How Can I Know God Is Good With All The Suffering In The World?

The late British pastor John Stott wrote, “The fact of suffering undoubtedly constitutes the single greatest threat to the Christian.” Allow me to reconcile the reality of evil and suffering with the certainty of a good and loving God.

1. The Difficulty of Reconciling God and Suffering

Why does the existence of evil and suffering in the world pose such a problem for people’s belief in God? I’ve never heard anyone ask, “How can I know there is a God with all of the porcupines in the world?” The existence of porcupines does not challenge the existence of God. Both realities are compatible. However, it is very difficult for us to reconcile these four truths:

• God Exists
• God is All-Powerful
• God is Good
• Evil is Present in the World

Philosopher David Hume’s famous tri-lemma about God’s goodness, God’s power, and evil has troubled many: Is God willing to prevent evil but not able to? Then, He is impotent. Is He able but not willing? Then, He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing—whence then is evil? According to Hume, the reality of evil, or He, is nonexistent.

2. Popular Attempts to Reconcile God and Suffering

• “Suffering is an Illusion”

Many years ago, I was in my office in the church where I was serving in West Texas. My secretary buzzed me and said a man wanted to see me. During our conversation, he told me that a Sunday in June of 1980 forever changed his life. On that particular Sunday morning, he and his family were worshipping in church. Everyone in the congregation was excited about the first Sunday of their new pastor. The auditorium was packed. A visitor entered through the back door carrying a gun and yelled, “This is War!” He opened fire on the congregation, killing five people and wounding twelve others. The man in my office said he was seated next to his seven-year-old daughter when the gunshots blew off half of her face. She died instantly.

At the funeral service several days later, the father could not bear to say goodbye to his daughter. Finally, the pastor came over and told the father, “It’s time to go; the cemetery workers will cover the grave.” The dad was so filled with sorrow over the loss of his daughter and remorse over time not spent with her that he took off his coat and tie and grabbed a shovel, saying, “The least I can do for my daughter is to cover her grave.”

Can you imagine my trying to comfort that grieving father by saying, “The pain you are feeling isn’t real; it is only an illusion” or “Evil doesn’t really exist; it is only a matter of perception?” Evil in the world—and the resulting suffering we experience—is very real and very painful. 

One powerful argument for the trustworthiness of the Bible is that it does not sugar-coat reality like other religious writings. Life is filled with pain. Suffering is only an illusion to those who have never experienced it.

• “The God of the Bible Does Not Exist”

Many people are uncomfortable stating categorically that there is no higher power in the universe. But if such a force exists, it certainly could not be the God described in the Bible. How could a God who claims to be filled with love, a hater of evil, and all-powerful allow atrocities like floods, famines, child torture, and genocide? If suffering and evil are real, then it must be God who is the illusion, according to this explanation.

The fact that there is evil in the world and that we care about it argues strongly for the existence of a good God.

• “God is Limited”

One night, Amy and I were traveling on an interstate highway in the middle of West Texas in a driving rainstorm when our headlights went out due to an electrical malfunction in our brand-new car. We could not see two inches in front of us, but we were hesitant to pull over to the shoulder of the road for fear of being hit by another car. Fortunately, we spotted an eighteen-wheeler in our rear-view mirror. We allowed it to pass us, and then we simply zeroed in on its taillights and followed it safely into the city limits of our town.

God’s Word is described as a “light to [our] path” (Psalm 119:105) that provides direction, especially when we lose our way in the fog of pain, suffering, and the unrelenting storm of doubt. Although there is no specific chapter and verse answer in the Bible to the “Why does God allow suffering in the world” question, the Bible does offer some truths we can depend on to lead us safely through those storms that blow into our lives. 

3. Four Lights to Guide Us Through the Tunnel of Suffering

• God is Both Good and All-Powerful

Obviously, using the Bible to argue the goodness of God assumes the truthfulness of Scripture. Yet even apart from the Bible, the world around us is filled with evidence of a benevolent Creator. Yes, occasionally, floods and earthquakes kill thousands of people, but most of the time, rivers stay within their banks, and the tectonic plates do not shift. Farmers periodically struggle with droughts that destroy their crops, but usually, sufficient rains come that protect their livelihood and provide our food. We read of unspeakable crimes that are committed against people, forgetting the reason they are reported is that such crimes are the exception rather than the rule.

