Probably the biggest objection I hear to Christianity is the question ‘How could a loving God allow suffering?’ A few years ago the actor and comedian Stephen Fry made headlines after calling God ‘monstrous’. He said that he would like to ask God: ‘Bone cancer in children – what’s that about?’ Now Fry doesn’t have any children. As far as I know this isn’t something he’s experienced up close. But for many others, the question of suffering is very real. For those who’ve lost children, or received a devastating diagnosis, or suffered abuse or injustice at the hands of others, it’s far from a theoretical question.
If God really is both all-powerful and infinitely loving – as the Bible claims he is – why does he let suffering come into our lives? When he must have the power to stop it?
It’s not an easy question. And yet the problem of suffering and evil isn’t just a question that Christians must face. Because even if you ditch the idea of God altogether, suffering and evil are still a problem – just in a different way. If there’s no God and the universe is just random, then the problem isn’t why suffering and evil happen. The problem is why do they matter? Why should we expect any different?
Richard Dawkins declares that our universe has ‘no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference’. But if there’s no good or evil, why do we instinctively use those categories when we look at the world, and when we assess what happens to us? If it’s all just meaningless, where does our sense of justice and fairness come from? If it’s all just meaningless, why should we care about the suffering of another human being?
If there is no God, then your suffering is a lot less important than you think it is. In fact, it’s completely meaningless. There’s no point looking for answers, because there are none. So whatever our beliefs, the presence of suffering and evil are a problem.
What then of a Christian response to the question? It must begin at Creation. Stephen Fry asked in his interview: ‘Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?’. Fry assumes that if there is a God, he created a world in which there is misery, injustice and pain.
But did he? The Bible actually tells us that God created a world with no sickness, suffering, misery, injustice or pain. A world which God declared was ‘very good’. Suffering wasn’t part of the original blueprint. Rather it came about as part of God’s punishment on the human race for seeking to live in his world and enjoy his gifts without acknowledging him.
And yet while that explains the presence of suffering in the world in general, what about the suffering we face as individuals? The believer can take comfort in words spoken by Joseph to his brothers, twenty years after they sold him into slavery: ‘You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good’. When Jesus was asked why a man had been born blind, he told his disciples that they were quite mistaken to try and link it directly to some specific sin: ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him’. His words reassure us that God has a purpose in our suffering – just like the skillful surgeon who cuts in order to heal.
Meanwhile suffering in the life of an unbeliever is ultimately intended to bring them to God. As C. S. Lewis famously put it: ‘God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world’.
One thing we can be sure of is that in our pain, God isn’t asleep or uncaring. Nor is the God of the Bible one who sits up in heaven making detached pronouncements about human suffering. Rather, the God of the Bible is the one who in Jesus Christ has come down. Who lived in this world of suffering, sickness and death. Who wept as he stood at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. And who ultimately would face not just the physical torture of crucifixion – but the wrath of God – in order that our suffering would only be temporary. So that we might escape the eternal suffering we deserve. The question ‘Why does God allow suffering’ must ultimately take us to the cross.
Published in the Stranraer & Wigtownshire Free Press, 5th May 2022
You can hear Stephen give a longer version of this answer in this talk from 2019.