Possible points of criticism or objections that I have formulated myself regarding my answer to question 1 on my website “Frequently Asked Questions”; 'If God is almighty and good, why is there so much evil and suffering in the world?'.
I also formulate objections to the answers given here. I do this in order to address as fully as possible any thoughts or objections that someone might have while reading the responses. This also reflects my own way of thinking, so no one should feel in any way hesitant or uncomfortable about raising such questions.
A. What bothers me about the answer to this question (please read that first) is that it first says this is one of the most frequently asked questions, and then it gives a rather brief and short answer. Emotionally, that does not do justice to the seriousness, urgency, and omnipresence of the question.
You are absolutely right to say that this question touches perhaps more deeply than any other. It is not merely a philosophical problem to be solved, but above all an existential struggle that presses itself upon every human being at some point. When a child dies, when war breaks out, or when disease strikes without warning, the question forces itself upon us with painful urgency: if there is a God who is almighty and good, why does He allow this?
Because the question is so personal and so deeply bound up with suffering, no answer—however carefully reasoned—can ever fully satisfy. Scripture itself does not pretend otherwise. The Bible does not offer a neat explanation that dissolves the pain, but it does give us lines along which we may begin to understand this mystery, without denying its weight or trivializing the anguish that gives rise to the question.
The Bible itself takes the question extremely seriously. Think of Job, who loses all his possessions, health, and family. Think of the psalms crying out, “How long, LORD?” (Psalm 13). And think of Jesus Himself, who cries out on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46). Scripture does not blur or minimize the pain but acknowledges that suffering is shocking, puzzling, and sometimes unbearable.
Scripture begins with the confession that God created the world good. Everything was in harmony: no death, no disease, no hatred. But at the same time, God gave human beings free will, because love and obedience without freedom would be meaningless. That freedom carries the risk that the human being could turn away from God. And that is precisely what happened in the beginning: humanity chose against its Creator, and a rupture entered creation. Since that fall, evil in all its forms has entered the world: moral evil through human choices such as war, oppression, and crime; but also natural evil such as disease, disaster, and death. Creation itself, as Paul says, has been subjected to decay and has been groaning ever since as in childbirth.
That God allows evil does not mean He is powerless or indifferent. Here we encounter a mystery that exceeds our understanding. If God can do everything, why does He not intervene immediately? The answer Scripture gives is not that God keeps His distance, but that in His patience He gives space. If He were to remove all evil today, that would also mean He would have to judge all people who do evil immediately. Why? Because in Scripture evil is inseparable from moral responsibility. Evil is not an abstract substance that can simply be removed; it exists because people commit it. To eliminate all evil at once would therefore require immediate and impartial judgment on all who do evil—which, according to the Bible, includes every human being. That judgment will come. Scripture consistently identifies it as the final judgment, when evil is ended once and for all. God withholds that judgment for now, the apostle Peter writes, because He is patient, “not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). That does not explain every instance of suffering, but it places it within the perspective of God’s patience and longsuffering.
The uniqueness of the Christian faith is that God does not merely look on, but enters into suffering Himself. In Jesus Christ, He became human and shared every dimension of our existence. Jesus knew hunger, thirst, sorrow, and betrayal. Isaiah calls Him the Man of Sorrows, someone intimately familiar with pain. On the cross, He bore not only physical suffering but also the abandonment by God Himself, precisely to break the power of sin and death. In doing so, God shows that He does not stand at a distance from our suffering, but has undergone the deepest possible suffering Himself in order to overcome it.
The resurrection of Christ is the turning point. The cross shows God’s solidarity with our pain, but Easter shows His power over death and evil. This does not mean that we are now freed from all suffering in this life, but it does mean that suffering and death do not have the final word. There is a promised future in which God will wipe away every tear, and there will be no more death, mourning, or pain. That hope does not remove the rawness of suffering now, but it does give the perspective that there is more than what we currently see and experience.
The Christian answer to the question of evil is therefore not primarily a philosophical theory. It is a person. God does not give us a schematic explanation of all suffering, but He gives us Christ, who weeps with those who weep, who has taken evil into Himself, and who through His resurrection has given the promise of redemption and restoration. That does not mean the pain disappears, but it does mean it is not in vain, because it can be taken up into God’s larger purpose. Evil and suffering remain a cry and a mystery, but at the center of that mystery stands the cross of Jesus as God’s ultimate answer: I am with you, and I will speak the final word.
B. I find this still a somewhat simplistic sounding answer, because… if God is almighty, then He could also have created a human being with a fully free will who nevertheless cannot turn away from God, just as a good and loving God cannot do evil. Moreover, once everything will be perfect—no sin, no mourning, no death, no disease— if that will eventually be possible, then why not from the very beginning?
The question you now raise goes actually one layer deeper than the classic “why is there evil?” You rightly say: if God is truly almighty, then He need not have allowed evil at all. He could have created humans in such a way that they were fully free and yet would never fall away from Him, just as God Himself is fully free and yet cannot do evil. And furthermore: if the Bible teaches that there will one day be a new heaven and a new earth where there is no evil, no death, no suffering anymore, then it evidently is possible to have a reality in which freedom exists and yet evil is excluded. Why not immediately create that?
There are different schools of thought within theology and philosophy that attempt to address this. Some argue that true freedom necessarily includes the possibility of turning away from God. If God had created humanity in such a way that turning away was impossible from the start, then humans would, in fact, not have had real freedom. Yet that argument has tension, as you rightly point out, because we believe there will one day be an eternity in which humans are free and yet will never sin. Apparently, there exists a form of freedom that does not continually include the possibility of falling away.
