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Designed to be used in conjunction with John Dickson's If I were God, I'd end all the pain, this resource is a sensitive and Biblically informed treatment of the problem of suffering featuring six studies on Job and the cross. For years 9 and 10.
Citation preview
If I were God, I’d end all the pain
Struggling with evil, suffering and faith
When talk turns to the existence of God and his role in the
world, the question of suffering is an inevitable sticking point.
How could a loving God allow people to suffer? Why would an
all-powerful God not intervene to prevent children from dying
starvation, sickness or natural disaster? If God cares why doesn’t
he stop murders and poverty and pain? Why does God allow me
to feel lonely, hurt or afraid?
There are no easy answers to these questions, nor are we
served by glib responses to very real and troubling issues. If I were
God, I’d end all the pain is John Dickson’s attempt at a sensitive
and Biblically informed treatment of the problem of suffering.
Now with student handbook Dickson’s book is well suited to
Christian Studies classrooms and other contexts where this
important question must come up. What students may discover is
that Christianity offers the best answer available and the most
hope for living life in a broken and imperfect world.
Designed for students in years 9 and 10, the student
handbook also features six Bible studies to complement the
chapters of the Dickson book with a focus on the book of Job as
well as the cross of Jesus.
The handbook contains:
[ Interviews with people who have experienced and endured
suffering
[ Stunning illustrations by Julie Bosaker and Kaethe Kollwitz
[ Newspaper articles
[ Explanatory diagrams
[ Individual response and group discussion
[ Room to express questions and objections
[ Quotes from contemporary figures
[ Real life stories
Structure
Introduction
CHAPTER 1
The Last one standingJob – when life falls apart
CHAPTER 2
The alternativesJob takes another hit
CHAPTER 3
Invitation to doubtJob feels the pain
CHAPTER 4
The Justice of GodGenesis – where it all
went wrong
CHAPTER 5
The renewal of all thingsJob and God – time to talk
CHAPTER 6
The wounds of GodJob and Jesus - Has God
left the building?
Student Handbook
If IwereGod,I’d end all the
painS T R U G G L I N G W I T H E V I L , S U F F E R I N G A N D F A I T H
J O H N D I C K S O N
Featuressix studieson Job andthe cross
Written by Simon Smart
If I were God, I’d end ALL the
painIf I were God, I’d end ALL the
pain
sample lesson
Introduction
M
Desperate dig for survivorsBy Graham Reilly in New Delhi and agencies
October 10, 2005
International aid, rescue teams and relief supplies have
begun pouring into Pakistan as the death toll from a
devastating earthquake soared, with entire villages
destroyed and thousands of people buried alive under
collapsed buildings.
The earthquake, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, tore
through Pakistan and reverberated across India and
Afghanistan early on Saturday. It was the strongest to hit
South Asia in 100 years. Up to 45 aftershocks were felt,
the latest recording 6 on the scale.
Official estimates of the death toll varied. Pakistan’s
interior minister said 19,136 people died and 42,397 were
injured in north-western Pakistan and Pakistan-
controlled Kashmir. About 11,000 of the dead were in
Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, Aftab
Sherpao said. “Casualties are increasing by the hour”.1
WeekendcarnageofThe following stories occurred on a single weekend. A Mondaymorning newspaper reportedeach of these events:
Hurricane kills 1500across central AmericaOctober 10, 2005
San Salvador: Rescuers pulled bodies
from Guatemalan villages devastated
by mudslides, and other volunteers
used machetes and their bare hands to
dig for more victims as the aftermath
of Hurricane Stan continued to wreak
havoc across northern Central
America, killing up to 1500 people.
Guatemalan officials said on Saturday
that 508 people had been confirmed
dead and 337 were missing in the
country as a result of flooding and
mudslides caused by the hurricane,
which roared across the region last
week. More than 100 other deaths
have been reported in Mexico, El
Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and
Costa Rica.
Los Angeles Times, Reuters3
Mother and babybashed, man charged
A man will face court today over the
bashing of a mother and her baby son
on the NSW South Coast.
