Why Do Good People Suffer?
Why do good people, and even Christians, so often suffer? Much suffering is due to sin. Other kinds of difficulties, which can even afflict the redeemed, arise from four factors:
(1) The Operation of Natural Law.
Step on a banana peel and you may slip. Slide off the roof of a house and gravity will pull you to the ground, possibly breaking your leg. Auto tires skid on wet pavement, perhaps causing deadly accidents. Diseased germs invade human cells, causing sickness.
(2) Progressive Learning.
We crawl before we walk. As we learn to walk, we sometimes fall and bump our heads. Throughout life, we learn to avoid some dangers even as we face new ones.
(3) Freedom of Choice.
Choose to eat bad apples and you get a stomachache. Decide to smoke and you may get lung cancer. Drive on a flooded roadway and you might get stranded or even drown. Wrong choices bring bad results.
(4) Personal Relationships.
We hurt when those we love are in pain, and the closer they are to us, the more intensely we ache.
Most suffering is attributable to those four aspects of the created order. However, is this the best possible world? Could God have made a world in which affliction would be impossible?
Wouldn't it be a world where:
- Natural law is not dependable—sometimes you can float down from the roof, and sometimes you tumble disastrously.
- We know everything from the moment of birth (How boring life would be without discovery!)
- We are like puppets with no freedom to make choices.
- No love exists, and therefore we experience no pain.
Would we want to live in that kind of world? I don't think so. Perhaps, as philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz concluded, this really is the best of all possible worlds. In the Old Testament, Job wrestled with the question of pain. His three friends had figured it all out, they claimed. Job could not find solace in their explanations.
Finally in worship, he had a vision of God: "My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you" (Job 42:5). Job never discovered a satisfactory answer to his questions on why people suffer. But in one of the most beautiful passages in literature, God told Job's friends: "You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has" (Job 42:7). They had answers. Job had only questions. But God praised Job and chided those with the so-called answers.
When we are distressed, we find no help in asking why. The real question is not "Where does suffering come from?" but "What shall I do with suffering?"
I can let troubles make me bitter and angry. Or I can let the pain make me more sympathetic to others. In that way, my pain can be redeemed.
Rob L. Staples is professor of theology emeritus at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City.
Holiness Today
Please note: All facts, figures, and titles were accurate to the best of our knowledge at the time of original publication but may have since changed.
