We often speak of the problem of pain.

This world is so broken and full of hurt.

How do we reconcile an all-loving, all-powerful God with the reality of the suffering that occurs all around us all the time?

I, myself, have written of this quite often in this space over the years.

Yet there is another problem.

One we don’t speak of nearly as often, if at all.

The problem of pleasure.

This world is so astonishing, so beautiful.

How do we reconcile the possibility of the unreality of God with the truth, goodness, and beauty that occurs all around us all the time?

This world.

This surprising, pleasing world.

A sky that can be so blue it causes your chest to tighten with longing and then puts on an incredible show of brilliant colors. Twice. Every day.

Creatures like the narwhal that make us laugh and creatures like the bald eagle in flight that make us catch our breath.

Procreation, the continuation of our species, that brings with it an ecstasy that sets the nerves aflame.

Apples that nourish our bodies. With a crisp, sweet, juicy taste. With a brilliant color that is lovely to look at. With a smell that delights.

An all-loving, all-powerful God who created this world to be good before it became broken through sin seems a reasonable explanation for why this world contains so much pleasure.

Moments of pleasure are the remnants washed ashore from a shipwreck, bits of paradise extended through time. ~ G. K. Chesterton

These moments are pieces of the world as it was created to be, scattered around to stir up in our hearts a longing for Beauty, to focus our hearts on Truth, to remind our hearts of the Goodness that one day will fill the earth completely again.

Things on this earth, from the experience of joy to the touch of the softest kitten fur, still bear traces of their original state. They are shining clues into the true nature of creation, as it was originally created to exist.

If there is no Creator, if there is no powerful God of love, how do we explain the problem of pleasure?

I know how I explain this existence of pleasure in our universe.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the truth, goodness, and beauty that occur all around us all the time do, after all, point toward the reality of an all-loving, all-powerful God.

Just perhaps.

 

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Art credits: all photographs are copyright Made Sacred 2019