Do you believe that everyone believes or knows there is a God and some just choose to reject that knowledge?

This text is from a transcript of a talk by David Gooding, entitled ‘Are You Worth More than a Pig?’ (2007).

Yes, I believe that deep down in the human heart there is the knowledge that there is a God. The Bible says that the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are visible—knowable, from the things that are seen. Namely, these two qualities: his eternal power and Godhead (Romans 1:20). There is an almighty God who is all powerful: his divinity and his power are both beyond humankind. But God has made it known in the creation around us. And what is more, he has made it known to us and in us (Romans 1:19). Even though many deny it, deep within the human heart there is a knowledge that there is a God.

The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant said,

Two things fill my mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the reflection dwells on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.¹

So yes, I would hold that, in that sense, everybody knows there is a Creator.

The problem of pain and suffering

But I want to add another very big thing. There are many people in life who have suffered such pain and disaster and disappointment that they find it very difficult to believe that, if there is a God, he is all-loving, all-powerful and all-wise. If there is such a God, why would he allow so much suffering; and why such an unequal distribution of suffering throughout this world?

That is a serious question, but I cannot discuss it now, of course. It is a very, very real problem that has to be met at two levels—at the emotional level and then at the intellectual. I would welcome the opportunity to deal with the question.

I will merely state one thing. I was in Moscow once, having dinner with a certain professor who was the head of the psychiatric institution in Moscow. Things came up about the question of belief in God and, leaning over the table, he said, with a generous smile on his face, not being aggressive at all, 'How can you believe in God when there is so much suffering?' He had seen a lot in his lifetime, of course.

It was a long reply, but in first principle my reply was this, 'Yes, sir, I too have a problem. How can I believe in a God that is all-loving, all-powerful, all-wise, when he allows such suffering?' So there is a problem.

I then said to him, 'You can get rid of that intellectual problem very easily.'

'How?' he said.

'By giving up all faith in the existence of God. So now you won't have a problem, will you?'

Like Richard Dawkins says: pain, evil, disaster, they just are; and if there's no God, there's no problem.

But then I added, 'You can get rid of the problem but you don't thereby get rid of the pain, for you now take away all hope. If there is a God there is a hope, isn't there? Somehow, in ways that often go beyond what we can understand, there is hope that our pain is not just sheer meaninglessness, but it can be turned by God to eternal benefit. There is hope.'

Of course I went on to say a lot of other things. But, in my personal experience, when I have suffered pain—and I've suffered my share of it—hope has kept me going. Hope in God: in his love expressed to us in Jesus Christ and in his character as a faithful God.

¹ Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Conclusion (161). These words were inscribed on his tombstone.