Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1274 | Why Would a Good God Allow This Much Suffering?

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

The guys confess their most egregious romance fails from forgotten birthdays, last-minute Valentine’s plans, and bookstore traditions gone stale to wildly different philosophies on “setting the bar” in marriage. Al uses the pain of romance to highlight another truth: there’s pain that hurts, and pain that alters. That distinction becomes personal as Zach opens up about his mother’s long battle with early-onset dementia and the complicated grief that followed her passing. The conversation turns to one of Christianity’s hardest realities: if God is good and all-powerful, why does so much suffering continue in the world?  In this episode: Ecclesiastes 3, verse 11; Psalm 90, verse 12; Hebrews 12, verse 2; Colossians 2, verses 20–23; Romans 1, verses 24–25; Romans 8, verses 20–23; 1 John 2, verses 15–16; 1 John 4, verses 8–10 Today’s conversation is about Lesson 6 of C.S. Lewis on Christianity taught by visiting Hillsdale professor Michael Ward. Take the course with us at no cost to you! Sign up at http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/. More about C.S. Lewis on Christianity: Encounter the faith & wisdom of C.S. Lewis C.S. Lewis’s writings bring the great questions of the Christian faith to life. Through his imaginative and invigorating style, Lewis answers these questions in ways that are compelling to those outside Christianity and energizing to those within the Christian faith. In this free, seven-lecture course, Professor Michael Ward—a leading scholar of C.S. Lewis—will explore Lewis’s: argument for objective moral value in response to the rise of modern subjectivism; bittersweet path to conversion and the role of enjoyment in the Christian life; advice regarding the proper way to pray and read the Bible; teachings concerning the purpose of pain and how to confront suffering and loss; insights about the nature of heaven and hell. This course examines these fundamental topics not only through his classic works—including Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Abolition of Man—but also through Lewis’s personal experiences with doubt, conversion, suffering, grief, and joy. Through this course, students will discover Lewis’s core lessons regarding the truth and goodness of the Christian faith and how to apply those lessons to one’s life.  Join us today in discovering C.S. Lewis’s enduring lessons about the meaning and practice of Christianity. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters: 00:00 Valentine’s Day Fails & Romantic Confessions 05:10 The Problem of Pain Explained 11:45 Is God All-Powerful & All-Loving? 18:20 Free Will, Satan & the Origin of Evil 26:30 Jesus’ Suffering Before the Resurrection 33:40 Personal Loss: Dementia, Grief & Faith 42:10 “Pain Is God’s Megaphone” 48:30 A Grief Observed & Wrestling With God 55:00 God Is Love & the Reality of Eternity — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to the Unashamed podcast. It's Friday. We're doing our Unashamed with Hillsdale. It's a free course. We're doing the CS Lewis course right now. You guys can join up for free at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. We just got out of Valentine's Day. Do you guys have traditions? I mean, what do y'all do? Are you all like the romantic types or what? I'd love to hear. of where how you guys operate during this season of love. I think I first wanted to hear from you, Zach. Are you, what's your thoughts on Valentine's Day? I think I'm a hopeless romantic,

but Jill would probably say no, that I'm not really good at the remembering special occasions. Alan, you know, that's like a fan. That's a curse of the family. That's not necessarily my fire. That may be some kind of genetics. I don't know what you think. Well, yeah, I mean, my wing, for sure, very little is done.

But I'm very different from everybody else in my wings. I've always been the weird one. So I've always made a big deal about it. In fact, when my girls were little, I would always do a big thing, not just for Lisa, but for her and the girls. And so it was like, you know, in that sense, they were my sweetheart, you know. So I would always, like, get decorations. I would cook or, like, go pick up food and stuff like that.

And I would just make a big deal about not just serving Lisa, but the girl. So my girls always remember that, which I told both their husbands, I was like, you know, I've set the bar high. So we'll see. Of course, you know, Jay Stone, you know, he's not going for the bar, you know. But lucky for him, Nan doesn't really care about it anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he probably doesn't know. It's no big deal.

He probably didn't know when Valentine's Day is. Right, exactly. He probably doesn't know. If you don't know, I mean, oh, well, Jay's told me early on to set the bar low when you first get married. And he said, if you set it really low, you set the expectations. expectations really love than anything above the bottom is advancement. And so I went with that. That's not a good tactic. No, that's terrible. That's terrible advice. Awful advice. And Jayst-Tos talks about dad giving him bad advice, but he's the worst as well.

When we first got married, Jill and I, it wasn't the first Valentine's Day, but her first birthday, which is in February, we, I'd forgot to do. anything or plan anything for her birthday. Your first year of marriage, you forgot her birthday. Oh, wow. Is that not bad? And so it was the day out, no card, like, I mean nothing. Like no happy birthday.

I mean, nothing. Just totally forgot. And I get to work and my sister calls me. I was like, are you doing anything for Jill's birthday tonight? I mean, you haven't taught us? And I was like, oh, my gosh. It just hit, and it was like that moment, like, you know, that dream you have where you, like, you forget to show up for finals or whatever.

