This is a question that people have been asking for centuries. And it’s a question that gets to the root of Christian understanding about the goodness of God, the love of God, and the power of God. I know that I have asked this question at multiple points in my own faith journey – I think it’s a question that can be helpful (even as it hurts – a lot – to ask it) over and over again.

Here’s where I have landed on this one: The good God of Christianity loves people so much that He will not compel them to love Him back. Because God is omnipotent – all powerful – God could eliminate suffering by simply (1) eliminating people’s ability to make independent choices, and (2)  forcing people to be good.

Relationship and Free Will

But God desires a true love relationship with people. True love requires freedom – freedom to embrace, and freedom to reject. And when people do not love God / do not obey God’s laws / do not love their neighbors as God commands, people inevitably perpetuate the cycle of suffering that must occur in separation from the goodness of God.

I’ll expand on that a bit: Christians claim that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and eternal – God knows everything, God can do anything, and God lives forever. But God’s goodness and love prompt God to self-limit God’s power. Freedom of choice – “free will” is the doctrinal name for it – characterizes God’s relationship with humanity from the very beginning.

God creates, God provides everything necessary for life, God woos – but God does not coerce. God will not coerce.

Sin and Suffering

And because God’s goodness and love restrains God’s ability to control us, our own mistakes and intentional wickedness have a dramatic effect on the world. A God who allows for sin, also allows for suffering.

Indeed, the story of Adam and Eve suggests that every part of the world God made has become infected with the “sin sickness” that our free will engenders. Thus, suffering will persist until Jesus returns.

But one of the unique aspects of Christianity is that Jesus, God in human flesh, has suffered as we do… so God has tremendous empathy for our hurts.

God with Us

Another unique aspect is that Jesus is “Immanuel” – God with us – literally and physically present to believers in the form of the Holy Spirit. So Christians, even while they suffer alongside everyone on the planet, have a unique source of strength, comfort, and hope.

I am in no way arguing that pain is good, or even that pain is God’s idea. I am suggesting that pain is inevitable because God is good and we are not good – and because this world is not heaven.

I am further suggesting that pain can be redeemed by God, in His goodness and love. Our suffering is never without meaning because our suffering is never endured without the goodness and love of God being present to us in the midst of it. That doesn’t take our pain away, but it does make our pain bearable and give us certainty that pain will end – completely – when we are finally reunited with Jesus forever, in Heaven.

Follow on question:  If God will not coerce and let’s humanity experience free will and its consequences, then is God even involved in human activity?  Does God’s self-limiting mean that God stays removed from human suffering?

If God will not coerce, then does God stay removed from human suffering? Does God not intervene as God is described doing in the Old Testament – destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, bringing plagues to Egypt, devouring Elijah’s drenched offering with fire from heaven? Such questions are very logical.

Scripture provides our best answer: God is “the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” (Hebrews 13:8) If God is ever the same, then God is still a passionate, miracle-working, responsive Good Father! Further, if God was engaged and involved with God’s beloved people in ancient times, then God is still involved and will ever be involved.

What prompts God’s involvement, if God won’t abridge our freedom of choice? Our invitation. “The prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective,” (James 5:16) and God hears and answers our prayers. Miracles are never guaranteed; but God’s capacity to work them IS.

Jesus tells us that “in this world (we) will face trouble” but Jesus encourages us that he himself has “overcome the world.” (John 16:33) Troubles cannot triumph over the promises and presence of Christ.