People come here because of something specific. A convert asked on Reddit's r/CatholicPhilosophy, “I'm having difficulty wrapping my head around how things outside of our control (like SIDS, cancer in children, dementia, birth deformities) are "justifiable" -if I can even use that word- in God's plan for creation and our sanctification?” Someone on Reddit's r/AskAChristian wrote “why does God allow innocent children and people suffering from illnesses to suffer?” and a post on Reddit's r/Christianity asked “If God is real then why does he let animals suffer?”
Below, the main answers sit side by side, each with somebody who gave it and somebody who argued back, then what the churches and Jewish sources teach, so you can hold each against what you carry. For words to pray instead, read what the Bible says about suffering.
If you only have a minute
To pray
Romans 15:13, a prayer that hope be given while the question stays open.
If harm was done to you
Abuse services and crisis lines are near the end, with their countries.
Hover or tap a row to highlight it. Sort by a column heading; a third click puts the rows back in their original order.
| Free will | Alvin Plantinga | Free creatures may go wrong | J. L. Mackie, William Rowe |
| The fall | Augustine | Evil is the absence of good | A Reddit reader |
| Soul-making | John Hick | Growth needs hardship | Marilyn McCord Adams |
| Reasons we cannot see | Stephen Wykstra | We would not expect to see them | Michael Tooley |
| A God who suffers | Jürgen Moltmann | God is in the suffering | Thomas Weinandy |
The question is old
In David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779), Philo asks: "Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?" Leibniz coined the word theodicy, an argument for God's justice in the face of evil, for his 1710 book, as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy records. Believers and unbelievers alike have asked it, and asking it puts you in long company.
A prayer while the question stays open
This site's passage for hope is Romans 15:13, with the verses around it:
10 Again he says, “Rejoice, you Gentiles, with his people.” 11 Again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles! Let all the peoples praise him.” 12 Again, Isaiah says, “There will be the root of Jesse, he who arises to rule over the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles will hope.” 13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit. 14 I myself am also persuaded about you, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish others.
Paul is closing a call to patient, welcoming community, then says how confident he is in his readers. The verse describes hope as something God can grow in a person when they cannot make it themselves. Read verse 13 once as a prayer, for yourself or for the person whose suffering brought you here, and stay with one question: where do you most need hope to be given rather than generated?
Free will
Alvin Plantinga, in God, Freedom, and Evil (1974), argued it is possible that every created person would go wrong somewhere, "transworld depravity," so God could not create free creatures who always do right. He offered it as a defense, not an account of each case. J. L. Mackie, in "Evil and Omnipotence" (1955), had asked why God could not make beings "who would act freely, but always go right," and William Rowe (1979) asks whether suffering nobody can see a reason for still counts as evidence. People press it hardest on earthquakes and disease, called natural evil.
The fall and evil as absence
Genesis 3 ends, "For you are dust, and to dust you shall return," and in the King James, Romans 8:22 says "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." Augustine, in the Enchiridion, asks "For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good?", and the Orthodox Church in America writes that evil has "no positive existence." One reader replied on Reddit's r/AskAChristian, “I am not responsible for the fall. Why then must I suffer?” Traditions differ over how much later teaching belongs in Genesis.
Soul-making
John Hick, in Evil and the God of Love (1966), wrote that "a world without danger, difficulties, hardships, and pain would be a world in which there would be no opportunities for moral growth." Marilyn McCord Adams, in Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (1999), answered that some evils can "destroy the possibility of positive meaning in a person’s life." C. S. Lewis wrote both sides. In The Problem of Pain (1940), pain is "God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world." In A Grief Observed (1961), after his wife died: "Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him." The same believer, twenty years apart: first at a desk, then in grief.
