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

 I continue on my quest to discover how other Christians respond to the questions 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?

 Some thoughts by Revd Matt Gray (Chaplain at The Hutchins School),

This is often treated as the most curly question. The full weight of the question should be allowed to hit – so if the question is asked in soft form i.e. why does God allow sickness – I would intensify it by an example. I watched recently the 9 hour 1985 documentary SHOAH – the Holocaust survivors being interviewed. A delightful smiling man breaks down explaining that he had to bury the bodies of his wife and children on his first day in the camp. He stood in the middle of the pit where they lay and pleaded with a Nazi soldier to shoot him. I would remind the inquirer of the great depth of the question of suffering.

Then I would suggest that one could be forgiven for thinking that our scriptures were actually designed to answer that question. From the Fall, the suffering of Joseph (Genesis 50:20), Israel in Egypt, the desert wanderings, the entire book of Job, the relentless testimony of the Psalmist, the practical wisdom of the Proverbs re: avoiding strife, the lament of the Prophets, the response of God to suffering in the person of His Son in the Gospels, the repeated epistolary response such as Romans 8 and 1 Peter 1, to the last words in Revelation (the latter can be described as  a response to suffering of the early Christian Church.) Most significantly, the depths of suffering and the answer to all grief come together in the one moment at Calvary. Suffering intertwines with salvation in Christian (and Jewish) understanding.

We often take a back foot approach that suggests that suffering is a weakness for Christian apologists to explain. I think it is definitely a front foot issue. The scriptures are full of great encouragement to the suffered, – our opponents can only explain “Don’t worry, you are an insignificant parcel of atoms and there is no rhyme or reason for your suffering in this blind, haphazard universe.” Where can the sufferer look for hope?

 See also Answering the problem of suffering and Christians respond to suffering #1.