relationship to human suffering. In this section I will summarize his critiques of Atheism, conceptions of God as less than omnipotent, Deism, Pantheism, and two errant views commonly espoused by Christians.
Atheism and a Mechanistic Universe
Although atheists commonly wield the Problem of Evil as key evidence against theism, especially Christian theism, the problem, however, turns out to be more problematic for the atheist than the theist. Carson explains that if there were no God superintending the world, even the most tragic events are “simply the wastage of evolution, the chance bumping of atomic and subatomic particles” (27). In other words, atheism does not solve the problem of pain, it unavoidably trivializes it. If a mother of three dies in a car wreck, or lives to see her greatgrandchildren, in terms of a mechanistic, naturalistic worldview, neither outcome matters in the end, nor is one more “tragic” than the other. There is little hope or comfort in such a view.
God as Less than Omnipotent
Many conceptually limit God’s power to absolve him of wrongdoing for allowing suffering. This takes a variety of forms. First, Dualism accounts for suffering by alleging that “there are two principles operating in the universe, a principle of good and a principle of evil; and neither has complete mastery over the other” (28). As such, the world of turmoil results from these competing forces. Second, Monism claims that good and evil are two sides of the same coin, as in George Lucas’s Star Wars. Third, Process Theology downsizes God to a being who is limited in understanding and power. God is slowly figuring things out for himself and doing his finite best. Fourth, Open Theism denies God’s omniscience because God cannot infallibly know the future if humans truly have free will. Each of these views fall short in various ways, chiefly, because they lack sufficient scriptural support. The limited God of these views is unrecognizable in comparison to the God of the Bible. Moreover, these views provide a bleak view of the future, in contrast to Scripture’s hope-giving narrative of God’s eventual triumph over evil in the New Creation. Finally, if God is doing his very best, yet is ultimately powerless to bring about his purposes, why bother praying to him or hoping for a better future?
The Deist’s God
The god of the Deist created the world but abandoned it, which accounts for the ensuing mayhem we experience. In fact, the pain we feel is met with divine indifference, since God is occupied with other matters. But not only is this idea propositionally out of sync with the Bible, it also offers no comfort. If Deism is true, we are alone in a harsh wasteland of a world. God thinks nothing of us, says nothing to us, and does nothing for us.
Pantheism
Hinduism (as well as New Age theology) “insists that ‘god’ and the universe are one . . . All that is, is god; god is whatever is” (31). Human existence slowly progresses towards nirvana (freedom from suffering). “What Christians see as sin or evil, pantheists are likely to see as imperfections in reality that need to be removed by progressive self-realization, progressive self-improvement” (31). Pantheism results invariably in the downplaying of present suffering. The injustice of the Hindu caste system, for instance, betrays the inhumanity of such an ideology. The lowest members in the caste system, the Dalits, suffer socioeconomic deprivation most intensely because they are paying for actions from a past life, in Hinduism’s theology of suffering. The Christian view, by contrast, holds that all humans are equal in value and that suffering cannot be explained merely as a function of karma in a chain of cause and effect.
God Has Limited His Omnipotence in Order to Make Humans Totally Free
Some Christians hold “inadequate, reductionistic, sub-biblical” views (31). First among these is that God is not “all-powerful,” or has somehow chosen to limit his power. In this thinking, God binds himself to a non-interventionalist policy of sorts, leaving us at the mercy of forces beyond our power. The popular “free-will defense” makes a theodicy on grounds that God chose to create a world in which moral agents (humans and angels) are “absolutely” free in the choices they make. The Fall of mankind in Adam and its horrific sequalae are but the collateral damage of this decision. Free will was worth it, in this view, because we are completely free. The logical leap is that God cannot all-powerfully superintend events in the world and humans be sufficiently free to make morally significant choices, a position Carson later challenges.