It was like, that kind of anxiety just, like, overcame me. And I was like, I have not planned anything. So we still, Jill still talks about this story to this day. So what I did was, in a panic, I called every one of my friends. And I was like, guys, tonight prompted, impromptu birthday party at the Olive Garden. And so I reserved a table for like 15 people. we get there, but because it was so last minute, like nobody shows up.

And it's like literally me and Jill sitting at a table all along. It was like she was devastated. So yeah, I set the bar low and we're trying to... Way to apologize. Well, it's even worse. It's even worse if you have the mantra of setting the bar low and you don't even meet that criteria.

That's like a two-fold. You didn't even, yeah, you set the bar at the minimum and didn't even hit it. That's what I say. You didn't even meet your own minimum. That's what I say when I go speak. I was like, you know, Lisa says I'm the best looking Robertson out of my wing. And I said, but the bar is so low, that's not even really, what does that even mean? Sounds too funny.

I just, I care enough. Yeah, what about your young bucks? Are you all, are y'all like broken out? Yeah, speaking of low bar, I'll start. So we've, America and I, okay, first off for me,

I feel like I'm very romantic and I do big gestures and gifts and parties, but I never do them on holidays because I forget. Like, I always forget about holidays,

birthdays, and universities. Like, I personally don't really care about that. But if I have an idea for something, I'll do it. And it's like, for like a nice dinner.

or like something or like a nice gift. Like I'll do it, but I never think to like coincide that with a holiday, which gets me in trouble because then it's like, I feel like the, if I get her like a good gift, you know, in like April, their birthday's in May, then it's like I gotta like top it. Yeah.

So for Valentine's Day, we've been doing this for 10 years. Like we started this right after we got married and we were like 19. We were like, we're like, we're not going to do a big Valentine's Day thing. We're just going to go to a bookstore. And at the time, it was Barnes & Noble,

because we were in Virginia, and just, like, get each other books, and that would be, like, our gift. So we would, like, pick each other out a book to read. Does she like to read as much as you didn't? Yeah. And we did that for, like, three years. And so the last seven has been just us buying ourselves books.

We're just like... Just bypass the romance. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. wonder around together, talk about books, hold hands. And then it was like, we just go our separate ways to our thing and just buy books. And now you're just reading in separate rooms. But doing it in love. So that's our Valentine's. Yeah, Zach, I'm with you. I would call myself a hopeless romantic. But we differ on the bar setting. I did not try to set the bar low whenever we first

got married. Yeah, for me, for, I'm a big gifts guy, whether it's Valentine's Day, birthday, Christmas. I always try to go over the top. For Valentine's Day, it might not seem that romantic, but I love just going to CVS and just buying every random Valentine knick-knack in the whole section that I can find that I think she would like. So sometimes it'll be like a couple hundred dollars of just random assortments of teddy bear and flowers and balloons. And so that's of the thing. Does she like it? She does like it. Yeah, no, she loves it. It's sweet. Yeah, so well, I've learned to be better, but I still struggle with, you know, so this is the problem of pain, I think, that C.S. Lewis was talking about, you know, which is, uh, one off the segue there.

It's a great segue. How do you deal with the problem of pain that when suffering whenever you have forgotten your wife's birthday or your, well, the problem for you is that C.S. Louis said pain was intellectual suffering and, uh, for you, if I'd have been a little, a little more physical, emotional. That's true. That's true. That's true. Well, we are back in,

and by the way, if you guys are joining us for the first time, you need to go back and listen to all these lectures. They've been excellent. We're in lecture number six today on CS Lewis on Christianity.

That's the course we're taking with Hillsdale. We do this every Friday. The courses are free. I've really thoroughly enjoyed this actual course. It's been extremely well done. I thought the content has been amazing. And so now we're into two of,

I'll say this, of pain and grief observed, those are the two books that we're talking about today. Problem of pain, I read this years ago, and I have to agree with Dr. Ward that it was a hard book for me to, it wasn't C.S. Louis's best work in my opinion either, which he said that in the podcast, or in the episode, which I kind of appreciated. But yeah, but it does deal with probably one of the most common objections to faith in God is that. this idea why, you know, why do bad things happen if God is all powerful and all benevolent? I don't know if you guys have ever struggled with that. I think it's probably the number one

complaint or the number one issue that people face when trying to come to faith in Christ. No doubt. And I think all my years as a pastor, you know, you walk alongside people in their worst, you know, times, whether it's some loss of someone. devastating news about health, children lost. I mean, just terrible, terrible things. And so, yeah, I thought the same thing. Obviously, Lewis was going at it, you know, with an intellectual bent, and said that. I mean, that was, he was proven in an argument.

