After the Flood
The Riverside Community Church hall has housed 60 displaced families since the flood three weeks ago. Twelve young people aged 14–17 meet weekly with youth leader Sam. Kayla, 16, whose neighbour's eight-month-old baby died when the water rose, asks: 'If God is all-powerful and all-good, why did this happen?' Three answers are offered in the room. Sam says: 'God's ways are beyond our understanding; we have to trust him.' A visiting RE teacher says: 'Perhaps God is not all-powerful, or not all-good - that's the honest conclusion.' Another student, Marcus, says: 'It's a test of faith; suffering makes us stronger.' The group has been asked to write a 200-word reflection for the town memorial service on Sunday, to be read aloud to 300 people including the bereaved family, and it must not pretend that everything is fine.
1. Evaluate the three responses. Which is most defensible within classical theism, and why?
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Set the terms. Classical theism holds that God is omnipotent (able to do anything logically possible), omniscient and perfectly good. The problem of evil asks whether all three can be held together with the fact of an infant's death.
Sam - mystery. Coherent with classical theism, because it keeps all three attributes and denies that we can see the whole picture; compare Job 38–41, where God answers Job not with an explanation but with a question. Its weakness is pastoral: offered as the first thing said to a bereaved family, 'we have to trust him' can sound like 'stop asking'. It also implies God has a reason he will not share, which the parents may hear as that reason being the baby's death.
The RE teacher - a limited God. This is a real position (open theism, process theology) and internally consistent, but it is not classical theism; it solves the problem by giving up omnipotence. Presenting it in a church youth group as 'the honest conclusion' is not neutral - it is a rival theological position, and it is not obviously more honest than the alternatives.
Marcus - testing. A soul-making theodicy (Irenaeus, Hick) works for suffering in general. Here it fails, because a test implies a tester who chose the test. If the baby's death is a test of Kayla's faith, then God deliberately killed an infant to test a teenager - harder to defend than the original problem. It also puts the bereaved under pressure to perform.
Verdict. Sam's response is the most defensible as classical theism, provided it is paired with lament rather than used to close the conversation. Marcus's works only as a general theodicy, never as an explanation of this death. The teacher's is defensible theology but not a neutral comment.
2. The group must write 200 words for the memorial service, read to 300 people including the bereaved family. What should the reflection include and avoid, and why?
Read the worked answer
Include.
- Lament. The psalms of lament (for example Psalm 13, 'How long, O Lord?') model complaint to God as an act of faith rather than its opposite. Quoting one gives the bereaved permission to be angry.
- Solidarity rather than explanation. 'We do not know why. We know we are not alone.' This is honest and cannot be falsified by later events.
- A practical commitment. A named, checkable offer - the hall stays open, the group will help with the clear-up - because a promise people can verify is worth more than a sentiment.
- Names and consent. Check with the family before naming the baby or quoting them.
Avoid.
- 'God needed another angel.' Not a Christian doctrine (angels are not dead humans), and it makes God the direct cause of the death - precisely the claim in dispute.
- 'It was part of a plan.' The same problem, and it tells the family their grief is a means to an end.
- 'Everything happens for a reason.' Comforting only to people who already believe it; to a bereaved parent it can sound like an accusation.
- Long blocks of doctrine. Two hundred words is short. One image and one commitment is enough.
Ethical test. Read it aloud and ask: could the bereaved mother hear this without being asked to perform a faith she may not hold? If not, cut it. The group's own belief should be visible but not imposed, and the family should hear the draft before Sunday.