Police said the 34-year-old woman and
her four-month-old son suffered head
and facial injuries when they were
attacked at a home in Sassafras
Avenue, Windang, about 3pm on
Saturday.
Police allege the woman was attacked
while she was holding the baby.
She then drove them to Shellharbour
hospital and they were transferred by
ambulance to Wollongong hospital.
A 42-year-old man has been charged
with a string of assault and grievous
bodily harm offences.
He was refused bail and will face
Wollongong Local Court today.
AAP4
Sumatra boy tests positivefor bird flu October 10, 2005
Jakarta: A four-year-old boy has tested positive for
bird flu in Indonesia, a case which, if confirmed,
would be the sixth in the world’s fourth-most
populous country, the Health Ministry said.
The boy from Lampung province on Sumatra was
found to be infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of
avian influenza, the Director-General of Disease
Control and Environmental Health, I Nyoman
Kandun, said yesterday.
Reuters, Agence France-Presse2
2
The scale of the loss and destruction reportedhere is difficult to comprehend. Many of us are
desensitised to such stories.We read aboutthem, sigh sympathetically and move quickly on
to the sports or entertainment news.
The stories came from a particularlydevastating weekend, but picking any day’s
newspaper will provide tales of loss, violence,destruction and suffering. The stories may or
may not impact us, but for the people involvedthey are catastrophic moments. They all got upthat morning expecting to live their lives in the
usual manner. For many thousands it was thelast time they would do so. Other lives would beirreparably damaged. For these people things
would never be the same again.
Wherewas God?
Tick the box[es] of the statementsthat you most agree with.
� God wasn’t there because he doesn’t exist.
� God is not able to stop bad things happening.
� God must not care about people very much.
� God cares very much for the people involvedin these events.
� God is angry and caused these events.
� God cares and is in control of all thathappens in the world.
� God created the world but doesn’t intervenein what happens
Identify the different causes of suffering
that were present in the newspaper stories
above. What other causes of suffering can
you think of?
�
�
Read the introduction to ‘If I were God …’ (page 9–10)
Why does the author suggest his capacity to
doubt is a strength when handling this topic?�
What other questions do you have about the issue of pain
and suffering and God? Write them in the space below.
I look at the world and all the suffering that goes on and I justcan’t believe there is a loving God who stands by and doesnothing.
Suffering doesn’t cause me any great philosophical problem.There is just a terrible randomness to what happens and thereis no-one to blame.
God knows about our suffering and he experienced it himself,in the life of Jesus. This is the key to understanding somethingabout suffering and how we should understand it.
God disciplines people with suffering and pain. Everythingthat happens is caused by God and there must be a reason foreverything.
I believe that God is there and that he created the world, buthe must not be able to really help our situation. The world justevolves and life happens – good and bad, and I suppose Godeither can’t or won’t get involved.
Suffering is ultimately good for people. Itbrings the strongest people to the surfaceand they are the ones who survive andprosper. That is a natural thing about howthings develop and might sound a bit harsh,but is for the best in the end.
Rate the following statements with a number 1–5,where 1 means I strongly agree, and 5 means Idon’t agree at all.
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What three questions are posed at the
outset of the book?
•••
1.CH
AP
TE
R
'Life is full ofmisery, loneliness,and suffering - andit's all over much
too soon.'Woody Allen1
Read page 11-13
What makes the author qualified to talk
about suffering?
How do you explain the fact that without a
religious background, as a 9 year-old he
asked his mother, 'Why did God let Dad's
plane crash?'
For a range of differenttypes of suffering below,describe the possiblereasons why things went
wrong. Who or what might havecaused the suffering. (In some casesyou need to speculate on thepossibilities.) Some have been donefor you.
2004 Tsunami
Destructive forces of nature.Earthquake at ocean floor causingmassive movement of water into aTsunami.
Millions die in famine
Nature, erosion from poor farmingtechniques, corrupt governmentwithholding international aid, richcountries ignore pleas for help.
