WHY DOES GOD ALLOW SUFFERING?
The confusion that arises from this question can be stated as below:
“If God were good He would wish to make his creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what He wished. But creatures are not happy. Therefore, God lacks either goodness, or power, or both.” C.S.Lewis The Problem of Pain pg.14
(Please understand up front that I am assuming in all my comments the validity of the Jewish-Christian scriptures as recorded in and limited to the commonly and historically accepted body of canonical biblical texts [excluding the documents classed as “apocryphal”]. I have satisfied my own mind as to the integrity, unity, and complete truthfulness of this body of writings through 30 years of personal study and vital experience, and I have determined to my own satisfaction that this library of ancient literature is qualitatively different, separate, and unique when it is compared honestly with ALL other world literature, whether these other writings are called “scripture” or not, of any era, past or present. To argue this assumption is not my purpose in these present pages. My bias is clearly stated and my thoughts that follow are openly derived from this biased position. My intention here is to help the thinking of the person who deeply hungers for truth and meaning in his or her life, not to debate intellectually “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin” or “Did Adam and Eve have belly-buttons” or “Could God make a rock too big for Him to move” ? (The answer to the last is “ Probably He could. But why on earth would He?”-----RST)
So saying this, I will plunge in:
The Bible offers, some, but not a whole lot of, insight into the questions raised by the obvious reality of pain, suffering, injustice, calamity, etc. in our world. There are some glimpses into the realm we call “eternity”, “the supernatural”, “the para-normal”, “a higher dimension”, “heaven”, etc., but it should be understood at the outset that the majority of the record in the Bible deals with the segment of “time”, which is bracketed by “eternity” at either end. Our vision beyond this parenthetic segment is very limited. (The Bible deals with dimensions beyond the three and one-half dimensions-length, width, height, and time- with which we are familiar.) By sticking closely to the biblical information I am trying to draw upon the revelation given to us by Jesus Christ who stated up front that He knew what He was talking about because He’d been there. (John 3: 12,13; John chapters 6,7, 8, and 13ff.)
However, enough is revealed to allow us to construct an adequate understanding of these things to put our questions in a proper context, and to give us an answer we can live and work with. Even if we cannot fully explain these difficult issues, we can accept them without confusion, from a perspective that renders them endurable, because we can trust the God who we know has the answers even if He asks us to cease some of our struggles to understand that which is beyond us. Enough of my own hard questions have been well answered by my Lord over the last quarter-century (+): I can be confident that He has good answers as well for the questions I may still have.
