Skip to content Does God exist? We will explore several topics related this very important and relevant question. With this segment being: Why does God allow suffering.
If God exists why does he allow suffering. In this modern day culture this particular question is on the forefront of many skeptical and non skeptical minds. We are bombarded with 24 hour news cycles, and now more than ever we are exposed to the horrors of the world, the injustice and the disparity. So it is natural to ask the question of why? Why is there suffering? Why is there evil? Why do bad things happen to good people or to the innocent? And if God exists why does he allow it. It’s a legitimate question that deserves a response from the believing Christian. So this is where we will start. Why does God allow suffering if he indeed does exist.
There are two kinds of Suffering.
Suffering can be divided into 2 subcategories. Suffering by man and suffering by nature. Both are equalling painful but to explain the problem of suffering and evil we have to tease out these differences.
Suffering by Man
This is when we as humans cause the misfortune on our fellow man. We see this play out daily on macro and microlevels. On the macrolevel we see this play out in geopolitical conflicts. These are the things you see on the news. The cultural, religious and economic conflicts that take place all over the world. We see this played out when we witness senseless acts of violence towards the innocent or the corruption of dysfunctional governments.
But we also see suffering on to our fellow man on a microlevel. If you spend a day in any home with children you will witness how children cause suffering to their siblings. The ripping of toys out of the hands of their brother or sister, the screams for attention or the unfortunate reality of children acting out violently towards each other. Or we see it in the arguments amounts spouses or friends or other family. These hit closer to home.
There is also suffering in a direct and indirect fashion. For example if you actively cause someone harm you are directly and knowingly are doing evil. This is direct suffering. However there is also indirect suffering. This is often systemic evils. Since we all live in a society we belong to a system and every system has elements of injustice. For example we may be looking for a great deal on our clothing choices, but those great deals come at the cost of an exploited worker in a third world country. Yet we never mean to harm anyone, but we do, albeit indirectly.
These are examples of how suffering is caused by man.
Suffering by Nature
We also experience suffering independent of what we do to each other. That is the effect of nature. An example would be a natural disaster destroying a community. Or a disease that we will all at one point succumb to. No person is causing these actions. It’s the natural progression of the laws of physics playing out on our world. And sorry to say it leads to suffering.
Suffering by man exists because free will exists.
When answering this question we have to answer it understanding the two subcategories of suffering: caused by man and by nature.
When suffering is caused by man, this is the fall out of free will. Man causes man to suffer because man has evil tendencies. Not that we all have the desire to cause harm, but it’s that we are all self serving. It’s unnatural in our fallen state to consider others more than ourselves. When push comes to shove we do things for our own self interest. Again most humans are not looking to hurt people but are simply trying to maintain the best for themselves. But it is this primacy of our “me centric” living that has inevitable consequences. This being suffering on our fellow man. And when you have the whole world that is vying for their own selfish pursuits you can see how this will be a problem.
We are Selfish
And why? Because we have become our own God. We follow our own path. Because it is in this path we think we will be happy, in this life or the next. We all have control over our day to day decisions. And despite the pressures one may have regardless of our upbringing, our culture, we have self agency.
In contrast if God had created us to have the propensity to love others as ourselves as the default position of our hearts then we would lose this precious thing called free will. Although some may want to argue that this would be better than what we have, this is an argument that implies that we would not be free.
But the beauty of being human is our ability to make choices not because we are programmed to do so in a particular way, but because we are free to do whatever we want. We are in contrast to a computer or a robot who has no agency of their own. Thus we are free to love or to hate. So if you were God, you can at least see the logic that having agency is important and a reasonable option and arguably the best and most loving option.
Does God allow suffering from natural disasters?
But then what about the natural course of nature? Why does God allow this? It is commonly reasoned that if God is all powerful and all good then he could stop natural disasters. But because he doesn’t he is either not all powerful or not all good.
This on the surface makes sense. I know plenty of sincere atheist that hold this position. Yet there is flaw to this argument. It assumes that you are in some way all knowing. It’s an assumption that since you can not think of a good reason for the suffering there must not be a reason for the suffering. Yet as God expresses to Job, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” We do not have the mind of God, the breadth of understanding that God posses. We are finite beings whose knowledge is based on a few years of our life on earth. How then can we proudly stand on a proposition that because we can not think of any reason there must not be one.
Hopefully you see his from a logical point of view as a legitimate answer, but it is clearly cold comfort. When someone is suffering from the effects of nature, it may not be the most soothing and reassuring explanation. Yet it is still an intellectually consistent position that maintain that God is all powerful and all loving. But it boils down to trusting that he has his reasons which may not be clear to us.
What Can we know about the mind of God in the suffering
Are we then to simply trust that there exists a profound reason beyond our comprehension to all this suffering? Not quite. Unfortunately we can never know all the reasons of why God allows evil and suffering, we can know one thing, he is not indifferent or uncaring.
We know this because of Jesus. If God is real and Jesus is God he could have easily come down as a worldly king residing in a palace full of unfathomable wealth, yet he came as a poor son to a carpenter. He could have come down with an army of angels demanding that we all bow to him and serve him. But he instead he became a servant to the lowly. Jesus could have the most desired life but instead he was tortured, beaten, humiliated and finally hung on the cross naked. (Isaiah 53:5)
And he did this because he loves us. He suffered for us, and he suffers with us. He did this in place of us. He took the punishment that we deserve. And if you believe this you know then that the suffering that you experience can not simply be because he does not love you, because he himself has suffered for you.
Check out the article: REST IN THE LORD. NOW
Conclusions
This answer again may be cold comfort for those that are actually suffering. But because we know the life of Jesus, we know that he is suffering with you. We may not know all the reasons for the suffering but I hope you find comfort in knowing that it’s not because he is not all powerful and not because he doesn’t love us.
Leave a comment and share your thoughts. Does this satisfy your question of why does God allow suffering?