Reasons we cannot see
Stephen Wykstra (1984) argued that not seeing a reason for a particular evil shows little unless we could expect to see one. Michael Tooley, whose Stanford Encyclopedia entry on evil discusses Wykstra, replies that this weakens ordinary moral reasoning. Deuteronomy 29:29 says "The secret things belong to Yahweh our God," and Romans 11:33, "How unsearchable are his judgments." When Yahweh answers Job from the whirlwind, it is with questions about creation, and Job says, "I lay my hand on my mouth." Having asked hardest, he chooses to stop speaking, for now.
A God who suffers
Jürgen Moltmann, in The Crucified God (1972), wrote that in the cross of Christ God "becomes an event of suffering." Thomas Weinandy (Does God Suffer?) argued against it. Rabbi Harold Kushner, in When Bad Things Happen to Good People (1981), wrote: "I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it, more easily than I can worship a God who chooses to make children suffer and die." Elie Wiesel's Night (1958) records, in the camps, the question "Where is God now?" and the reply, "Where is He? Here He is, He is hanging here on this gallows."
What the traditions teach
The Catholic Catechism says "no quick answer will suffice" (309) and that God is not "in any way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil" (312). The Reformed Westminster Confession says providence reaches even to the fall and other sins, "not by a bare permission," while the sin is the creature's (5.4). The Pentecostal Assemblies of God teach humanity fell "by voluntary transgression." Jehovah's Witnesses teach that God has allowed time to settle questions Satan raised in Eden about God's right to rule. The Talmud, in Berakhot 5a, tells a sufferer to examine his conduct and, if nothing is found, calls the sufferings "afflictions of love." The Confession and the Catechism draw God's involvement differently, and Berakhot and Kushner differ from both and each other.
Job and the scene he never saw
Job opens in a heavenly court, where the accuser asks, "Does Job fear God for nothing?" Job, after his losses, says, "Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?" Matthew Henry, the Reformed commentator, reads it as a trial of Job's integrity by permission. The book lets its reader see what its sufferer never sees, and Job goes on speaking to God all the same.
A verse people send
In Genesis 50:20, Joseph tells brothers afraid of him, "you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good," and then, "I will nourish you and your little ones." John Calvin reads it as God's purpose and the brothers' guilt at once. They are Joseph's words about his own story, to the people who hurt him; Bible verses for regret reads it as a family story.
People in Scripture who asked it
Psalm 44 has a whole people saying "Wake up! Why do you sleep, Lord?" Habakkuk asks, "Yahweh, how long will I cry, and you will not hear?" Jesus turned down the explanation offered for a tower's collapse, which Bible verses after a sudden death reads.
If you are sitting with someone
Terrence Tilley, in The Evils of Theodicy (1991), warns that theodicies can "silence the victims." What to say when you do not know what to say is there for the friend at the bedside.
If someone harmed you, each answer above is an idea people argue over, and what happened to you stays yours. In the United States, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233. In the United Kingdom, Refuge's National Domestic Abuse Helpline is 0808 2000 247, and NAPAC, for adults abused as children, is 0808 801 0331. In Australia, 1800RESPECT is 1800 737 732.
When it needs more than reading
The NHS says "See a GP if you have a low mood that lasts for more than 2 weeks or is affecting your daily life"; a GP is a family doctor.
If this has turned into thoughts of ending your life, please reach a person tonight. In the United States, call or text 988. In Canada, call or text 9-8-8. In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Samaritans is on 116 123. In Australia, Lifeline is 13 11 14. Anywhere else, Find A Helpline lists services by country.
Questions people ask
Did Epicurus say it? The famous form survives only through Lactantius, who credits him.
What is a defense? Unlike a theodicy, which gives God's reasons, a defense like Plantinga's argues only that God and evil can both exist (Stanford Encyclopedia).
Do the traditions explain animal suffering? The Catechism speaks of physical evil in general; the traditions mostly apply creation and fall language to animals.
Where to go next
Read Romans 15:13 with the verses around it once as a prayer while the question stays open. Or describe what you are carrying in your own words, and Bible Nudge can suggest a single passage with its setting. Find a passage.
Words that come up here
Tap a term to see what it means.
Theodicy. An argument that God is just even though evil exists.