But, do you find any comfort in the thought that any one of the trillions of cells in your body could randomly start to multiply on its own, or that your employer could arbitrarily choose to fire you, or a distracted driver could accidentally take the life of your mate while a less-than-sovereign God stood by, helpless to intervene? Fortunately, the Bible assures us of God’s absolute control over all of His creation:

Admittedly, God’s absolute control over His creation causes many questions that can be answered and many that cannot. But as Chuck Swindoll says, “The sovereignty of God does not take away my questions, but it does relieve me of my anxiety.” 

• Evil and Suffering are Not Attributable to God

The ”futility” to which God subjected the world is the tendency that all systems have to move toward disorder, as described by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The resulting “groans” of that disorder and disintegration of all systems in nature are manifested in everything from earthquakes to the aches and pains of old age. While it is true that God is ultimately responsible for these consequences, it is also true that this disorder and disintegration in the natural world are directly attributable to man’s rebellion against God.

But if God were continually thwarting every desire people had to rebel against Him, then there would be no such thing as true righteousness in the world. In a world in which God supernaturally prevented evil, “human goodness would be mere programming, not goodness.” God has given human beings the freedom to obey or disobey His divine decrees. While theologians will continue to argue the extent of that freedom, the bottom line is that God does not coerce anyone to obey Him.

• God Can Use Suffering and Evil for Good

Many times, our lack of complete information causes us to judge something painful prematurely as “evil.” While we use the terms “suffering” and “evil” interchangeably, perhaps this is the time to decouple the two terms. They are not the same. Everything that is “evil” does not always result in “suffering” (at least in the short term), and everything that produces “suffering” is not always “evil.”

• God Will Ultimately Defeat Evil and End Suffering

I am under no illusion that I have definitively answered the “Why” question of suffering and evil in the world at large or in your world in particular. Yet, it seems that there is an unrelenting desire in all of us to offer simplistic answers to unfathomable questions. Even those who should know better can’t seem to help themselves. A few years ago, a television evangelist made headlines by claiming that an earthquake that had killed thousands was God’s judgment against a nation that had made a pact with the devil hundreds of years earlier.  Yet, that earthquake destroyed the lives of both cult worshippers and Christian missionaries. That is why it is foolish and futile to try and offer definitive answers to the “why” question to anyone. Who is buckling under the weight of unrelenting pain?

However, we can offer comforting insights: God is in control, God is loving, and God can use evil for our ultimate good. And we can also say without hesitation that God will ultimately defeat evil and end our suffering. Just because God has not eliminated evil and suffering in the world yet does not mean He will not do so in the future. 

Why doesn’t God stamp out all the suffering in the world right now? For God to end all of the sufferings in the world, He would have to put an end to the cause of that suffering: rebellion against God (or, as the Bible calls it, “sin”). For God to end all rebellion against Himself means He would have to end history as we know it with a final and eternal judgment of the righteous and the unrighteous. The moment that final judgment occurs, all opportunities for repentance and salvation will be gone. People’s destinies will be fixed for all eternity. 

Make no mistake about it. God is going to defeat evil and end suffering. Mercy, not apathy or impotence, is God’s only reason for delaying the elimination of evil. Anytime you begin to doubt the certainty of evil’s ultimate defeat,  look back at the Cross. The death of Jesus Christ represents the moment in time when God assured all of His creation that He was not about to allow sin and its devastating consequences to be the final word in human history. When Jesus cried out, “It is Finished” (literally, “Paid in Full”), the countdown clock began ticking away the seconds until God reclaims and re-creates His creation.

After all, the best way to defeat evil is to go to a new world where evil no longer exists. The fact that evil and suffering will ultimately be defeated in no way minimizes the intensity of the pain we feel now, and God understands that.