Bart Ehrman and Suffering

KEVIN HARRIS: Bill, we are going to take a look at an article by Bart Ehrman who we will introduce a little further as we get into this. “Is Suffering a Problem for Those Who Suffer?”^[1] This is kind of a depressing article. It is not an easy topic. It is one that we’ve dealt with in the podcast. I’ll tell you who is not depressing, though – it is a guy that he brings up. Nick Vujicic, who was born without any arms and legs, and who is a follower of Jesus and is so inspirational and has inspired millions and has a huge platform. He is brought up in this article as we get to it in just a moment. Many people think that Bart Ehrman's deconversion was due to textual criticism, but actually it seems to be the problem of evil and suffering. Is that your understanding?

DR. CRAIG: That's correct. My understanding is that Bart did not lose his Christian faith because of the discovery of errors in the New Testament. He could have simply adjusted his doctrine of inspiration and inerrancy. But rather it was a philosophical problem – it was the classic problem of evil that led him to agnosticism and finally atheism.

KEVIN HARRIS: OK. Bart begins this article,

I started this thread on the problem of suffering because I wanted to respond to a specific question from a member. . . . Here now is the question I received, and my response.

QUESTION:

Faith-wise, why is the problem of suffering a breaking point for you, Bart, but not for Nick Vujicic?

RESPONSE:

. . . look up Nick Vujicic to see who he was, and it was indeed a bit of a shock.  You may have heard of him – as it turns out he is a famous person. And his is indeed a remarkable story.

Vujicic was born in 1982 with tetra-amelia syndrome. He has no arms and legs.   His parents were from Yugoslavia, but he was born in Melbourne Australia, and eventually moved to the U.S. He is also a well-known motivational speaker and a Christian evangelist, speaking to large audiences about the goodness of God and the reasons for hope in the face of despair – while he himself is without limbs.

Vujicic is obviously better suited than almost anyone to encourage others in the face of suffering. He admits that he doesn’t know why God allowed him to come into the world the way he did, but he believes that ultimately God has a purpose and he works to help everyone see how God can restore dignity and hope, even in the most trying circumstances imaginable.

And so the question I was asked is: if that works for him – someone who has experienced suffering in the extreme – why doesn’t it work for me, someone who has not.

Before we get to Bart's answer, what aspect of the problem of evil do you think is being addressed here?

DR. CRAIG: This is one of the most interesting things about this article and the question that was posed to Ehrman – I don't think this is really a question about what I call the intellectual problem of evil (whether or not the evil and suffering in the world makes God's existence impossible or improbable). Rather, I think this is really a question about the emotional problem of evil. Nick Vujicic is able to cope emotionally with horrible suffering and to live a life of purpose and joy, while Bart Ehrman who has not suffered anything comparable to this finds it impossible to believe in God. So really this is a question about one's subjective or emotional response to suffering. Why is it that Nick Vujicic is able to respond in such a victorious and hopeful way but Ehrman is not? Now, I want to say personally that I think I actually may have heard Vujicic speak. When I was at that conference in Mexico City several years ago where I was on a debate team with Richard Dawkins. In the audience was someone that sounded very much like this. He was a motivational speaker, had no arms or legs, had to be carried about, and yet when he spoke it was with such authority and credibility. I remember him publicly from the audience rebuking Richard Dawkins for his cynicism and nihilism and affirming his belief in God and that God had a purpose for this and so forth. The audience applauded wildly for him, and I thought, “This guy really ought to be on the debate team rather than us!” Because I think what he had to say was far more convincing to the audience than the arguments that I and my colleagues were able to give simply because he spoke with such personal credibility and authority on this subject.

KEVIN HARRIS: So there's the logical philosophical problem of evil and there's the emotional problem of evil. This is more that. That does sound like Nick that you heard there. I wouldn't be surprised at all.

DR. CRAIG: And I think it sounds like the question that was asked by Bart's interlocutor – why is it that you don't respond in the way that Nick Vujicic is able to respond? That's a very subjective question about the emotional impact of evil and suffering in the world.

KEVIN HARRIS: The article continues. Bart says,

It is a great question, and I take it very seriously. The simple answer to it is that I don’t really know.

I wish I did have this point of view. I would feel so much better about the world if I thought that everyone who was born and grew up with so many almost inconceivable physical, social, and emotional challenges – life-threatening, often unimaginably painful — could have hope and feel inspired by the goodness of God.

Does Christianity teach that those who suffer can have hope and feel inspired by the goodness of God?

DR. CRAIG: Absolutely! The apostle Paul says that even though our outer nature is wasting away every day he says that we look forward to a hope of glory that is simply incomparable to what we suffer in this life. And someday Nick Vujicic and we will have resurrection bodies that will be fully restored and healthy, endowed with supernatural abilities, and our psychological and emotional hang-ups will be healed as well. We'll be transparent adjusted individuals who can interact with each other in healthy ways rather than with suspicion or hostility and so forth. So Christianity does hold out tremendous hope that as we go through this veil of suffering there is deliverance finally on the other side.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next he says,

I have not had those challenges, at all.  My difficulties in life have always been far more mundane and typical for a middle-class guy who grew up in the Midwest. What do I personally know of suffering in extremis?  Nothing.  Literally nothing.

How would I react if I lost my arms and legs in an accident?

You've addressed this on past podcasts when people ask you what would make you lose your faith? You've said, “Who knows?” It's difficult to gauge how one would would react to a bad tragedy.