A country is bombed by another
The last onestanding �
�
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A friendship breaksdown
A child dies of cancer A marriage collapses
The company has
compromised safety
standards by cost cutting
to satisfy shareholders.
Time pressured ground
crew, negligently fail to
follow procedures that
could have prevented
the crash.
An airliner crashesWhen people experience suffering
they often ask 'why?' (page 12).
Explain the reason this is a
natural question to ask when
things go wrong.
The author says that the Bible -
his main source of perspective on
suffering - does not offer a
complete and final explanation of
all evil and suffering. What does it give him?
Read pages 13-17
Why does the existence of suffering convince
some people that there is no such thing as an
all-powerful, all-loving God? How reasonable
is such a conclusion?
The Bible's teaching about God
is that he is the almighty
creator of all things who 'stretches out
the heavens' with his hand (Isaiah
40:22), and that he is loving and good.
Do you think that suffering poses a
problem for such a description of God? Explain
your answer.
Does suffering
�
�
�
�
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disproveGod?
Complete the following diagrams based on the author's
suggestions on page 14-16
Equation 1
Assumption 1
Assumption 2
Fact
Conclusion
What argument does the author use
to refute this equation?
God?Equation of
&suffering
Equation 1
Assumption 1
Assumption 2
Fact
Conclusion
How do you feel about the argument of
equation 2?
The real question(s) according to the author are:
More than flood damage in
Jemile Jackson is 8 years old.Up until hurricane Katrina ravagedNew Orleans in 2005, he lived therewith his single mother, three brothersand their grandparents. Theneighbourhood they lived in was wellaway from the wide avenues and oldplantation homes of the city's wealthy.Theirs was an area of town that NewOrleans' many tourists rarely saw.
When news of hurricane Katrina filtered into the
city, Jemile and his family were part of the mass of
people for whom evacuation was never an option.
The vast majority of these people were, like the
Jackson family, African Americans. Where would
they go? How would they get there? They had
survived this sort of thing before, and expected to do
so again.
The devastation of Katrina was something Jemile
and his family could not have imagined. When the
banks of the Mississippi River broke and the
flooding of the city began, Jemile lost his
grandparents and his home in the floodwaters.
Thousands were forced to seek shelter in the city's
convention centre. Trapped in the cauldron of the
'Superdome', Jamile entered a week that outstripped
his darkest nightmares. It was a living hell.
In the Superdome he experienced the worst that
humanity had to offer. Each night was a nerve-
jangling, helpless wait with his mother and brothers
to see if they would survive. Like everyone else they
were at the mercy of the gangs that roamed the
stadium unrestrained, tormenting random victims.
Gun-shots frequently rang out. Rumours circulated
of rape. Bodies left in the open provided undeniable
evidence of murder.
Help did not come. Elderly people died from lack of
medical treatment. Toilets overflowed with refuse.
The stench was overpowering. In the country with
the most powerful economy in the world and the
strongest army, its citizens were left to fend for
themselves. What little assistance that did
eventually arrive in the form of water and food,
produced scenes of frantic and desperate 'snatch
and grab' selfishness. Survival of the strongest and
�
�
M6
d damage in Katrina's wake
fastest was very much the order of the day.
Jemile's mother remains in a state of mild shock over
the whole affair. 'We just couldn't believe that all this
could go on without the government doing something
about it. We kept thinking “they will get here soon”.
But days went by before any help arrived.'
For Jemile and his family, the months ahead are full of
unknowns. They share a fate with thousands of others
who have been displaced and don't know when or if
they will be able to return to their homes.
From Jemile's story highlightall the negative elements andthe different things that wentwrong in the account.
For each of these, suggest somepossible reasons why things occurredin the way they did.
�
If you could choose just one thing in the
world for God to change and make better,
what would it be?
What would need to happen for this thing to be fixed?
�
Points to ponder
What possible reason could there befor God to allow suffering tocontinue?
Is there any suffering that could beconsidered good?
Use the space here to express your own feelings on
the topic and the points raised in the first chapter..
Yeah but...Objections, questions, disagreements
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