The problem is, in practicality, when you're dealing with people that are hurting, you know, the intellect pretty much goes out the window. I mean, you know, I understood his purpose and why he did it. And I appreciate it because it is, I think, from an apology. standpoint, a big thing that you have to do with. And he does that. But in a practical side, it's just hard. I've never been able to live there, you know, and there's just something comes down

to trust when you're going through something really bad. And so, but people have to know that when you're going through it with them, that now's not the time for the intellectual argument. So that's always the way I was able to separate it. You could. If you had the pastoral, kind of the pastoral approach is, yeah, you're not going to, if someone has suffered a tremendous loss. You're not going to, I mean, do not, whatever you do.

Don't try to make intellectual sense of what they're going through. But the problem of pain was, to your point, it was his philosophical approach to dealing with this problem of suffering. And I found the argument to be helpful for me, but I mean, obviously when I'm in pain, it has, I mean, that's not where I'm at either. But if you think about the rationality, I think it's a fair,

criticism. I don't think that we should shame people even in having the question. Because if you think about the dilemma that you have with this problem of pain, you could present it this way, which is kind of how Lewis presents it, and I think it's helpful, is that we're told the Christian God is all-powerful, that he can do whatever he wants, anytime he wants, there's no limit to his power. If he snaps his finger and says it, then it happens. So you have that on this side. And then on the other side, we are told that God is all loving or he's all benevolent. He is a good God. And so the dilemma comes in that if God is all powerful and God is all benevolent, he's all good,

then an all good God would prefer a world without any suffering in it. Because that, from our perspective, is what any good father would want for his children. And if God's all powerful, then he has the ability to make that happen. And so the way you back into this dilemma is, you say, well, there's suffering in the world. So if that's true, then one of the things about God must be untrue, either he's not all powerful or he's not all good. And then that's how you back into this problem called the problem of evil or the problem of pain. And I think it's a fair, honest criticism that he is addressing.

I understand how someone can think that. I don't know if you guys have ever struggled with that yourself or what you think about the legitimacy of that of that proposal. No, I think that's completely true. And I feel like for me, that's, that's been one of my biggest wrestles with, with, faith in general has been, and a lot of it's kind of, kind of Job 2 in a sense of, like, for me, my thing is whether we go, whatever, whatever, whether we go through something, you know, difficult physically or, you know, spiritual warfare that we kind of walk

through. oftentimes a lot of it would kind of be around these, you know, bigger, quote unquote, Christian things we would go do for God, whether it would be an event or a trip or, you know, something we were working on to further the kingdom. And it would be met with such opposition. And a lot of it ended with, you know, some sort of physical ailment to the family and things like that. And my big struggle would be, you know, instead of, you know, being mad at the enemy, and instead of kind of focusing my energy there,

it would be being frustrated at God because he is all powerful, he's all loving, he's omnipotent. And so for me, I kind of got in this cyclical cycle of just cutting out the middleman and just going straight for the source that's able to prevent that. And it really kind of shifted my prayer life

and in a negative way, kind of like what CS Lewis talks about. And yeah, this, this frustration with God versus kind of taking a step back and harnessing, you know, those prayers, that energy and that anger more so towards Satan and praying against that. And because it got to a point where prayer and my faith would become such a defensive thing of just expecting something bad to happen and praying in this, praying more so out of this defense versus being on the offense and kind of.

of taking initiative and praying against it from the onslaught instead of it happening, kind of being like, well, of course, this is happening now, you know, why is God doing this to us? Versus kind of saying, no, I'm not going to take that approach. I'm going to be mad at the enemy and I'm going to pray for my family against it in that sense. So, no, I completely get what you're saying. And that's, that's been a struggle for mine the last couple years and really the last several months. I feel like that's kind of just started to see a shift in that of, yeah, changing my approach of being mad at God when those things happen to being mad at the source of it, which is the enemy. But it is still kind of nuanced and difficult to try to kind of pinpoint because it is,

God does allow suffering to happen, even though, you know, the scripture says he doesn't tempt anyone. So I don't believe he brings that upon people, but he allows those things to happen. So it's that nuance of like allowing it to happen, but also not necessarily saying he's the one that's afflating it. It's an interesting kind of thing to navigate. Well, I love that line that pain is a tool in God's hand to awaken. Yeah, that was good. You know, and awaken us, you know, and I think there's a lot of truth in that. The last sermon I preached a few weeks ago, I quoted the great theologian Robert McCall

from Equalizer 2, who said he's about to, exact some vengeance on a man on a train and he looks at the man because he's just like just totally wiped out all the guy's bodyguards and he looks at the man he says there's two kinds of pain pain that hurts and pain that alters and then it cuts away to the scene you know what happens you know but the question was how is the guy going to take the pain was the thing but the pain is coming you know because you took the daughter on the train so there's there's a great truth in that that that there is reasons for pain. It's the same thing we understand about when we're children.

