“… Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?…” Job 2:10

 Another response to the questions of Why is there suffering? And, if there is a God who is supposed to be loving and all-powerful, then why does He allow suffering? comes from the book entitled, “Faith Questions,” from the chapter ‘Is God involved? God and Suffering.’

 Misery and suffering are realities in our world. They affect rich and poor, black and white… a basic point has to be established. The fact that suffering is universal does not present an impossible problem for the atheist. He can explain easily enough why people suffer. Suffering is a problem for the Christian because he claims to serve a God who is the Creator and who is loving, good and caring. How can a God like that allow suffering, especially where the innocent are involved?…there is no complete, water-tight Christian answer to this problem. All that we have is the outline of a possible answer.

 The article summarises:

• There are two types of evil, moral evil (found in wrong relations with God and with what God has made, especially people…Most human suffering comes from what is often called ‘man’s inhumanity to man’) and natural evil (found in the effects on people and animals of distortion in the natural environment – disease, earthquakes, tornadoes, flooding, drought and so on).
• God is wholly good and loving, God is all powerful, and evil really exists in the world and causes great suffering. If anyone of these three claims is not true, then the ‘problem’ disappears.
• The traditional Christian answer is called the ‘free will defence,’ and it is the only one that holds up.  It argues that the almighty Creator made human beings in such a way that they are free to choose good or evil.
• ‘Why does God not intervene directly to stop the deeds of evil men?’ Part of it is that being human and remaining human involves the possibility of choice – choosing good or evil…to remove it is to reduce humans to creatures living by instinct and not by choice.
• ‘Why did God create people with the freedom to follow evil inclinations? God made people, not automatons.
• Disease is not part of the creation God made and intended and it came into the world as a result of moral evil. In the story of humanity’s fall in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Even were told that their deliberate choice to disobey God would spoil much more than their own individual lives – the whole natural world would be affected. Fertility would be impaired, pain and death would take their toll….The choice to be independent of God resulted in death – separation from God. It upset the harmony of all creation..
• Both good and people suffer, for we are all part of the same human race living on the same earth. As the rain falls and the sun shines on both good and bad, so suffering comes upon all types of people. In the last analysis only God can answer the question why one man suffers when another does not.
• When a person is struck down with an incurable disease or injured in an accident it is not a just punishment for his or her sins. Suffering may be a result of the presence of sin and evil in the world. It is not a result of a person’s own sin.
• Evil and suffering pose a problem for Christians who believe in a good God who is active in creation and in the lives of his people. God himself did not remain aloof from suffering, but in the person of Jesus of Nazareth entered the world and endured pain of mind and body on our behalf. Even though the world has gone wrong God has taken responsibility for it. Jesus died for that very sin and evil which has caused the pain and distortion of creation. He died the death due to us, and when we suffer he enters into close identity with us, as someone who has gone through it all himself.

  See also Answering the problem of suffering and Christians respond to suffering #1  and Christians respond to suffering #2, Christians respond to suffering #3, and Christians respond to suffering #4