DR. CRAIG: Yes, this underlines the fact that the question here at issue is really an emotional question. It's an emotional problem. How would you react if this happened to you? As you say, who knows? Maybe I wouldn't be able to sustain my faith in God. Maybe I would collapse under this sort of pressure, and God has spared me from it. On the other hand, one would hope that one would so turn to God for strength and courage to go on that one would survive the trial. But I don't think any of us really knows the answer to these kinds of emotional questions. What we do need to do is day by day rely upon the Lord for his strength and purpose in living in order to get through the trials that this life inevitably brings.

KEVIN HARRIS: Ehrman continues,

I’ve considered these questions a lot, actually, over the years. . . . My guess is that I would react the way 99% of people react when that happens: I’d be bitter, hateful, resentful, angry, and suicidal.  But maybe not.  Maybe something would spark in me and I would see a bright side and work to encourage others. That, of course, is what one would hope. But the reality is that most people don’t go that way.

Bart may be right that most people would be bitter and angry, etc. but whether they remain that way, that's a separate question, isn't it?

DR. CRAIG: I have to confess that I was really surprised at Bart's answer to this question. I thought, man, the people he hangs around with must be a lot different than the people I hang around with. I don't think that most people react with bitterness, hatefulness, resentfulness, and anger when they go through suffering. And I'm talking about non-Christians even. When I see these newscasts about the tornadoes in Kentucky that have wiped out whole communities and people who've lost everything – these people are genuinely hopeful and are looking to start life anew and they're thankful still to be alive. They try to look on the bright side. I find that when people are going through hard times they generally tend to look on the bright side and hope that things will get better in the future, and therefore they're not suicidal. So I'm not nearly so cynical and pessimistic about human nature as Bart is. I think people are a lot more resilient than he imagines.

KEVIN HARRIS: Next he says,

I would never say that the views of the 99% should be the view taken by Nick Vujicic. It’s amazing he has his view and has had the success he has. I wish everyone else did. But I can’t adopt either his view or theirs simply because they happen to have them. I have to look around the world, see [it] for myself, and figure out what to make of it.  I myself do not think God has a plan for Nick. Or for the thousands of people who will starve to death today, this very day, many of them infants and young children. And the millions, right now, dying of malaria, [. . . and the list of disease after disease and wars. . .]

I suppose he's talking about the typical problem of evil here.

DR. CRAIG: Right. To Bart's credit here, he has reverted to the intellectual problem of evil rather than the emotional problem of evil. He says, “I can't adopt somebody else's view just because they hold it whether that of those who despair and are resentful and hateful or those like Nick Vujicic who are hopeful and look out to the future.” He says, “I have to figure out for myself what to make of it.” And so he doesn't think that God has a plan for Nick Vujicic. For Bart, Nick is just a deluded soul who turns to God for some sort of an emotional crutch in order to get through life, and so that delusion works for him but it won't work for Bart. And this is where then we need to engage the problem philosophically. And I would say that there is no good argument to think that the existence of God is either impossible or improbable given the horrible evil and suffering in the world that Bart recounts.

KEVIN HARRIS: Ehrman continues,

I absolutely love the success stories. If they were what typically happened, I’m pretty sure I would not find suffering to be a problem for belief in a God who loves us and wants the best for us and can help us when we are in need — although if there were even one unresolvable tragedy, I’m sure I would have my doubts. But then it would be easier to say that God had a reason for it. I really don’t think the simple claim that God has a reason can satisfy when we’re talking about many millions of children in agony while they starve to death.

I wonder how anyone would know whether a tragedy is unresolvable?

DR. CRAIG: Exactly. You're quite right to point that out. The problem of suffering and evil puts an enormous burden of proof on the atheist. He has to prove that it's either impossible or highly improbable that God has morally sufficient reasons for permitting the terrible evil and suffering in the world. Given our cognitive limitations, our limits in space and time or lack of insight or inability to see the future, this is based upon probability judgments which we are simply in no position to make with any sort of confidence. And then of course on the other side we have all of the positive arguments for the existence of God and the resurrection of Jesus that must be placed on the other side of the scale and weighed against the problem of evil and suffering. When you do that, I'm persuaded that the reasons to believe in Christian theism much outweigh any improbability that the evil and suffering in the world, as terrible as it is, throws upon the existence of God.

KEVIN HARRIS: Here's the conclusion of the article:

I’d rather not find this kind of suffering to be a problem. But I’m afraid I do. Other people do not feel that way – including those who have dealt with incredible suffering themselves, and I have no argument against them. But I do hope that everyone who ever thinks about the problem at least looks it in the eye and comes to a sensible view about it, one that seems plausible to them only after they’ve taken it seriously. Those who do not take suffering seriously – either because they don’t care (an incredibly common attitude) or because they have a Pollyanna solution to it (also incredibly common) – are the ones most likely not do anything about it. And that only increases the suffering.

Bill, your concluding thoughts?

DR. CRAIG: Well, I think we can agree with Bart that we need to take the suffering in the world very seriously and they need to be active in efforts to alleviate it. One of the striking things about the Judeo-Christian faith in contrast to, say, Hinduism and Buddhism is that we do not regard evil and suffering as ultimately illusory – part of the realm of Maya, the realm of illusion. But rather Christianity affirms that there is genuine moral evil in the world which is in opposition to God and which God opposes and calls upon us to oppose, too, with all of our energy. So Christianity is very clear-sighted about the evil and suffering in the world. It's not a pollyannish view. Neither does it simply ignore the evil and suffering in the world. The great relief agencies and hospitals and efforts to improve quality of life in the third world – all of these have been inspired historically through Christian enterprises. So I think that the Christian doesn't have a naive view of the world that attempts to sweep evil and suffering under the rug. Rather it stares it in the face and looks it down, and I think is rational in doing so on the basis of the evidence.^[2]