We do things, you know, during, you know, recent storm here, you're telling, I'm telling my grandkids, don't walk under these trees. You know, I don't want you to get hurt badly. And so you're trying to teach them something, but then I look out there and they're doing what they're not supposed to be doing. So then everybody's inside and, you know, no devices, no this. And so in the moment, they don't really understand it, but later they'll understand some things because pain kind of,

altar and it does that for us. And so when you're sometimes you just have to get through something without seeing necessarily what the results are until you get there. And I thought his best, the thing that was eye-opening point to me, by the way, you can sign up to take the course with us at unashamed for Hillsdale.com was the idea about the crucifixion and the resurrection. I had never thought about it quite the way he presented it as he presented Lewis doing it. when you know Jesus said my God my guy why have you forsaken me the the point was that Jesus had to go through the crucifixion before there was a resurrection but we've always just kind of thought well he knew he was going to be raised in the dead so like it wasn't that big of a

deal or wasn't that bad but he's making the point and I think he's right that it did have to be that bad it did have to be that big and in sequence you know he had he had to go through that before the thought of the resurrection ever came through and that that's spoke to me because I thought, man, when we're told multiple times that we have to live as Jesus did, and in suffering, we understand who Jesus is, that made a lot more sense to me, the idea about sometimes the only way things can be put to death is through some painful way to get there. And whether it's an action, a behavior, or anything else. So I thought that was really, really powerful and spoke to me.

I thought it was so good. And that, it was happening. He said something when he was talking about that. I wish I could remember the exact quote, but it was to the effect of we often miss, we often miss the gospel because we know with the ending. Yeah. Man, he said, okay, well, you just got to go listen to it to get the exact quote. But he was saying that when we're reading the life of Jesus and the crucifixion, sometimes we miss the impact of it because we know that he comes back. Yeah.

And we don't think about what Jesus was feeling in the moment. Right. And reading the crucifixion or any part of scripture or anyone's story, as they were thinking of it, as they were experiencing it in the moment, changes your perspective on what the words Jesus said and how God reacted and how the apostles reacted. Yeah. And it was more than just physical. I mean, think about it. I can barely live with my own sin because I get so. discuss it with myself for continuing to make the same mistake. What if I had to live with just

the sins of this table, the four of us, it would be more than I could bear. Well, imagine everybody that's ever lived, you know, past, present, and future that you take all of that guilt and shame. But Jesus did, he did predict his resurrection, though. He did. Yeah. So how does that tie into what you're saying? Well, obviously he knew what was going to happen. Yeah, his point was, is that it still had to happen. Well, he says you've got to go down and then. Yeah, exactly. What Christ does is he enters into an incredible human suffering.

Then he's vindicated through the resurrection. And so, you know, my sister and I had this conversation this past week. I'll throw it under the bus. Because we both processed the death of my mom in two different ways. She would admit, you know, I was angry with God. And she said, you would go up there and spend time with mom. And just for those of you who don't know, my mom died of early onset dementia, which I guess kind of Phil did too in a way.

I mean, he really, they all got dementia. And mom got it really young, though. And so it was a longer period of suffering. Phil suffered, though. I mean, it was about a year of pretty horrible suffering. And so my mom was even more than that. And towards the end, you know, Melissa would go up there and she would spend time on my mom. then she would leave and just feel so upset with God and questioning, how could you allow this to

happen? You could just end her life. You could stop her suffering. You could heal her, whatever it is. And then that didn't happen. And she just continued to decay over time. And it was a very, very painful, sad death to the point that when my mom died, the next morning was probably, if you said, Zach, I want you to rank the most peaceful moments in your life. For me, one of those moments was the day after my mom died because the suffering was so horrible that when it was over, I was like, thank you, God, that that's over. And we were actually rejoicing that she had died, which tells you right there how bad the suffering was.

My sister didn't interpret it that way, and we've worked through a lot of this together. And I think for me, and I don't know when this happened, but for me, I did come to some kind of realization that there's a passage in Ecclesiastes, three that says that God has put eternity in the hearts of men. And then there's another passage, or the psalmist says in Psalm 90, teach us, Lord, to number our days. And I think you take those ideas together, and what pain does, I think of what Lewis was talking about,

is pain actually has a way of like waking us, You know, he would say, waking us up to the reality that we're not sovereign, waking us up to the fact that we're fallible creatures, waking us up to the fact that we're not actually as autonomous as we might think we are, waking us up to the fact that we don't control things like we think we do. You guys, and I just went to like an incredible storm down there last month, and I mean, how long it takes to get power, John Luke? Ten days for me.

10. I mean, you think about, and what's funny about y'all's situation, we kind of joked about it, because Al, you had, you were the, well, no, you, Christian, you guys had a, we both had, you both had genera. Yeah, these two guys right here. We were the only two out of like, like, what, 40 people in our whole neighborhoods? Well, the first night, did you report the very first night? Well, I never got a set up. Yeah. So I was having to call to people in the next. The very first night I walked out, because Christians wasn't up yet at the night it went down. And I looked at, and I looked at, and I'm standing on the porch of my double-wide trailer

looking out amongst the... In the row with a glass of hot chocolate? After the storm, all the trees are down. I'm shivering in my house. I can see Al's Christmas lights on this trailer. He's got spotlights. I walk out on the porch of my double-wide and I'm looking at all these beautiful homes

of my family surrounding me. And I thought, well, it's like Vegas. You know, it's just the light on the hill. Well, the funny part about the... The funniest part about that story is, and it serves a purpose here for the analogy, is that your, I guess your granddad, Johnny Howard, who lives right next to the guys. He does not next door neighbor, yeah. Yeah, so that was Willie's there, Willie and Corey.