Knowledge of Evil Is Necessary
A second error circulating in Christian circles hinges upon our post-Fall “knowledge of good and evil” (Gen 3:22). Some claim that without knowledge of evil, good could not be known; if not for suffering, joy could not be known, etc. So, whereas the free-will defense proffers human freedom as the explanation for why the world lies in ruins, this latter view makes knowledge of good the scapegoat. Carson summarizes John Hick’s work as advocating that “we could not be people who truly love and obey God unless we are free; and that freedom entails failures, evil, suffering, whose existence is justified in that it is being used to make us mature” (34). In other words, the Fall and evil turn out to be worth the “good” that could not be experienced in an unfallen world.
Part 2: The Problem of Evil
In Part 2 of How Long, O Lord?, Carson introduces the heaviest themes of suffering. The tension he builds is palpable: how exactly can an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God choose to not intervene while mudslides claim precious lives, children are forced into sex slavery, and cancer eats away at the praying faithful? The theological and even psychological difficulties spawned by the Problem of Evil are very real and deserve careful and compassionate consideration.
Hard Questions about God’s Goodness in the Face of Evil & Suffering
One aspect of human suffering with which many Christians struggle the most involves the scale of suffering in the world that God (in full knowledge, power, and love) chose to create. We may hold to the belief that God intimately knew everything the world he created would entail, including evils such as mass murder, starvation, child rape, phycological trauma, suicide, deprivation, physical pain, animal pain, etc. The traditional resolution to the dilemma is twofold: first, God is not at fault for human sin, and our sin caused all this carnage. Yet God chose this world and not another? How is this world preferable to one in which billions of children do not die of starvation or malaria or a host of other moral and “natural” calamities? The second half of the resolution to this dilemma is that God desires to show his glory in his ultimate triumph over sin in judgment on the wicked and mercy towards the redeemed in Christ (Rom 9:22-24). Here is where the scale of God’s ultimate “triumph” may begin to look less triumphal. In an Evangelical, Exclusivist, and ‘Lordship Salvation’ soteriological perspective, only about five percent (a generous estimate) of created humans since the dawn of time may be said to have both received and truly responded in saving faith to special revelation concerning sin and salvation. If a small minority of Israelites were actually “the elect” (in Israel’s history and in Paul’s interpretation of it), that certainly does not bode well for all the pagan nations in every generation who likely never heard of, let alone savingly trusted in, Elohim, Yahweh, or Jesus of Nazareth. Even today among those who may be classified “Christian,” what percentage are saved in the full Pauline sense?
As Carson suggests, the numbers are bloated with adherents of the Prosperity Gospel, Christian cults, the frank idolization of saints and Mary, works salvation, and syncretistic false religion, whose genuine conversions are “a matter of enormous doubt” (121–22). Whether the number of elect under these circumstances is two percent, or five percent (or even more generously, ten percent) the fact remains that an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God decided to create a world in which the vast majority of billions of humans (who never asked to exist) would be born into a world of sin and suffering and upon death enter an eternity of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Theologically, there is no issue. Man is guilty. God is infinitely righteous. Practically, however, this apparent reality creates tension with a God who takes “no delight in the destruction of the wicked” (Ezek 33:11). If God loathes the destruction of the wicked that much, then why punish himself so? Why choose to create a world in which ninety percent of mankind will never enjoy the ultimate glory of the New Creation? If the display of his justice and mercy are largely why he allowed sin in the first place, why redeem so few?
These questions and more are a subset of questions related to the Problem of Evil. Christians do well to not shy away from such a difficult questions but push deeper into the nature of God and the self-revelation of God in Scripture. Carson’s answers largely take the form of an argument for Compatibilism.
Part 3: Compatibilism & Evil
Turning our attention to Part 3, this section explores Carson’s definition of Compatibilism and how he connects its relevance to suffering (pp.179ff).
Carson’s definition of Compatibilism has two parts. It consists of two propositions simultaneously taught in Scripture:
(1) “God is absolutely sovereign, but his sovereignty never functions in such a way that human responsibility is curtailed, minimized, or mitigated” and (2) “Human beings are morally responsible creatures—they significantly choose, rebel, obey, believe, defy, make decisions, and so forth, and they are rightly held accountable for such actions; but this characteristic never functions so as to make God absolutely contingent” (179).
