Why does God allow suffering in the world? This is a question that most of us have asked ourselves and continue to do so. All of us have different notions of who God is, whether it be according to what we have been taught or that which we have imagined and trusted as the character of an infinite Creator. Yet, it is generally thought and believed that God is ‘good’,i.e. He is loving, just, and compassionate. Thus it becomes obvious that the conceived notion of God as the righteous and just Creator is defeated by the world that He created. Let me put this a little more plainly. If God is indeed the transcendent epitome of goodness, love, and justice, then why is the world He created so full of suffering, pain, and injustice? How can a just and loving God allow His creation to suffer?
All those who seriously contemplate the existence of an infinite, supreme Creator and seek to know Him will have grappled with this difficult philosophical question. In the same way, this is an argument that is frequently raised by atheists, agnostics, and those who seek to disprove the existence of God. They also like to add that if indeed God exists, the wretched condition of His creation necessitates that the Creator is either an evil God who rejoices in our suffering or a finite, weak God who is helpless in the face of our suffering.
If you feel perplexed by the fact that God has allowed suffering in the world or find it impossible to logically encapsulate the self-defeating opposites of great suffering and a loving God who is in control of everything, you must first understand a very important fact that must form the basis of any genuine search for the truth, which is this- finite man can never fully comprehend an infinite God! The Bible says, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord.“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” As we behold the suffering around us, we might often feel tempted to question the justice of a loving God, but we must remember that the righteousness, justice, and wisdom of God is beyond that which our mortal minds can even imagine or fathom. Again the Bible says, “Oh the depths of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?”
Another realization that will greatly help one to better understand the intricate mysteries of God’s handiwork is that we do not see the whole picture, to put it very simply. This is made wonderfully explicit by this beautiful illustration that somebody once gave- imagine the artist weaving a tapestry. He seems to be working with a great messy tangle of knots and threads. And it is only as he sews in the last thread and turns the picture around that one beholds the beautiful picture that had been slowly taking shape on the other side. What is especially germane and relevant from this example to what I am trying to say is this- the meaning, the beauty, and the coherence of the artist’s creation could be viewed only from the other side! And in the same way, we too have another side from which we must view the unsolved mysteries of God’s creation if we are to construct any meaning out of life and existence or answer the questions that reason and logic demand as one attempts to do so.
And what is the other side? It is eternity. We are finite, mortal beings who live within the constraints of time and space, able to reason and intellectualize only within the limits of our own impeded abilities, and the other side is closed to us until the Grand Weaver pulls the last thread and turns the portals of time and reality around that we might behold His great masterpiece, God’s grand plan for His treasured creation.
This is I believe, a most significant area of contention as agnostics, atheists, and God-haters try to intellectually disprove the possibility of God’s existence. When one leaves room in his reasoning for possible questions and unrevealed mysteries that his mind cannot comprehend or understand, he is taking a very different road from someone who believes that he must logically rationalize every single argument and flawlessly align every last concept to believe in the existence of God and to put his trust in Him. Is not the agnostic failing to realize that the very concept of ‘God’ as the Being who created him must demand certain attributes such as supreme power, wisdom, and knowledge, that he, the created being might not be able to fathom? The creator is not answerable to His creation! What I am trying to point out is that attempting to fully answer every single question in order to prove or disprove the existence of God, is a direct contradiction to the very concept of God as a Being infinitely more intelligent and knowing than His creation.
My intention in writing the above paragraphs was only to demonstrate the attitude or frame of mind with which we must view the whole paradigm of existential questions which accompany reflections on God. One of them is the meaning of suffering or the conflict mentioned in the first paragraph. And addressing the question of suffering from the vantage point of the infinite is of utmost necessity if one is to satisfactorily answer his queries regarding the same.
Now let me attempt to construe the meaning of suffering at a more intimate and personal level. One might say that it is easy to explain and rationalize suffering when you dehumanize and conceptualize it. But it is infinitely more difficult to accept that God has a purpose behind suffering when you experience and see it in all its ferocity and wretchedness.
I would think that it is unnecessary to compose an image of the great suffering present in the world today for my readers. We all know of the misery and tragedy that is played out all around us and the dismal fate that is destined for many. Poverty, inequality, injustice, terror, grief, violence, and a whole plethora of untold pain and agony constitute the mammoth suffering in our world. And it is certainly not at all uncommon for men to ask themselves, “Where is God in the midst of all this?”
Like all men, I myself have often been shocked and appalled by some terrible happening that pierces one’s heart in its gruesome hideousness and I have asked myself, “How could God allow this to happen?” There are incidents that sicken you because of their heinousness and make you wonder how the sufferers’ wounded souls can ever heal or recover from their nightmarish ordeals.
But Thomas Moore said, “Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.” At first glance, this might seem to be another comforting but meaningless statement. Yet, this is the simple and profound truth. When the confines of time and space are cast away and our souls transcend the limits of mortality to enter into the sphere of eternity for which we were created, the things of the earth simply will not matter to us anymore. Every sorrow will be forgotten and every last tear that we shed on earth will be remembered no more in the light of the unimaginable glories which await us. The human soul was destined for eternity, not for mortality! This short and fleeting life on earth serves a greater purpose and is part of an unfathomable plan that has not yet been fully revealed to us.
In order to make sense of suffering, one must first have some notion of what awaits us at its end. This will become more clear if you can envisage the painful process of childbirth. The mother suffers immense pain and discomfort during her pregnancy and especially during labour, but her suffering is made endurable and even meaningful by the knowledge that she will have her little one in her arms at the end of it. In the same way, it is the hope of redemption and eternal life that makes our suffering purposeful and worthwhile. The Bible says, “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” Thus hope eases and justifies suffering.
Another thing which we must understand is this. Anyone who believes in goodness must necessarily believe in evil. Otherwise, his belief is self-defeating. For his belief in good automatically implies that there is an opposite course that makes it so. To put it more simply, if I say that a particular course of action is good or right, I am naturally implying that there is also a wrong course of action. It is my ability to differentiate between the two that defines the good and bad. And all this finally implies that it is awareness and experience of the bad that leads us to choose the good. In the same way, might it not be the encounter with pain and suffering that leads us to both understand and appreciate the beauty and wonder of the glories that await us on the other side?
Besides this, one has to realize that the question of suffering cannot be directly confronted without a broad alignment and meeting together of different perspectives and attitudes. As many Christian thinkers have pointed out, free will is intrinsically weaved into the very fabric of love. So in order for man to experience authentic love, he must first experience the freedom of the will, because of which he can make moral and ethical choices. And this God-given capacity for free will is also something that will help us better understand the presence of suffering. For free will implies that much of the suffering in the world is the result of man’s own actions and choices. Man chose to stray away from God and pursue his own ends and desires. The choice of right and wrong lies solely with us and is exclusive of any divine intervention. When a man decides to do harm to another human being, he does it by virtue of his own conscious will and God cannot in any way be held responsible for it. When man violates and exploits this gift of free will, we cannot question God without also implying him to relieve us of our freedom and will, which ironically we all hold dear.
Finally, this world is a fallen world. When man chose to forsake God and pursue his own passions, it was given over to iniquity, corruption, and suffering. Suffering is an inevitable consequence of sin and there is no escape from it.
There are a host of other perspectives and theories with which one can better understand the meaning of suffering and I have only penned a few thoughts that came to me on this subject. Let me conclude with a verse from the Bible that speaks of the end of suffering- “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”
Jerusha Joel