Few questions strike the human heart more deeply than, “Why would a good and all-powerful God allow suffering?” From the cries of a mother at the grave of her child, to the silent anguish of a man betrayed by his own body through chronic disease, suffering challenges our assumptions about justice, purpose, and the nature of God.
This question is not just emotional—it is deeply philosophical and theological. The branch of theology that seeks to answer the question of why a good God allows evil and suffering is known as theodicy. The term itself originates from two Greek words: theos (God) and dikē (justice), meaning “the justice of God.” Theodicy seeks to vindicate God’s goodness and sovereignty in a world that appears, at times, to be ruled by chaos, injustice, and pain.
The Christian response to this dilemma must never be glib. Yet, Scripture, when rightly understood, does not shrink from addressing this question. It gives us solid answers—answers not based in shallow comfort but rooted in the sovereign and holy character of God, as well as His redemptive purposes in Christ. Suffering is not accidental. It is not meaningless. In the sovereign hands of God, it is purposeful—for the glory of God, the sanctification of believers, and the vindication of God’s holiness in judgment.
To borrow the words of Voddie Baucham, we must understand suffering not primarily through the lens of human comfort but through the lens of divine glory. Likewise, John Calvin reminds us that “we are not our own,” and that every aspect of our life—including pain—belongs to the purposes of our Creator.
In this article, we will explore:
- The philosophical dilemma of suffering: What is theodicy?
- The biblical answer to suffering for believers: sanctification and reflection of Christ’s image.
- Suffering for unbelievers: a display of divine justice and the holiness of God.
- How trust in the midst of suffering glorifies God.
- Why questioning God’s justice reveals a deeper spiritual problem.
- Personal, societal, and pseudo-Christian influences that distort our view of suffering.
Let us begin where many have stumbled—at the intellectual problem of pain.
The Philosophical Dilemma: What Is Theodicy?
The so-called “problem of evil” has been stated for centuries in this basic form:
If God is all-good, He would want to prevent suffering.
If God is all-powerful, He could prevent suffering.
Suffering exists.
Therefore, either God is not all-good, or not all-powerful, or He does not exist.
This line of reasoning, sometimes attributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, has been echoed in modern times by skeptics like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. It poses a false trilemma, assuming that if suffering exists, then God must be either indifferent or incapable. But Scripture offers a fourth option: that suffering exists under the sovereign will of an all-good, all-powerful God for purposes that transcend immediate human understanding.
Reformed theologians like John Frame, R.C. Sproul, and Herman Bavinck point out that this argument fails to account for the fact that God’s goodness is not measured by man’s comfort, but by God’s own glory and redemptive purposes. As Paul writes in Romans 11:36, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”
In other words, theodicy is not about God justifying Himself to man. It is about man bowing before the righteous and holy purposes of God—even when he cannot immediately see them.
Suffering and Sanctification: The Refining Fire of God
For the believer, suffering is never punishment. It is discipline, refinement, and training in righteousness. Hebrews 12:6–11 tells us that “the Lord disciplines the one he loves” and that this discipline “yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”
This is where suffering begins to take on redemptive purpose. As Paul David Tripp has written, suffering serves as a “tool in the Redeemer’s hands” to transform our character, not just our circumstances. The Apostle Paul echoes this in Romans 5:3–5:
We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame…
In fact, suffering conforms us to the image of Christ. Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered (Hebrews 5:8). Likewise, believers are shaped into the likeness of the Suffering Servant. John Owen observed that sanctification is not a product of comfort, but of confrontation—confrontation with our sin, our mortality, and our need for God’s grace.
Greg Bahnsen, in his apologetic work, makes the point that the very existence of suffering is only truly intelligible in a Christian worldview. It presupposes moral categories—such as right, wrong, good, evil, justice, and injustice—that are grounded in the character of a holy God. Without this foundation, cries of injustice in suffering are incoherent.
Suffering and Divine Judgment: The Glory of God in His Justice
What about the suffering of the unbeliever? Is it meaningless cruelty?
On the contrary, Scripture teaches that God’s justice is magnified when He judges sin. Romans 1:18 declares, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” Unbelievers who persist in rebellion are not victims of cosmic injustice—they are recipients of just wrath.
This is uncomfortable truth in a sentimental age. But, as Jonathan Edwards wrote in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” the holiness of God demands justice, and that justice includes suffering for the unrepentant.
