The scope of suffering.

interesting revalation at 1:17am.

first year university, i took a bunch of random courses, as we often do. i took intro philosophy, and loved it. partly because of my professor who was a little crazy, smart, quarky, and so in love with philosophy. partly because it was the right mix of weird people all put in the same room, which proved very entertaining.

so as you could possibly imagine, we had a hard time getting off the topic of God and his existence. i was one of the few christians in the class, and was always really interested to hear everyone elses perspectives. it would seem that above all else, the christian concept of God was the one under the most scrutiny. fair enough, that's the one most people (of faith based orientation or not) knew the most about. but one thing that got to me though, was that a common opinion was that if he did in fact exist, he must surely not be loving because suffering exists in the world.

there are a whole bunch things that one can discuss in God's defence here, but taking the defensive is rarely productive. so i finally got my thoughts in order and proposed this:

suppose there is a scope of suffering. and from what we see, we have one end of the scope, which is complete utopia, everything is fine, no suffering exists. on the other side of the scope, is the worst suffering possible - the cambodian genocide, murder, rape, loss, ect ect ect. and we sit and see the reality of this far end of suffering, and wonder how a God who is loving could possibly allow this to happen?

suppose one more thing. suppose there is more suffering still. that the scope does not end there, but rather it extends past what we know. perhaps while we sit there and wonder why God isn't doing anything, he is in the very act of preventing that which we do not see.

i'm not saying that this is how it is. but i'm saying it's possible. that it's a different way to look at it.

so i've been sitting in my own misery the past few days, asking God why, if he loves me, will he not take away this burden that i thought had left a long time ago.

and now, i sit in my own humility, as i realize... maybe it could be worse.