MenuWhy Does God Allow Suffering?
“And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong.” – Job 1:21-22
Why does God allow suffering?
This is a question only for believers. For unbelievers, if God doesn’t exist, then suffering is just one more meaningless part of life… and if one arbitrarily tries to attach meaning to it, the capriciousness of that subjective judgment makes it, actually, meaningless. For a practical example of subjective meaning, try arguing to a cat lover that dogs are better, or vice versa!
So how do believers reconcile the God of the Bible with suffering? Well, no surprise, the Bible talks about the fall of humanity into sin, God’s wrath upon sin (justice), and Christ’s atoning sacrifice as our substitute (redemption).
But what about undeserved suffering? We learn early in life about “crime and punishment,” but what about the seemingly indiscriminate suffering inflicted good and bad people, righteous and wicked people, believers and unbelievers alike, by a hurricane or an earthquake? And why would a loving God allow a little baby to contract a fatal disease? Why do bad things happen to seemingly innocent people?
Both the Old and the New Testament grapple with this question. And the answers are not easy. (Why do we expect them to be?) The Book of Job exemplifies how seriously the Bible takes this question. But the reluctance of the Bible (including Job) to give easy answers is part of what we’re to learn of the human condition. First of all, is anyone, even a little baby, really “innocent?” Hard answer number one: “No one is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks God” writes Paul in Romans 3:11, quoting Psalms 14 and 53. This sounds hard and insensitive to our ears, partly because this is indeed a hard and grievous truth (painful both to us and to God), and partly also because it reflects how much we minimize original and actual sin.
And even if we think we’re “blameless and upright, one who fears God and turns away from evil” like Job, does it mean that we’re close to God and know Him? The Book of Job’s honest look at human suffering shows (if we needed more evidence than our own lives) that believers are not exempt from suffering. In allowing a test of Job’s faith, God reveals some things about Himself and about humanity. God reveals that He Himself is simultaneously divinely loving and just, supreme and wise. We see that God puts a limit on evil and suffering, even if we don’t understand why He allows what he does. Hard answer number two: God doesn’t owe us answers. God’s wisdom is far above human wisdom (personified in what Job’s friends tell him about suffering, which are the same things the world says today).
And we learn that humility before God (even learned the hard way), and faith in God alone, are good things – first in the midst of suffering, and finally in God’s ultimate vindication of that faith. Even in the very depths of his agony and tribulations, Job could still cry out, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me.” (Job 19:25-27) Hard answer number three: God’s relief comes in His way and His timing, not ours.
The Bible, even though it doesn’t offer us the easy answers that we want, does teach us ways to begin to understand suffering beyond mere “crime and punishment”: suffering as a test of faith, suffering as a means to bring us closer to God, suffering as a form of God’s discipline, suffering as a challenge to action, suffering as a chance to witness to others, suffering as a sharing in Christ’s redemptive suffering. These may seem meaningless to the unbeliever, but to the one who trusts in Christ, the Son of God who willingly entered our world of suffering and bore it upon Himself on the cross, one sees purpose and meaning in the living, loving God intimately concerned and engaged with us, His creatures.
The Book of Job ends with God restoring Job’s fortunes, with sympathy, comfort, family and material blessings – the things we long for in this life. But the ultimate vindication of Job, and of all believers, is not in material prosperity nor earthly happiness, but in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting that Christ wins for us and lavishes upon us, beginning in our Baptism. And that sure, certain and immortal hope is a solid rock to hold onto in the face of mortal suffering now.