Pain

I remember at least two people (one very recently) who have told me they have trouble believing in a God who would allow so much pain and sorrow in the world.

When I was in school studying mathematical logic, we were taught how to start with definitions and axioms (self-evident truths), and prove theorems. The theorems were of the form: if X is true than it follows that y must be true. Very complex but internally consistent mathematical systems have been developed this way. Following a parallel train of thought, I've found what I think is an interesting and logical way to convince, at least myself, that God can be generous and loving beyond anything that we can even imagine, yet still allow the pain, suffering, and sorrow we see in the world.

The arguement starts with three axioms. In math, we were taught that you can't argue with an axiom - you don't prove an axiom, you just show that certain things must be true, given the truth of the axiom. As I said before, mathematics is internally consistent but doesn't have to reflect reality - it just so happens to reflect reality often enough that it has been found to be very useful.

So here are the three axioms, and I may provide a little reasoning as to why we should start with these:

1. Eternity is a long time. This one is self evident. No matter how many years or centuries you can conceive of, multiply that number by 1000 a thousand times more, and you haven't left the beach into the ocean of eternity.
2. Pain tends to grow less with time after the source of pain is removed, especially if healing is allowed to take place,. We've all experienced this with little pains - we hit our fingernail with a hammer and at the time it is very painful, but many months (maybe years later!) no signs of the pain remain.
3. God allows life to go on after death. I'm trying to show logically how God could be generous and loving beyond imagining and at the same time allow all the pain and suffering we see in the world. My way to do this (I'm not going to try to convince you NOW that it's the only way) is to add this third axiom.

The proof will have to wait - time to take my daughter to her concert.