Reason for Hope

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Evil & Suffering

If God is good, why is there so much evil and suffering?

Short answer

Christianity does not deny the reality of evil; it takes it more seriously than any other worldview. God made us free to love, which also means free to do harm. And in Jesus, God did not stay distant from suffering but entered it, defeated it on the cross, and promises to end it.

In simple words: God gave people the choice to love or not, and sometimes people choose wrong. God is sad about suffering too, and Jesus came to fix it forever.

Response

This is the hardest question people ask, and it often comes from real pain. Before giving answers, listen. Job's friends did best when they sat silently with him (Job 2:13).

It helps to notice what the objection assumes. Apologist Wes Huff points out that "the fact that we understand that evil is something speaks to the fact that there is an objective evil." Follow that thought step by step:

  1. If evil truly exists, then good truly exists. Evil is a twisting or absence of the way things ought to be, just as a line can only be crooked compared with a straight one.
  2. If good and evil truly exist, there must be an objective moral law that tells them apart: a standard that holds whether or not anyone agrees with it.
  3. If there is an objective moral law, there must be a moral lawgiver above humanity. As Huff puts it, "a moral law needs a moral lawgiver."
  4. So the reality of evil points toward God, not away from him.

Without God, suffering is still real, but "evil" shrinks to a word for things we happen to dislike. Many people assume that removing God solves the problem of evil. Huff answers, "I think it actually makes it more complicated." The real question is not whether God exists, but why a good God allows evil for a time, and what he has done about it.

The Bible gives part of the answer: God created humans with real freedom, because love requires freedom. We have used that freedom to turn from God, and the world has been broken as a result (Romans 8:20-22). The Bible also shows that God can bring good even out of terrible evil, as in the story of Joseph (Genesis 50:20).

The Bible does not give a complete explanation for every instance of suffering. But it gives something better than an explanation: God himself entering our suffering in Jesus. On the cross, Jesus experienced injustice, pain, and abandonment. Through his resurrection, he guarantees a future in which God "will wipe every tear from their eyes" (Revelation 21:4).

Key evidence

Bible passages

Quotes

“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.”

C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line.”

C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

“I think the fact that we understand that evil is something speaks to the fact that there is an objective evil.”

Wes Huff, The Shawn Ryan Show (episode 279)

Discussion questions

  1. When you have been through suffering, what helped and what did not?
  2. Why does Jesus weep at Lazarus's tomb even though he knows he will raise him?
  3. How does the cross change how we think about God and suffering?

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