So everybody's like in the neighborhood. And a few years ago, when the hurricane hit, they kept power because all the lines are buried and the substation is literally like right next to your neighborhood. like right next. So your granddad sends out a tax that, hey, for all, I mean, it wasn't quite this like, but it kind of was like if you're reading through the lines, like, for all you schmose are going to lose power. We got you covered over here because we got Barry's lines.

Come over here to start Vegas, you know. Yeah, come over here, boys. And we're going to be partying and we're going to have plenty of heat. And guess what happened? The storm came and he realized in the moment he was not as prepared. as he thought he was. He was not as in control, and Willie too. And even, but even you guys, I mean, I mean, like your systems could fail. You know, like everything that you think that you have that's going to protect you, that's going to sustain you, it's in the moments of pain that you,

you get this glimpse of reality. Like, oh my gosh. But you know, Zach, another analogy to what you, because there's such a smart point. Another analogy to that is all storms are different. because they went through, we went through a hurricane, which is when I bought my generator because I was like, I don't want to go another week without having a generator,

you know, to generate power to my house. And so during that storm, Johnny and Willie and all that, none of them lost power because as you described. But this storm was different. This storm,

they cut all the power because there were so much damage, it was too dangerous for fires, electrocution. So they cut everything because this one was coming from the sky and, you know,

all these broken, trees. So all storms are different. You can't in as much as you think you're prepared, the storm may get you in a different way. I mean, there was a house just around the corner from us, because most of us avoided major damage on our homes. But I mean, they had two trees just, and it just demolished and destroyed their house. And they had just got it all fixed up. They've been living it six months. And I felt so bad for them. Well, this storm obviously affected them in a completely different way of us, just staying warm or whatever. Or a friend of ours who got, you know, may be paralyzed, you know, going forward because of the storm, because he was out and got

hit by tree. So, you know, all storms are different. And I think in the reaction of those, it speaks to us in different ways. And I really think they didn't go into this on the course this much. But I think a picture you can see of this is Jesus' actual three years of doing ministry. Because, you know, he had power and he healed people, but he didn't heal everybody, you know. And I mean, Sometimes somebody would ask, sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes he would just do something to prove a point. And he even said, when he saw poor people, said, well, I didn't come just to make everybody rich

in the sense of the world. The poor you'll always have, he said. Well, again, that doesn't sound like a loving, benevolent God. And yet he shows us to me in his mission and ministry that it's not about the sickness or the illness or the money or the whatever. It's more about, do you know me? And that was his whole purpose of doing that. We'll just sign up and take the course with us.

Unashamed for Hillsdale.com is where you can do that. Yeah, I love the fact that, you know, Lewis was greatly influenced by George McDonald, who met Princess and the Goblin. And actually, when I was at the kilns and then went to the grave of CS. Lewis ironically ran into a guy that was doing a animation project on the Princess and the Goblin. But Lewis was heavily influenced by McDonald. and, you know, McDonald had talked about, I think it was that he had maybe referenced it in one of the books. I know that you mentioned this, that Christ's suffering and death was not, it wasn't to prevent our own suffering,

but it was to teach us how to suffer with him. And so when you think about the way that Christ suffered, I think this is super important when we think about suffering. It's not like the monks, you know, to have the whips and they beat themselves. like, you know, the Bible calls that asceticism in Colossians 2, where it's like, we're going to deny the body, we're going to treat the body really harshly to somehow prove that we're holy because we're indulging. And honestly, we're like, we're like volunteering ourselves into the suffering. That's not the suffering of Christ.

We're not, Christ wasn't suffering just to suffer. In fact, the Hebrew writer says that for the joy set before, before him, he endured the cross. He endured the suffering. So it was actually joy that was set before Christ that motivated him to endure the suffering. And so the same way with us is we can, that's how we're supposed to suffer. And for me, the way that's looked is over time as I've understood, you know, the human condition, I watched my mom die, I've watched other things happen in my life that were bad. I've failed in business ventures. I haven't accomplished what I thought I would have accomplished by this stage in my life. I've had moral failures. I've had

relationship problems. I've had marital problems. A lot of the suffering was not of my own doing. A lot of it was of my own doing. And you start stacking all that up. And what I've learned is that I have to push into the fact that I'm created for something different. I'm created for eternity. And so when God put eternity in hearts of men, suffering for me is one of the ways that it helps me see that. So, you know, Lewis points this out. It's actually an act of love that he gives us suffering on this side of eternity. Yeah, I thought it was cool how he started this lecture because growing up, I would always see these like these images and kind of maybe these memes, but you maybe have seen this before, but it'd be like, Satan and I think it was Jesus, but they'd be

