Why would God allow Evil and Suffering?

This question might be one of the most difficult questions to answer concerning the Christian faith.  Christians ask this question as well.  Everyone in this world suffers; this is the first noble truth of Buddhism.  Innocent people suffer at the hands of evil men all the time.  There’s evil from the hands of men against other men, and there is also suffering from illnesses and natural disasters.  Some people are born with severe disabilities.  None of this seems fair or to fit the Biblical image of an omnibenevolent (all-good) and omnipotent (all-powerful) God.  The line of thinking in this matter proceeds as follows:

1.       God is omnipotent so he has the power to stop evil.

2.       God is omnibenevolent so it would be in his will to stop evil. 

3.       Evil exists, therefore an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God does not exist. 

What doesn’t kill us makes us more strong!

An answer commonly heard from the world is “no pain, no gain.”  Metallica has a song entitled, “Broken, Beaten, and Scarred.”  The mantra of this song is “What doesn’t kill us makes us more strong!”  Singer Alanis Morrisette expresses the same ideology in her song, “You Learn.”  In this song she sings about all the woes of life, bleeding, crying, sticking your foot in your mouth, having a broken heart, and through all of this Alanis sings, “You learn!” 

Most people can agree with these statements.  It’s true, that if your heart gets broken, you learn from it, and you can be better prepared and a stronger person for your next relationship.  It’s true that suffering, produces, perseverance, which produces character. 

I went to help in the reconstruction process in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  We worked with people who had essentially lost everything they had owned and they shared with us how much they’ve been blessed through the entire ordeal, even as we gutted their house to removing the molded and ruined carpet, drywall, and insulation.  The people said that the disaster was pulling America together and uniting the nation, that people were turning to God and seeking him who hadn’t done so before. 

The problem that I see with this is that these people hadn’t lost loved ones in the tragedy.  They had only lost material possessions.  Would a person who has grown up sexually molested by a parent say, “You learn”?  Would a person who’s been violently raped say, “What doesn’t kill me makes me more strong”?  Would a sole-survivor of an ethnic cleansing of their village truly be able to say, “No pain, no gain”?  These mantras seem to only apply to the less trivial issues of life.  A family member suffering for years in a slow death by cancer, might cause the whole family to raise their fist to the heavens asking, “Where the hell are you now God?” 

This answer might suffice in some situations, but it doesn’t make sense all the time.  The contradiction of the omnibenevolent, omnipotent God and the existence of evil still seems to stand. 

Could there be a greater good?

If God is omnibenevolent it could go to reason that God allows evil and suffering to continue because a greater good could result.  If allowing evil to persist would result in a greater good, one could reason that an omnibenevolent God would temporarily allow evil to exist in order for the greater good to exist.  If a greater good could exist by allowing evil to exist momentarily, then it would follow that if God prematurely eradicated evil, a lesser good would exist.  If a lesser good exist instead of a greater good because of the actions of God, then that would mean God would not be omnibenevolent.  An omnibenevolent God would not settle for a lesser good. 

This line of reasoning concludes that:

1.       An omnipotent God would want to stop evil. 

2.       An omnipotent God would want to stop evil. 

3.       Though evil exists for now, it won’t last forever.   God is allowing evil to persists in order for a greater good to be produced. 

What’s the greater good of allowing evil?

The idea of a greater good arriving from the continuation of evil is difficult to perceive.  The answer of the continuation of evil from the Christian worldview is found in the Bible from 2 Peter 3. 

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.  Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.  That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.  Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.” – 2 Peter 3:8-15

In summary, this passage states that God does not find enjoyment in evil or our present suffering, but that he is patient in stopping evil and suffering because he knows that the elimination of evil would mean bringing justice into the world.  God’s divine justice finds every guilty who has not repented of their sins and turned in faith to the work of Christ to be seen righteous in the sight of God.  God’s patience is so that more people might come to salvation.  This is the greater good.  For God, time is not a deterrent, because he is eternal and outside of time.  This means we might not understand his delay but we must trust that it is in humanity’s best interests, because it is his will that no one should perish but come to salvation. 

