Ehrman’s Problem: the Conclusion–His Book’s Title Is Misleading

Although most of Bart Ehrman’s final chapter, “Suffering: The Conclusion,” is just a rehash, he does make one last point worth examining. When I teach on suffering I remind my students that whatever else we think about suffering, we should remember that Christianity is primarily about God the Son suffering for humankind. Ehrman gives his view on this concept (272-273):

And what do we see when we look to Jesus? We see one who spent his entire life, and went to his death, in self-giving love…. It cost Jesus everything while he was living, and at the end it cost him his life…. God is one who suffers with us…. His character is shown when his followers give themselves to others, even unto death. This may seem like a severe religious view, and it is. It is serious Christianity.

Indeed, this is crucial! If Christianity is true, then when we consider the suffering around us we should never, ever forget that God Himself suffered when, Jesus, the Second Person of the Trinity, was tortured to death on the cross. It was torturous because those crucified had to constantly raise themselves by putting an upward pressure on their spike-pierced feet so that they could pivot on their spike-impaled wrists in order to continue breathing. Only when they became too exhausted to raise themselves did they die. If Christianity is true, then God the Son suffered to pay the penalty for our sins. Jesus’ torturous crucifixion, after all, isn’t a small point to Christianity: it is central. Our God suffered the ultimate penalty for us and that must always be kept in view when considering human suffering.

Ehrman has three strange objections to this. First, he objects that God didn’t really suffer because the view that Jesus was God was “not a view shared by most of the writers of the New Testament” but was “developed rather late” (273). That’s bizarre for several reasons. For one, Ehrman says he left Christianity because it couldn’t explain why we suffer, but if he had already given up the deity of Christ, then he had already left Christianity. So again, which is it? He couldn’t discount Jesus’ deity when he was an evangelical, as he has claimed he was, but this is apparently his major objection to the argument that God Himself suffered. What gives?

Similarly, another problem throughout God’s Problem is that Ehrman reads the Bible as liberal scholarship reads the Bible. In other words, he treats each author, not as if they were inspired by the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit is continually unfolding God’s plan, but as if they were just men, writing books that are no more than books, and because of that the collection of books named “Bible” is impotent. Well, if Ehrman wants to take it that way, he has the free will to do so, but then Ehrman should have entitled his book something like, God’s Problem: How a Liberal New Testament Scholarship Reading of the Bible Renders the Bible as Incapable of Answering Our Most Important Question—Why We Suffer. But that would have warranted no more from the evangelical community than a collective “Duh.”

But it’s worse than that. Ehrman says emphatically that he left Christianity (and Christians believe the Bible is inspired by God) because the Bible couldn’t answer why we suffer. But in God’s Problem much of the time Ehrman disqualifies the Bible’s answers exactly, precisely because he doesn’t believe the Bible is inspired by God.

Ehrman’s second objection is equally troubled: “One could just as plausibly argue, theologically, that since Christ took on the suffering of the world, the world no longer needs to suffer. That is, after all, what theologians have argued about damnation: Jesus bore our sin and experienced the condemnation of God precisely so we wouldn’t have to do so. Didn’t he suffer so that we don’t need to?” (273-274). “Just as plausibly”? What a mess: again I feel like I’m trying to get gum out of my foster daughter’s hair. It is true that there are a few errant Christians—I’d be surprised if any of them teach in an accredited seminary in the United States—who believe that Christians shouldn’t have to suffer here (they’re a part of the confession teaching, name-it-and-claim-it clan). But, I’ve never known even one Christian—not even one—who believes that the unregenerate are freed from suffering. Also, it is true that Christians believe that Christians will be spared the second death because of Christ’s work, but I’ve never known a Christian to argue that they won’t have to experience the first death–barring the Lord’s return–and whatever kills you is rather unpleasant. Further, Ehrman didn’t believe this as a Christian either, did he?

Ehrman’s third objection is also gummed up: “If the Christian God is the one who suffers, then who is the one who created and sustains the world? Isn’t it the same God? By saying that God suffers with his creation, we seem to have sacrificed the view that God is sovereign over his creation. In other words, once again, God is not really GOD” (274). Seriously? Anyone who has ever been in charge of others knows that sometimes you can choose to get down in the trenches with them without losing your inchargeness.¹ Exactly because God is sovereign He can humble himself and take on the form of a servant, if He wants to (Phil. 2:7).

So the end of the story, all has been heard, Ehrman’s book is a mess. He reads the Bible from a liberal scholarship perspective and then concludes from that liberal perspective that the Bible can’t answer why we suffer. That’s no surprise to anyone. But if you take the Bible for what it actually says you’ll find that God gave humans free will, humans used this free will to rebel against Him, He sent His Son Jesus to pay the price for human evil, and then one day Jesus will come back and judge the world. Evil will cease and those who are in Christ will find that eternity has dwarfed their suffering to insignificance (2 Cor. 4:17) and they will reign with Jesus forever and ever (Rev. 22:5).

1. Yes, I made that word up. [↩]