like arm wrestling and they're both, you know, muscular. And it's like this, chasm in between them. But I thought it was cool how he started this lecture talking about, you know, the difference between being a dualist and being a Christian and, you know, kind of comparing Satan more so to the arch angel, arch angel Michael, but instead of comparing him to God. And I think maybe just without doing it, and I'm not, you know, these fancy words. And I think that's why I can maybe struggle with this course, but I've never even heard of a duelist. But I was like, I'm a Christian. I'm not a duelist. He's like, if you are a dualist, you are not a Christian. And I was like, okay, well, I guess I'm not a dualist. I'm definitely a Christian.

But I thought it was cool how we started with that framework and then kind of went from there into the suffering. So I think that kind of fed into what I said earlier about, you know, viewing, you know, the things I would go through and be mad at God instead of being mad at the enemy for it. But why do you think, because I think I can maybe explain it, but you might be able to do it in a more articulate way. But why do you think it was beneficial for him to start this lecture, kind of creating that framework of,

you know, Satan and God, they're not equal. God's obviously, you know, omnipotent and all-powerful and all-knowing and the enemy is not. Well, he's, I think that's the,

I think that was the last lecture, which will be our next episode, but I think it's tied into this because I think, I think. Yeah, you're right. It is. But we, I thought it was the six.

No, it's the seven. But, But it plays into it exactly, because that's why these two go together. My bad. No, that's great. I think it's a good point that. I mean, I think that he, I think it does create the suffering is like, how do you make sense of that, right? How do you, and it paves the way for how Lewis understands hell, you know, as well, you know, where it's not these two ever existing competing, you know, powers.

I mean, like a dualism would be like, and we'll get into this in the next episode, but think about like Star Wars. You got the force, and then you've got the dark side. The dark side. And they're kind of competing energies in the universe that just exist eternally. And so his point was that Satan was created being. I get to remember that. Satan was a created being. And there is no dualism.

There's God, God, the author of all reality. Now, it does go into, have to answer the question. well, where does evil come from? And that's a very complex question. And depending on your kind of your theological perspective, I mean, yes, people have different opinions on that. I personally think that evil and suffering come from a broken world that was a result of the fall that Adam and Eve chose,

I do believe in free will. And I believe Adam and Eve chose to listen to the revelation of God about reality. And God said, everything is good for you to eat. Go have, go go, go be fruitful, multiply, cultivate the earth. Like, go out. This is yours. Have dominion over it. Expand it out. I'm going to be, I want you to expand it because I'm going to live there with you. And it is going to be awesome. And then their choice was, they said, we don't believe you. We think that you are holding out on us. Now, Satan did, obviously, was the, you know, the original OG when it comes to sin. But, but sin was, was a result of

of just rejecting in the revelation of God and what was God revealing. He was revealing his incredible, beautiful, wonderful, all-benevolent nature. And so they rejected that. And I think this plays into the concept of hell because when God came in after they did that and he kicked them out of the garden, the reason why he kicked them out of the garden, because he said the man can't live in the garden now knowing what they know.

because what they did was they were saying, we want the fruit of the garden, but we don't want to eat that in communion with you, God. We want to eat it for the sake of ourselves. We want to have this in our own autonomy. Well, to exist without communion with God is actually the definition of hell. So what God does when he cast him out of the garden,

which was painful, I'm sure, but it was actually an act of grace. And I think it's the same way here of how God allows evil to awaken us to our own, like, fragility and our own inability. And so I think it is connected, a Christian. Well, it is. You remember Dr. Jackson way back, and when we were doing Genesis, made that point

when we were there talking about that notion or idea that that was really mercy. But it didn't feel like mercy in the moment to them. And that does it describe. But it is a really good point to understand that we inherited the evil one. In other words, we hadn't been created yet. And he had been. And so we don't exactly know what happens. You can sort of piece together through Scripture that there was some sort of rebellion in the angelic forces.

And he seemed to be the head of that. So they had free will choice as well in heaven, other creative beings. And so then we inherited him. I mean, he just came with the planet, you know, because we don't know why other than he's here. And we do have a choice, as I said. And I'm assuming he had a choice and made that. same choice. So where it started, I assume was with him, but somewhere in another realm, but God has always been, he wouldn't be all powerful if evil had always been there. So it had to

come out of some other choice. But it didn't originate with God. We know that because of First John. First John, too, says that that the evil desires of the earth, come from the earth. They come from the world. They don't come from, I think the language has come from the world, not from the father. Yes. And so, you know, I've heard some, you know, people say, well, it originates with God. And evil originates in the sovereignty of God. I'm like, no, sir. That's absolutely insane.

