Jesus came to help us with the problem of suffering. And, in the end, to help us out of suffering forever. That doesn’t mean that suffering doesn’t hurt here and now. But it does mean there is a confidence that God can work through suffering to create something beautiful and good.

This is one of the most important questions any of us can ever ask: “Why is there suffering if God is good?” And before I begin trying to give any kind of answer to this question, I want to introduce you to three people who might ask this question, maybe you’ll see yourself clearly in one of these:

• Someone who is interested in big philosophical discussions. They really like to wrestle with the big questions of life.
• Someone who has undergone suffering, or seen a loved one suffering—and it has left them with questions about the character of God, or even the existence of God
• Someone who wants an excuse to not take seriously the claims of Jesus, and so chucks out a question they’re pretty sure nobody can answer adequately

I hope what I have to say will be helpful to you whichever of those categories you fall into. But the person I want to focus on in particular is the second: Someone who is questioning whether God exists, or can truly be good, because of suffering you have experienced or seen. Maybe you haven’t fully made your mind up about God. But there’s been something really hard happen in life—to you, or a loved one—and it has caused you to wonder whether God really is there, or really in control, or really loving. I’m a Christian, so I imagine it won’t surprise you that I a want to commend to you that God not only exists, but that God is utterly good and loving, as well as all-powerful. And perhaps if you know a little more about Christianity, you might realise the Bible’s claim that we see God’s love and compassion most clearly of all in the Lord Jesus.

But while we do live in a world full of beauty and joy. Of course, we live in a world full of sadness and suffering as well. There aren’t only dolphins and sunsets and friendship. There is also cancer, and earthquakes, and war. And it’s right that any religion, or any worldview, recognises that issue. And thinks about how the reality of suffering fits together with the claims it makes.

So I want to give you three reasons why—yes, suffering is a reality. Unlike some ways of looking at the world, Christianity doesn’t deny the reality of suffering. Doesn’t claim that pain is an illusion. Though there are ways of thinking about the world that do that (both religious and nonreligious), they just don’t do justice to reality.

But here are three things I want to say that might begin to help us see how pain and suffering might not destroy the idea that God is good:

First of all, Don’t trust anyone who claims to have all the answers to this big, important question. I wonder if you’ve heard of the Book of Job. It’s a piece of ancient semitic literature, which is likely more than three thousand years old. The book tells about a righteous man—named Job—who has gone through terrible tragedies. One after another, he loses all of his possessions, then his children, and then his health as well. It’s awful tragedy stacked on awful tragedy. After all these losses, a number of friends come, and they have a back-and-forth debate with Job about why he’s going through suffering. Their language is very impressive sounding. They seem very philosophically rigorous.

But as we go on through the book, we recognise more and more how hollow all their answers are. Though they claimed to have all the answers, they really couldn’t be trusted. They were speaking way above their pay grade.

About eleven years ago, my dad died very unexpectedly. I was a Christian. I believed God was all-powerful, and perfectly good. And to some extent I was able to rest in that. But often when people opened their mouths, their lack of ability to explain this sad thing that had happened became clearer and clearer the more they spoke. If you have been through suffering, you’ll probably realise that. Sometimes, in the face of something awful, the more words people speak, the less helpful their words are. Even when we’re longing for an answer, those answers that are given prove to be pretty hollow.

Don’t trust anyone who claims to have all the answers—I realise the irony that it’s the guy standing up the front with the microphone saying that. But I recognise the pointers I give are like very small slices of a massive pizza. Imagine this question of God and suffering as a huge pizza. In the Q&A after the talk, maybe you’ll be able to chat with Christian friends and see a couple more slices. Maybe you could chat on your table about whether you think suffering could have a purpose, or whether it’s simply meaningless. But still, whatever I say, and whatever anyone says, it’s a tiny proportion of the whole. It’s just a few miniscule slices of that massive pizza.

Actually, in the book of Job we, the reader, get a backstage look at what caused Job’s sufferings. You can ask more if you like about what it was that caused them. But in fact the book of Job ends with the main character, Job himself, still not really knowing why he’s gone through all the suffering he has. But being newly aware that the God he worships is absolutely good and totally in charge. If you came in here hoping for a totally comprehensive answer to the question, ‘why is there suffering if God is good?’, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. But I want to warn you; anyone offering that kind of comprehensive answer, whether they claim to be representing Christianity, another religion, or a non-religious worldview—what they say really can’t be trusted. There’s too much going on that’s beyond our understanding.

Second, Recognise that taking God out of the equation does little to relieve the tension. When it comes to this question of suffering, it might seem like quite a helpful thing to do, to remove God from the picture. To say, well if God is truly powerful, he could stop all suffering. But there is suffering. And if God is truly good, he would want to ensure there was no suffering. But there is suffering. And so, it must be that God doesn’t exist. Or, at the very least, God is not as the Bible describes him, as perfectly good and with absolute power.

Now, I’m not at all convinced that the existence of suffering takes away either God’s goodness, or his power. But right now, I want to show that taking God out of the picture does very little to solve this problem. That suffering remains a problem, or perhaps becomes an even greater problem, when we remove God.

Fitting together the claims that God is good…that God has all power…,and that suffering exists. This can sometimes seem like trying to jam together pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that don’t really fit. But—as controversial as this might sound, I’d suggest that removing God from the picture still leaves us with a puzzle to try to solve, but without any of the puzzle pieces.

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