As James White and John MacArthur have both emphasized, the cross itself is the ultimate proof that God’s justice and mercy are not in conflict. The suffering of Christ was the just penalty for sin, voluntarily borne for the elect. But those who reject Christ must bear the penalty themselves, and that is suffering both in this life and eternally.
Therefore, suffering is not only a sanctifying agent for believers; it is also a foretaste of judgment for unbelievers and a witness to the holiness of God. When Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead for lying to the Holy Spirit, “great fear came upon all who heard it” (Acts 5:5). The message was clear: God is not to be trifled with.
Trust in the Face of Suffering: Glorifying God Through Faith
One of the most powerful testimonies in all of Scripture is the faith of the believer who trusts God in the midst of suffering. When Job lost his children, his wealth, and his health, he cried out, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15). The kind of faith that can worship in the fire—not merely after it—is the kind of faith that magnifies the glory of God.
This is not blind or irrational faith. It is faith grounded in the character of God, not in the visibility of His hand. John Calvin reminds us that “we walk by faith, not by sight,” and it is in the crucible of suffering that the genuineness of our trust in God is most clearly seen. Faith in prosperity is common. Faith in adversity reveals supernatural grace.
Consider Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, standing before Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace. Their words echo through the centuries: “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us… But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods” (Daniel 3:17–18). They trusted God not just for what He could do, but for who He is. That kind of trust, as Paul David Tripp would argue, shifts our hope from circumstances to the sovereign Redeemer Himself.
And in doing so, the believer reflects Christ. Christ suffered not only physically, but spiritually, absorbing the wrath of God on behalf of His people. His trust in the Father, even when abandoned at the cross, was unwavering: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). So too the believer, as he suffers in faith, testifies to the sufficiency of Christ and declares the glory of God’s sustaining grace.
The Heart that Questions God: Man’s Rebellion Exposed
One of the most striking tendencies of fallen man is to blame God for suffering, rather than himself or other sinners. “If God is good,” the skeptic says, “then why is the world so broken?” But that is the wrong question. The real question is: Why do we, sinful humans, presume to put God on trial while excusing ourselves?
This misplaced blame began in Eden. When Adam sinned and God confronted him, what was his response? “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit…” (Genesis 3:12). In one sentence, Adam blamed both his wife and God. Eve followed suit by blaming the serpent. Neither accepted responsibility.
Ever since, fallen humanity has reflexively shifted the blame for sin, evil, and suffering away from themselves and onto others—ultimately onto God. But as Voddie Baucham often asserts, “God is not on trial. We are.” We are the rebels. We broke His commandments. We polluted His creation. And we continue to contribute to the suffering of others through greed, lust, pride, and selfishness.
The Fall of man introduced catastrophic disorder into the world. As Romans 5:12 explains, “sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Adam and Eve’s rebellion did not just lead to individual guilt. It ruptured every aspect of existence:
- Vertical alienation from God: We lost fellowship with our Creator.
- Internal alienation from self: Shame and guilt distort our identity.
- Horizontal alienation from others: Human relationships are now marked by strife.
- Cosmic alienation from creation: The ground was cursed, and suffering entered the natural world.
This comprehensive fracture is the root of suffering. War, disease, poverty, betrayal, environmental disaster—all of it finds its origin not in God’s design, but in man’s rebellion. As Anthony A. Hoekema wrote, the Fall was not merely moral but cosmic in its scope.
Thus, man should not shake his fist at the heavens and cry “unfair.” He should fall on his face before God and cry for mercy.
The Fall and the Fourfold Alienation: The Anatomy of Human Suffering
The biblical doctrine of the Fall, taught plainly in Genesis 3 and affirmed throughout Scripture, is not a myth or metaphor. It is the historical and theological explanation for why suffering exists. It explains why earthquakes destroy villages, why children get cancer, and why politicians lie.
Let’s examine briefly the fourfold alienation caused by the Fall:
1. Alienation from God (Vertical Rupture)
Man’s greatest problem is not sickness or sorrow—it is separation from God. The first thing Adam and Eve did after sinning was to hide themselves from God’s presence (Gen. 3:8). All suffering flows from this vertical dislocation. As Augustine observed, the heart is restless until it finds its rest in God.
2. Alienation from Self (Internal Rupture)
Shame, self-hatred, anxiety, and confusion—these internal sufferings began when sin entered the soul. We no longer see ourselves clearly. As Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick.”