Earthly Parents and the Heavenly Father

It’s true that parents do not always solve their children’s problems when they are young.  Sometimes, parents allow their children to suffer through hardships in order for them to grow stronger and to learn.  As children we might not have understand why our parents would allow us to suffer or struggle.  As we grow and mature, we can look back on some of the moments we wish our parents had intervened but did not and we can comprehend that it was for our greater good for them to allow our temporary hardship. 

The same applies to our heavenly Father who knows more than we do.  We may not be able to understand or comprehend our current misfortunes, but we can trust that like our earthly parents, God’s lack of intervention is ultimately for our better good.  Again, this concept is complicated to fully grasp when the extremes of evil and suffering are addressed, or even worse, personally experienced.  However in view of eternity, our present sufferings are short and one day we will comprehend them. 

Pain Is God’s Megaphone

From The Problem of Pain C.S. Lewis wrote, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." 

Another reason why God might allow pain is to draw people to Him.  If there is no pain or suffering in our lives and we have everything that we need, would there be any reason for any of us to have a relationship with God?  Of course there would be many great reasons, but in our pride many people would have no desire to bend the knee and admit that they are not in fact Lord of their lives.  On this point apologist Walter Martin used to say that some people won’t look up until they’re flat on their back.  Pain might serve as a means God uses to gain an unbeliever’s attention. 

God may also allow suffering to get the attention of believers.  The Apostle Paul wrote that he rejoices in his sufferings and hardships because when he is weak then he is strong.  This might seem absurd, but what he means is that when he faced opposition and affliction he had no choice but to cling to God for strength and provision, at which time he was strong.  If everything is peachy in life, believers can easily lean upon their own strength and wisdom.  Pain and suffering can be quick turn wakeup calls to turn to God.  Prayer is never as desperate as in a time of despair. 

Pain, evil, and suffering can also produce perseverance in the life of believers, which produces character.  With this ever growing character, believers come to display more and more the will and love of the Father in a hurting and dying world.  Thus through pain, believers grow stronger and closer to God and through their strength and the effects of God in their lives are seen as a beacon of light to bring others to faith.  In the face of trials, Christians can be a witness of the assurance of God’s salvation to others. 

A Look at the Worst Evil in the History of the World

In the most extreme forms of pain and suffering, these answers seem trite: God is speaking to you, God is bringing you to Him, God is producing a better good in your life, God knows what is best for you. 

Let’s take a moment then to look at the greatest evil to ever occur in this world and see what conclusions can be made about the all-loving and all-powerful God who allows evil.  As long as we look at the Christian worldview for the answer to the problem of evil, we must acknowledge that Christ is God.  Recognizing that in the person of Christ, God became a historical figure, we must then conclude that God the creator of the world suffered a horrible, innocent death by the hands of his creation.  The holy and perfect God, creator of all, being brutally executed for no sin of His own by the hands of sinful men would have to be the worst possible evil ever to occur in history – worse than any mass genocide or ethnic cleansing. 

Again, looking at the Christian worldview, we would see that out of the worst possible evil to ever occur, the greatest good ever in history was produced – the way of salvation for mankind.  This clearly shows that evil is not inconsistent with the omnibenevolent, omnipotent God of the Christian worldview, because the Christian worldview demonstrates how God can and does produce good out of evil.  This also shows us that God himself has suffered.  It shows that even for God to eliminate evil, it is not a painless and instantaneous task, not if the greater good of providing a way of salvation for mankind was to be accomplished.  Sure, God could have ended evil instantly the moment of Adam and Eve’s fall, but then all of humanity would have died and have been lost forever.  God chose instead to take evil and suffering head on Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

This can be a great comfort and assurance for us - out of our present sufferings, God can and does work good for us.  Look to Christ to see how this is possible and true.  The Christian worldview is the only worldview that has God as faultless with the problem of evil and pain and at the same time personally affected by the suffering in the action of eliminating evil in a way that allows for the salvation of mankind.  An atheistic worldview offers no justice or salvation for the problem of evil and suffering.  Other religious worldviews fall short of having both a fault-free God and a God who has willfully chosen to suffer on behalf of mankind in eliminating the problem of good and evil.  Of all the religious worldviews, Christianity is the only religion which is a free religion for humanity, in which the solution to evil, pain, suffering, and death has been worked out solely by God alone with no burden placed upon mankind.