WHERE IS GOD IN ALL THE SUFFERING?
By Amy Orr-Ewing
The Good Book Company, 130 pages, £7.99
ISBN 978 1 784 982 768
If we live long enough, we will suffer. The problem of pain is arguably the strongest objection to Christian faith.
Amy Orr-Ewing, Joint Director of the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, has provided us with an excellent evangelistic/ apologetic tool to help us address this agonising question.
This short book (just 130 pages) deals with a wide range of issues from grief to depression and from natural disasters to PTSD. In every case the treatment is perceptive, sensitive and well informed. She engages with a variety of Biblical texts with a lightness of touch which will be accessible to people unfamiliar with the Bible. She also regularly grounds her observations in her own pastoral experience.
The book is intellectually honest and gives multiple points of contact with those exploring faith. She engages with several worldviews – including naturalism, Buddhism and Islam. In each case I felt that she was judicious and generous in her critique. She consistently shows how a Christian worldview gives the most satisfying answer to the genuine questions which pain raises in our lives.
The book is not perfect – I was not convinced by her treatment of natural disasters – she refers to the Fall without drawing out its implications for the Creation. Her underlying theodicy is the free-will defence: ‘The Bible locates an explanation for pain, evil and suffering in the context of people having the ability to love and so the ability to make choices.’
The reader may not be entirely convinced by this explanation, but I felt that it did not detract from the overall thrust of the book.
The book ends with the work of Christ and focuses on the cross. God has not walked away, but has come close to us in our pain. We may be called to walk a difficult and challenging path – but Christ walks with us.
I would confidently give this book to anyone troubled by the problem of suffering.