3. Alienation from Others (Horizontal Rupture)
The very next chapter after the Fall records Cain murdering his brother Abel. All human violence, racism, betrayal, slander, and abuse are symptoms of horizontal rupture. Marriage struggles, family division, and societal breakdown are not merely “psychological” problems; they are spiritual consequences of sin.
4. Alienation from Creation (Environmental Rupture)
“The ground is cursed because of you,” God said to Adam (Gen. 3:17). Thorns, floods, famine, and decay are part of the created order being subjected to futility, as Romans 8:20–22 teaches. Creation groans, awaiting redemption.
Suffering, then, is the fallout of this multi-dimensional rupture. Until man is reconciled vertically to God through Christ, no horizontal reconciliation can be complete or lasting. All secular efforts to “heal the world” without the gospel are ultimately like trying to fix cancer with a Band-Aid. As Francis Schaeffer once said, “Man is not just a little flawed. He is revolting against the holy God.”
Culture, False Religion, and the Revolt Against God’s Justice
Modern man does not merely misunderstand suffering—he resents it. He sees it as an infringement on his autonomy, not as a consequence of rebellion. This is in large part due to cultural, psychological, and religious influences that have conditioned us to expect comfort and to reject accountability.
A. Cultural Narcissism and Therapeutic Religion
In his work The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman documents how Western culture has shifted from duty-based identity to feelings-based identity. We are now told that the highest good is personal happiness. Anything that disrupts that—including suffering—is seen as evil. Enter the age of therapeutic Christianity.
Many so-called churches preach a “feel-good gospel” that avoids talk of sin, wrath, or repentance. The prosperity gospel, in particular, teaches that suffering is never God’s will for your life. This is a lie. As John MacArthur has argued repeatedly, suffering is not the exception but the expectation for the Christian (2 Tim. 3:12).
B. Pop Psychology and Secular Blame-Shifting
Secular psychology often reduces human behavior to environment or genetics. In this view, no one is ultimately responsible. We are all victims. This undermines accountability and fosters resentment toward God rather than repentance.
Jay Adams and David Powlison both argued that biblical counseling must counter this with the truth: that man is not a helpless victim, but a responsible moral agent who must deal with sin before healing can occur. Real healing comes not from self-esteem, but from Christ-esteem—seeing ourselves as redeemed sinners under the mercy of God.
C. Atheism and the Rejection of Transcendence
Some, like Richard Dawkins, go further still. They claim suffering is proof that God doesn’t exist. But atheism has no logical grounds to even define suffering as “bad.” Without a transcendent standard, pain is just biology. Only in the Christian worldview does suffering have moral weight, redemptive potential, and eternal significance.
The Ultimate Purpose: Redemptive Suffering and the Glory of God
It’s one thing to say that suffering sanctifies the believer or punishes the unrepentant. It’s another to realize that even deeper than those truths is the reality that suffering glorifies God.
God’s glory is the ultimate reason for everything He ordains—including suffering. As Jonathan Edwards argued in The End for Which God Created the World, all things, even the most difficult trials, ultimately magnify some aspect of God’s character. For the believer, suffering magnifies His grace and sustaining power. For the unbeliever, it magnifies His holiness and justice.
Consider the story of the man born blind in John 9. The disciples asked Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus responded, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.” His blindness—his suffering—existed to showcase the glory of God.
This is a worldview-altering truth: Suffering is not meaningless. It is a stage upon which God displays His power, mercy, justice, and grace. The very trials that seem most senseless may be the ones through which God is most glorified and His people are most refined.
John Piper expresses it well: “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him—especially in suffering.” The believer’s ability to say, “Christ is enough,” in the darkest hour, is a radiant display of God’s worth.
Christ, the Man of Sorrows: Our Example and High Priest
To understand suffering rightly, we must look to Christ—not just as our Savior, but as our suffering Savior. Isaiah 53:3 calls Him “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” He was despised, rejected, beaten, betrayed, and crucified. And yet He never sinned. This reminds us that suffering is not always a result of personal sin, but it is always under the sovereign hand of God.
In fact, Christ’s suffering was redemptive. He bore the wrath of God in our place so that we could be reconciled. The righteous for the unrighteous. The innocent for the guilty. Paul says it plainly in 2 Corinthians 5:21: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
But Christ is not only the substitute—He is also the forerunner. Hebrews 4:15 assures us that we have a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses, because He was tempted and tested in every way as we are, yet without sin. When we suffer, we do not cry out to a distant deity. We cry out to a Savior who has bled, wept, and died. He meets us in our pain.
