The Mental Challenge of Suffering

When we try to understand our lot as humans on this planet, it truly is baffling. How can we reconcile human suffering with the belief in an all-powerful God? According to Kreeft and Tacelli's (1994) Handbook of Christian Apologetics, the problem can be summed up by the apparent contradiction between the following four propositions:

1) God exists
2) God is all good
3) God is all powerful
4) Evil exists (p. 129)

If we affirm any three of these propositions, it seems we must reject the fourth. For example, if we accept that God exists, is all good and that evil exists, we must reject the idea that God is all powerful, otherwise He would put a stop to evil. Or, if God exists and is all powerful and yet evil also exists, then God must not be all good, because He wills or allows evil to exist.

The decay and destruction which evil causes is apparent all around us. We live in a fallen world where even the natural order of things is damaged and sometimes dangerous to us. At some point we need to come to grips with the reality that we have little control over life. There is a mystery to our existence wrapped up in God’s perfect plan of redemption. How can this all be true? I don’t know. I guess that’s where faith begins.