God is not evil. Evil does not originate with God, period. Evil originates with Satan, with us, with those who would reject God's provision and his promise. And so when you think about sin is not a violation of some arbitrary commandment that God gave us to prove our loyalty to him, sin is to reject in the revelation. It's to reject God's revelation. And ultimately, it's to turn our God-given dominion over to the creation. Think about Romans 1. It's to serve the creation rather than to rule

the creation. It's to let the things that we're supposed to have dominion over, have dominion over us. that's what sin is. It's a lot more, it's not as, as like, random as, as, as like, we would make it seem. It really is an application of what God's given us to do. And so that is how suffering enters the world and how it entered the world. And then it's also linked to creation itself, because Romans 8 says that the creation itself is groaning. It's, it's wanting to be liberated from its bondage to decay. So when somebody dies, that's actually a law of the universe. It's called the second law of thermodynamics that things are decaying over time. My body is breaking down. That's a result of the sinful world. God's going to redeem that one day, though. He's going to get rid of entropy. The creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay. Our bodies will be liberated from their bondage to decay. We're going to have a resurrected body. But meanwhile, as this is playing out, God is allowing this to happen so that he can draw us into the ultimate reality, which is his inner life.

We want you to sign up and take the course with us at Hillsdale. It's Unashamed for Hillsdale.com is where you go. You remember I jotted down because I like, you don't always just get so much of the course. I mean, you've got to pay such close attention because like you said, using some big words. But he had three simple lessons, which really spoke to me. And this is something I'll definitely preach at some point from the problem of pain. and it was to show bad men where they're wrong was one of them. And that's the choice, right?

And the idea is you somehow have to know. And a lot of times you don't get there until you suffer a lot of pain. Your dad's case, you know, from if you watch the blind, he had to get to a place of pain to realize where he was to then reach out to God. Second thing was show all people that we need God. And that's kind of that bigger than yourself thing. When you get devastating news, you realize I'm not big enough to handle that. I need something bigger than me.

And then the third one is to show all people to choose good for its own sake. And I thought that was a rich thought as well. Because, look, I mean, sin is never an advantage. It only hurts. And you learn from a lot of pain, but sin only hurts. I mean, sin denies. Sin destroys. And so it's not an advantage to sin.

So the more good choices you make, the better you're going to be, and just in a general sense, and the better off everyone's going to be around you. And so I do think there's a lot to learn from those concepts in terms of how pain kind of shapes it. Yeah, I thought this was so interesting in comparing the problem of pain to a grief observed being that experience of pain from the outside versus experiencing pain from the inside. Yeah. You see Lewis exploring pain on the philosophical level coming up with these systems and these lists of like, here's what pain is. Here's why we do it. Here's all the things. But then when you experiences the worst pain in his life in losing his wife, he just throws it out the window and starts over basically and exploring what, why is there evil?

Why is their cancer? you know, and going through all of those different thoughts and all the anger all over again towards God. And he said this one line. I'll just read this quote. One may think that a Christian should not think such thoughts, but Lewis would argue that he is only doing what Job does in the book of Job, setting forth his complaints before God, showing God what was actually in his heart rather than what ought to be in his heart. Yeah, that's good. And just the thought of, like, there are hard facts in the world, and pain is one of them. However, you can, the philosophize, deologize, whatever, all you want, and God, where to come from, what is it, why is it? But when it comes down to it, there just is pain, and we have to deal with that somehow.

And we need to take reality in what it is and express that to. God rather than leaning on the philosophy of it. Yeah, he used Joe, but you also see that a lot in the Psalms. You know, you'll see David and other psalmist that are just very pointed in their questioning God. And I do think that's fair. And I don't know this because I don't know a lot about Lewis, you know, I hadn't read that book either or seen the, was it Shadowland is the movie with Anthony Hopkins,

yeah, where she dies. But I'm just guessing that, you know, this man spent his whole life. first an atheist, you know, then I guess sort of an agnostic and then becomes a Christian, a believer, impacts millions of people, writes these books that a lot of people, you know, love, and they even probably have loved him more after he was gone. And then he waits so later in life to really explore a relationship with someone and he gets married. And only three years. I mean, there's like, so I totally can understand why it would be so devastating to him. Like he was expecting probably to have, you know, a few decades at the end of his life of this woman,

after he had kind of put all that on hold in his life, probably thinking he would never do it, you know, because they were, you know, like, what was they, late 50s or something? Yeah. So I understand even why that would be so hard for him, you know, as a person. And, Zach, you mentioned your mom. I mean, your mom was one of the most spiritually dynamic people I've ever known. and, you know, was personally responsible for my dad coming to Christ because, you know, she didn't give up on him

and made sure that, you know, Jesus was there when he was ready to look for him. And so, and she knew more a Bible than anybody who ever known. I mean, just, and love teaching it. And so to watch that at the end, it was hard for me, too. I was just like, oh, God, I just, I mean, why take everything, you know, and just leave this husk. And so I get it.