And because of His resurrection, we know that suffering will not have the final word. The empty tomb means that all sorrow has an expiration date. Death is not the end for those in Christ—it is the doorway to glory.
Responding Rightly to Suffering: Faith, Repentance, and Worship
If suffering is a tool in God’s hand, the question for the believer is not, “How do I escape this?” but rather, “What is God teaching me through this?” The Christian response to suffering involves at least three key elements:
A. Faith in God’s Character
We must trust that God is good, even when life is not. This trust is not naïve optimism—it is a settled conviction that God keeps His promises, even when we don’t yet see how. As Sinclair Ferguson says, “The Christian life is lived by promises, not by explanations.”
B. Repentance and Self-Examination
Suffering is not always a result of personal sin, but it always calls us to search our hearts. As David wrote in Psalm 139:23–24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart… see if there be any grievous way in me.” Sometimes suffering reveals idols, worldliness, or misplaced trust. It humbles us and brings us back to the foot of the cross.
C. Worship and Endurance
Job, in the wake of unimaginable loss, fell to the ground and worshipped: “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). Worship in suffering is a powerful witness. It is the melody of faith in a minor key, and it honors God profoundly.
The Church’s Role: Comforting the Afflicted
The local church has a critical role in helping believers walk through suffering. We are not meant to suffer in isolation. Paul reminds us in Galatians 6:2 to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” The early church was marked by mutual care, shared sorrow, and practical support.
The church must be a place where lament is welcome. Where people can weep without shame. Where sufferers are not given clichés but compassion, Scripture, and presence.
David Powlison emphasized this in his counseling ministry: the church is not a place of quick fixes, but a community of hope, truth, and healing. The best comfort often comes not through answers, but through faithful presence, as modeled by Job’s friends before they opened their mouths (Job 2:13).
Let us be churches that speak truth with tenderness, that weep with those who weep, and that point one another to the Savior who has overcome.
A Call to Examine Ourselves
If you find yourself angry at God over suffering—whether your own or others’—then this is a moment to examine your heart. Ask:
- Have I blamed God for the consequences of human sin?
- Have I exalted my comfort above God’s glory?
- Have I demanded answers when I should have submitted in trust?
- Have I treated suffering as proof of God’s absence rather than an invitation to know Him more deeply?
The person who questions God’s holiness in the face of suffering must ask: “Do I truly understand sin? Do I see myself as a sinner in need of grace, or as a victim who deserves ease?” In the end, all theology of suffering begins with a right view of God’s holiness and man’s sinfulness. When those are clear, everything else falls into place.
Conclusion: From Groaning to Glory
We live in a groaning world. Creation groans. The church groans. We ourselves groan. But the Christian groans in hope.
Romans 8:18–23 is a fitting conclusion:
“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us… For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now… but we ourselves… groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”
Suffering is real. But it is not ultimate. God has ordained it for His glory and our good. It sanctifies the believer into the image of Christ. It magnifies the holiness of God in judgment against sin. It exposes man’s rebellion and reminds us that the world is not as it should be.
But the story does not end there.
In Christ, we await a world where He will wipe away every tear, where pain will be no more, and where the glory that now seems hidden will shine forever.
Until then, let us walk in faith, suffer with hope, and worship with joy.
S.D.G.,
Robert Sparkman
MMXXV
christiannewsjunkie@gmail.com
RELATED CONTENT
Concerning the Related Content section, I encourage everyone to evaluate the content carefully.
If I have listed the content, I think it is worthwhile viewing to educate yourself on the topic, but it may contain coarse language or some opinions I don’t agree with.
Realize that I sometimes use phrases like “trans man”, “trans woman”, “transgender” , “transition” or similar language for ease of communication. Obviously, as a conservative Christian, I don’t believe anyone has ever become the opposite sex. Unfortunately, we are forced to adopt the language of the left to discuss some topics without engaging in lengthy qualifying statements that make conversations awkward.
Feel free to offer your comments below. Respectful comments without expletives and personal attacks will be posted and I will respond to them.
Comments are closed after sixty days due to spamming issues from internet bots. You can always send me an email at christiannewsjunkie@gmail.com if you want to comment on something afterwards, though.
I will continue to add videos and other items to the Related Content section as opportunities present themselves.