Although Carson invokes many scriptural passages, Genesis 50:20 represents both affirmations quite well. “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (English Standard Version, emphasis mine). In brief, Compatibilism affirms that God is sovereign, humans are morally responsible, and that neither reality limits the truth of the other. Hence, they are compatible.
One should note that the definitions of each proposition prove crucial. Defining human freedom in a way that does not infringe upon God’s sovereignty requires nuance. Human freedom is not absolute (as in Libertarian Freedom—a freedom involving absolute power to the contrary; a freedom of indifference). For if humans are absolutely free, then God is not absolutely free: when two wills collide, one must give way. Carson points out that if humans were absolutely free, then God would become contingent and, by definition, lose his status as absolute Sovereign. So, human “agency” (i.e., responsibility, freedom) should be understood in terms of voluntarism: that is, “we do what we want to do, and that is why we are held accountable for what we do” (190). Voluntarism is compatible with God’s full sovereignty.
An Application of How Long, O Lord? to counseling those who suffer.
The question I seek to answer in this section is “How might Carson’s concluding reflections (pp. 200-202) as well as his application of Compatibilism (pp. 206ff) instruct our counseling those who suffer?”
Carson’s wise and patient insight encourages readers to beware of theological constructs that make no room for mystery. When we try to let God’s sovereignty off the hook for bad things that happen in the world, we sacrifice many biblical texts showing he is righteously and gloriously at work even in evil. On the other hand, we must tenderly invite sufferers to lean into all the texts demonstrating that God is utterly good, lest in the heat of trial one conceives of God as a vindictive megalomaniac, as some unsanctified minds allege. Because of and not despite of God’s sovereignty we should encourage sufferers to pray. Scripture declares and assumes over and again that God often acts correspondingly to our prayers or lack thereof. Carson cites several passages of Scripture in which God “relents” of his threats of judgement in apparent response to human intercession (Exod 32:13-14). In another instance, God pours out judgment on Israel and credits a lack of intercession with their not being spared (Ezek 13:5). The lesson is an instrumental understanding of prayer. Far from being an exercise in futility due to God’s sovereign decrees, our prayers are means God ordained to bring about his purposes. God evidently “factors” prayer and lack of prayer into his eternal calculi. From our vantage point, prayer does change things, under God’s sovereignty (206). “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (Jam 5:16).
Furthermore, just as the ant lays up store for the day of want, so we must treasure up faith-fortifying truths for the day of evil. Romans 8:28 is one such text that can help us in the fog of battle, though we should be cautious about glibly citing it to those suffering. We should encourage people we counsel to find comfort in the timing of the Lord. We all crave immediate relief and answers. God’s timing is perfect yet often feels delayed. Job, Joseph, Naomi, and many others may illustrate God’s slowly unfolding deliverances. Even if relief comes only in the New Creation, it will be worth the wait: our comparatively “light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor 4:17). So too, Carson reminds us that if God intimately superintends the hopping of sparrows (Matt 10:29), how much more does he not superintend even the smallest aspects of our lives (216)? As friends, pastors, and counselors, we should be mindful of the infamous example of Job’s advice-rich, discernment-poor friends. Patience with those grieving marks the wise. Some grief takes years to process, and we should not pressure others to recover according to our timetable. Finally, we must offer hope to those in trial, both hope in the New Creation and hope in the short-term. It is important for those grieving to be reminded to live one day at a time, knowing God is ever at work for our eternal good (224).
Carson’s book provides readers and suffers with a humble, realistic, and thoroughly biblical foundation for reconciling the goodness and omnipotence of God with untold suffering in a fallen world. We do well to read and reread this work to fortify our hearts in peaceful days, so that we may stand in day of calamity, testing, and temptation (Eph 6:10–11). ❖
