Why does God, who is both all-powerful and perfectly good, allow suffering?
SUMMARY: Show me someone who has never been inconvenienced, disappointed, or encountered suffering, and you will show me a person who is selfish, inconsiderate, and unsympathetic. You may think this statement is unrealistic. Yet, for people to be unselfish, they must allow themselves to be inconvenienced, for people to be considerate, they must allow themselves to be disappointed, and for people to be sympathetic, they must be willing to suffer for another person.
The Greek philosophers who conceived of one all-powerful God thought that God was incapable of feeling pain because feeling pain would be a weakness. The fact that God dares to feel all the suffering of His creation shows His strength. To feel such pain is beyond our imagination. God demonstrated His love for us when He came as a human being to suffer and die for us. Something about Christ's sacrificial death causes us to ask why. Something about His sacrifice exceeds our understanding.
Many liberal theologians have answered this question by concluding that God is not all-powerful in contradiction to the Scriptures. Even among conservative Christians, the common answer to suffering is that it is the result of people having chosen to sin. While it is true that some suffering comes about because of sin, this does not answer the question of why God allowed people to choose what is harmful. This answer still leaves God's power or goodness in question.
The answer to this question begins with the fact that we do not perfectly understand what is good. To understand what good means, we must depend upon God's revelation. We especially do not value the same things that God values. We put too much value in what we can see. God sees and values the things inside people: their thoughts, motives, and emotions. For people to have the inner character that God desires, a character that responds to Him in love and trust, people must have the ability to want and chose this character. This is why God has allowed people to choose sin and fail.
It is easy for people to believe that the end justifies the means, but, for God, the means is the end. He is more interested in the kind of person we are becoming inside rather than our external actions or accomplishments. We put too much value in what is temporary. We store up temporary treasures on earth that turn to dust rather than permanent treasures in Heaven. God conforms His own to the image of Jesus Christ.
Paul wrote that the three things we have that will remain are faith, hope, and love, but the greatest is love. Jesus said that the greatest love that a person can show is to die for a friend. God showed His love for us by sending Jesus Christ, His son, to die for us while we were still sinners (that is, His enemies). Before we ask the question why God allows us to suffer, we should ask the question why did God allow Himself to suffer for us.
Love is not complete unless the other person shows love in return. Thus, to show love has the risk of being rejected. In showing His love for us and in allowing us to decide whether to receive or reject His love, God created the possibility (from the human standpoint) that some people would reject His love. In fact, everyone entered life initially rejecting God, but God extended His love to us again in Jesus Christ. When parents have children, they open the possibility of pain and suffering from the problems that might occur with children. Yet, we still endure the problems because of the desire for children.
Pain sometimes tells us when something is wrong, such as "Get your hand off that. It’s hot." Or, "You need to eat something." Loneliness tells us that we need other people. Even more important, loneliness shows us that we need God. On the other hand, what about pain from unfulfilled needs, such as the massive amount of hunger in the world. When Jesus' disciples asked Him, "Who sinned, that this man was born blind?" Jesus' answer was that it wasn't a matter of sin, but the man was born blind so that God could show His work in the man's life.
If we see love as meeting the needs of other people, then we should see suffering from unfulfilled needs as an opportunity to love. Our sin was God's opportunity to show His love for us. If we see love as meeting the needs of another, how do we love God who needs nothing? Some of the Greek philosophers who believed in one all-powerful God believed that God could not feel pain. However, what is consistent with the Biblical revelation is that God, who sees everything, feels all the pain and suffering in the world. Thus, when we seek to meet the needs of His people, we show our love for God.
The pain and suffering that we have felt helps us to identify with the pain and suffering of other people. It also can allow us to identify with Christ. Christ's suffering was that He suffered for other people. When we suffer for the cause of Christ, when we suffer to meet the needs of other Christians, or even when we suffer to meet the needs of those who might become Christians, we share in Christ's suffering.
Even though we can give many arguments for why God allows suffering, our limited knowledge compared to God's infinite knowledge suggests that suffering occurs which we do not understand. Jesus’ answer that the man was born blind so that God could show His work in the man’s life tells us that God has an ultimate purpose to accomplish in our suffering. We also know that, when we hurt, God also shares that pain. We also know that God has prepared a place in Heaven where He will wipe away pain and suffering for those who receive a new life in Jesus Christ.
©1999 Perry Vernon Webb. You may quote this page in part or the whole as long as you do not alter the wording and reference this Internet page as the source of the quote.
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