Why Does God Allow Suffering?

An interesting email came today asking "why does God allow suffering?" Although this question is asked often, and there are a boat-load of books and articles on the subject, the author of the email put the question into sharper relief than do many. I don't know if this the best response to the question, but I thought I'd share with you MY take on it, which follows.

I can't promise to fulfill your hopes for a satisfying answer. But I can tell you honestly what I believe is true, and what rings true in my own experience of faith.

I won't recommend a book, but not because you'd be disappointed if I directed you there. But only because most (not all) books on the subject seem hardly worth the paper they're printed on. Most (not all) that I have read seem either to miss the point, or to gloss over things, or to seem dishonest. I remember once, years ago, a person that I deeply respect, giving his answer: "I have no idea." And I realized when he said it, that was the first time I'd heard an honest response to the question.

My own perspective comes from wrestling with this question for years and years. I doubt that you will like my perspective. In fact, I myself don't like my perspective. But I will say that this is honestly what I think is true, and it has held up for me, through years and years. During this time I have suffered, friends have suffered, and the world has suffered. I have tested this perspective in the light of reality, and it has held. And my faith is deeper now that it was in the past.

First, let me point out an assumption that I think you should reconsider. You wrote in your first email:

It seems that God could devise a system to draw us to Him without having to inflict pain on us, or our loved ones, or our pets or our "neighbors." Even as limited as our intelligence is, I think God could have devised a way for us to understand without pain.

I agree with you completely. I reject the idea the purpose of pain and suffering is to draw us to God or to give us understanding.

I do not find that idea in Scripture. I believe that idea is completely rejected in Old Testament wisdom literature: especially Job, the Psalms, the Proverbs. It is rejected by Jesus, St Paul, St James. It shows up in a lot of preachers, hymns and Christian books, but not in Scripture.

God not only could devise a system to draw us to him without inflicting pain, I believe he DID devise other systems. I don't think that pain and suffering has anything to do with God's intentions to draw us to him nor to give us understanding.

Of course, it's possible to gain understanding of God and God's gracious love for us under any circumstances, even in pain and suffering, just as I gain understanding of God by considering the wonders of nature. But I don't believe that the purpose for the existence of nature is to give understanding of God nor to draw us to him. So even were I to tell some story about how I found God in the midst of suffering, I would reject the idea that God inflicted me in order to bring about that experience of God.

Moreover, I have personally come to believe that the idea that "God causes everything, including suffering," is a philosophical idea rather than a scriptural idea. I believe that it arises both from the cause-effect philosophical culture that underlies western modernity as well as from a variety of pagan cultures, but I believe that both the Old Testament and the New Testament tend to undermine the idea that God causes suffering.

I believe that the Scriptures repudiate the ideas 1) that God inflicts us, 2) that God inflicts in order to bring about some greater good, 3) that we can answer the "why" question at all. Worse -- the Scriptures don't even suggest that there is an answer to the "why" question that we will get "in the sweet by and by." Not only do I not know how to answer the "why" question -- I am not persuaded that there ever will be an answer.

Rather, the Scriptures guide us to a faithful response to the reality of suffering. The Scriptures warn us away from inflicting suffering on others, away from judging others as deserving of suffering, away from turning a blind eye to the suffering of others, and away from assuming that we have sufficient wisdom or information to pontificate on why suffering happens.

It has been my impression that the most thoughtful Christians, Episcopal and otherwise, who have responded to the question of "why God allows suffering" agree on this: Although it is true that some people have found God in the midst of terrible suffering, this does not imply that this was the purpose of the suffering. Nor does it imply that suffering has purpose at all. "Correlation does not imply causality."

I would say that the good Christian response to the question "why does God allow / cause suffering" might be this: "Are you quite certain that this question can be answered from a Christian perspective? Isn't it true that one of the themes of Scripture is that the attempt to answer the question is itself futile, and that it can't be answered?"

Let me also say this: To leave the Christian faith if it fails to answer the question about "why is there suffering," is sort of like leaving one’s family because they can't answer that question. One has nothing to do with the other. Jesus invites us to follow him, not because he can answer our questions, but because there is, in fact, a gracious God who loves us incomprehensibly -- and following Jesus is the way that Jesus has given us into that relationship with God.

the Lord be with you,