And even though I know God and I know Jan is where she wants to be and will be in the resurrection, at the same time, that is like he said, like Lewis said, pain is utterly painful. Well, let's say him with this quote here. Pain, he says, pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain. It says, megaphone aroused to a deaf world, the creature's illusion of sin. self-sufficiency must, for the creature's sake, be shattered. And by trouble or fear of trouble on earth, by crude fear of eternal flames, God shatters it. And this illusion of self-sufficiency may be the

strongest and some very honest, kindly intemperment people, and on such people, therefore, misfortune must fall. It is an act of grace. And it does and can awaken us to the reality that God actually loves us and that he wants to dwell with us in eternity. And he will dwell with those who would put their faith to him for eternity. So, well, and even dealing with, even with dealing with grief, I mean, you know, I just watched this with mom, you know, I mean, she almost followed dad crossed over out of grief. I mean, she just, she was ready to go. She didn't, she was sick, so she didn't feel well. And so she just was looking at me, Willie, straight and I just saying, I want to die.

I'm ready to do. Why won't God not take me? And I was that, Mom, I don't know. I mean, you know, he may, you might, but, you know, I'm trying to, like, give this, I'm talking to my own mom. And finally, I was like, Mom, I think, I really think part of this is you're just really grieving right now. And you have to, you have to grief.

And so when that grief is over, you'll either get better or you won't. We know where you're going. We know, we know what this life is about. And then it was amazing. something amazing happened. Not because of my words, but I'm saying she, just like Lewis,

what did he say? One day he just woke up and he was not as heavy-hearted as he was the day before. And I looked at mom and she got past his last UTI and she started feeling better. All of a sudden she was happy

and she was excited about us visiting her and she's in the same place that was when he died. And I'm thinking she's never getting out of here. I'm totally honest. And now she's got her own house. She's back living. you know and and the almighty didn't take her but she's not grieving like she was but she had to

and so i think it was interesting for lewis as with you're right johnly with all of his philosophical and all of his you know intellectual approaches he just had to grieve in the moment to really understand i mean it became very real to him in that moment well i thought this was kind of a funny comment when he said that um when c s was grieving people were giving him a grief observed and saying this will help you because he wrote under a different name. And they weren't giving him the problem of pain. Yeah. Like he wrote this thicker one 20 years earlier. And then he wrote this one way later, much thinner and just kind of like thoughts and just his experience of it. And then people were saying, oh, you should read this book. Because he did it under another name.

He did another name, not the big, thick, philosophical one. That's really good. Yeah. I mean, he starts, he starts a grief of suburb saying, where is God? Go to him when you, when your need is desperate and what do you find a door slammed in your face? That's the first mention of God that he writes in any group.

So you see someone that's definitely, yeah, wrestling with that. And I think that's why some of the Lewis's stuff for me is so refreshing of, that's way past all of this earlier writings, you know, and even Dr. Ward talked about that. You see a man who kind of falls back into that. cycle that he had earlier in his life when his mom passed away. And here he is again when his wife passes away, but he comes out of it on the other side. So I thought that was really cool. Well, and he definitely was a man who believed the verse that says, don't think of yourself more highly than you ought, because, which we'll talk about in the next lecture, but he's

never the hero in his own story. If he does it personally, it's going to be the faulty guy. Yeah. You know, the guy who makes the mistakes. And that's the really the way we should all approach it, right? I mean, we should be the sort of men and women that don't think that we got it all going on. We recognize in our own desperation and difficulty, and so that's the way you want to come across. And sometimes that's hard when you're leading other people because they expect you to be above something. And you're like, no, none of us are above anything. We're on our knees.

We're serving. We go through pain like everybody else does as well. So, Zach, any of the last thoughts before you wrap us up? Yeah, I think that at the end of the day, I think about 1 John chapter 4, that God is love. And I think that when you think about the origins of pain, the origins of evil, it actually comes from the fact that God is a relational God. He has created us with relational capacity. And to be in relationship does mean that we have a choice and that we can choose to reject his advancements. And when we do, that is the essence of what evil is.

And so the fact that evil exists in the weird, strange way ends up backing us right back into the truth of 1 John 4-8 and 1st John 410 that God is love. So I hope you can find encouragement in that. That's good. So if you guys want to check this out with us and take these courses with us, you can go to Unashamed for Hillsdale.com.

We're taking the CS Lewis on Christianity course. And next week, look where I'm excited about this, we're going to be in a conversation on heaven and hell and two of probably the two favorite books that Lewis wrote for me are the screw tape letters, which everybody's heard about that one, and then the Great Divorce. I love both of these books. These are in my top three of my top three famous and favorite C.S. Lewis books. We're going to hit those next week.

We're going to hit a big topic, heaven and hell. So I look forward to you guys joining us again on the next Unashamed for Hillsdale on Friday. What's the other one in your top three? The weight of glory. I think you're going to say mere Christianity. No. I like that one, but it's me.

Overrated. I'm kidding. That's amazing. That's the clip. Man. Big or shay it. Over it. Join us every Friday for Unashamed Academy powered by Hillsdale

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