Some theologians explain this by pointing to a distinction between the current creation and the future consummation. Right now we live in a world characterized by growth, development, and testing. Our freedom is still “vulnerable,” because it exists in a context of conflict. In the new creation, however, our freedom will be “completed.” We will know and love God so fully that the possibility of turning away from Him simply no longer exists—not because God forces us, but because we will see Him so completely that we will not want anything else. That is not a limitation of freedom but a fulfillment of it. Freedom is no longer the ability to choose between good and evil, but the full capacity to want only the good. This aligns with how Scripture describes heaven: no tears, no death, no sin.
Yet the question remains: why did the entire history of sin, suffering, and death have to occur first? Why not immediately the completed freedom and the perfected creation? Here we reach a mystery that ultimately surpasses our understanding. Some thinkers say that there is something in this process of fall and redemption that brings about a depth that otherwise never would have existed. Without the fall, we may have known God as Creator, but never as Redeemer. Without suffering, we would never know what comfort truly means. Without death, we would never understand what resurrection is.
The new creation is not simply a return to paradise, but a richer and deeper existence in which the redemption and victorious love of God resonate eternally.
You may compare it to a story: an author could let his characters live in a perfect state from the very beginning, but then there is no development, no conflict, no depth. The story God writes is one in which struggle and brokenness are woven in, precisely so the final redemption will be all the richer. That does not make suffering less painful, and it does not fully remove the question, but it does outline a line Scripture consistently draws: through suffering to glory, through the cross to the resurrection.
Still, it remains true that no answer fully solves the mystery. Ultimately, we stand before something that surpasses human understanding. What we can see is that God does not look at this mystery from the outside, but enters it Himself. He not only allowed the possibility of evil, but also bore the weight of it, in order to make the perfect future possible. Perhaps that is the deepest reason why He did not immediately create the perfect world: because there had to be a path of love and redemption that does not merely create goodness, but redeemed goodness, sanctified goodness, reconciled goodness.
C. But, some may say: then God is a sadist, or at best an egotist…
Yes, exactly—and that is perhaps the harshest accusation one can make against God. If He is almighty and yet allows a history of suffering and evil, then at the very least it appears cruel or indifferent. And you are right: many people stumble here. It is the very reason some thinkers, from ancient times to today, have concluded that God is either not almighty or not truly good. Scripture itself does not avoid this accusation. Job describes God as incomprehensible and sometimes even cruel in His dealings. The psalms nearly accuse God of absence and neglect. And Jesus Himself cries on the cross, “My God, why have You forsaken Me?”—words that sound as if He is fully experiencing the pain of a God-forsaken world.
Yet there is a deep difference between the idea that God is a sadist and the way Scripture depicts reality. A sadist enjoys the suffering of others. But the God of the Bible is not a spectator who delights in pain. On the contrary: He chooses to bear the heaviest suffering Himself. In Jesus Christ, He stands in the middle of the brokenness—not as someone who controls events from above, but as someone who steps into the flesh of the suffering human being. That complicates the accusation: if God really were a sadist, then why would He let the nails be driven through His own hands? Why would He endure mockery, thirst, and abandonment? No sadist shares the fate of His victims in such a radical way.
Then there remains the question whether God is an egotist, as if He devised this entire story of evil and redemption in order ultimately to glorify Himself. That idea is indeed sometimes heard, and to be honest: the Bible does not deny that God’s glory is a purpose in creation and redemption. But what we often forget is that God’s glory and our salvation are never separated in Scripture. God’s glory is revealed in His love, in His faithfulness, in His willingness to give Himself. If He is glorified, it is not because He exalts Himself at our expense, but because He lifts us up into His glory. Creation is not set up as a stage on which God admires Himself, but as a history in which He draws people into His life and love.
This does not eliminate the dark side. It is true that the entire history of suffering and evil may make God seem harsh or distant to us. Scripture gives no cheap answer to that. What it does show is that God does not stand above our suffering, smiling, but descends into it, bears it, endures it, and ultimately transforms it. If God truly were a sadist or an egotist, there would be no cross and no resurrection—only distance. But what we see is the opposite: nearness in the deepest pain.
Therefore, for the believer, there will always remain a tension: on the one hand the raw experience that suffering can feel unbearable and that God seems absent; on the other hand the promise that He is precisely there most deeply present, and that all of this does not end in meaninglessness but in redemption. That tension cannot be resolved simplistically. It compels us to trust God amid mystery and accusation—not because we have all the answers, but because we see that He did not spare Himself.
It is honest to acknowledge that no answer will ever remove all pain or all cynicism. Some people suffer so deeply, or are so disappointed in God, that any attempt at explanation sounds like rationalization or even insult. But if you do not address the question fully, you leave an emptiness—and that only makes things worse. So let me try to formulate an answer that includes as many layers as possible: the philosophical issue, the biblical storyline, the accusation that God might be sadistic or egotistical, the hopeful expectation, and the pastoral dimension for those who are in the midst of suffering.
When people ask why there is so much evil and suffering in the world, it is rarely a purely theoretical issue. Often it is a cry that rises from pain: why this injustice, why my illness, why that war? It is therefore important that an answer does not begin with reason alone but with recognition of the seriousness. Scripture does the same. Job cries out his despair, the psalms accuse God, and Jesus Himself feels abandoned on the cross. That means there is room to call God to account; that is not a lack of faith but a biblical way of wrestling.
The classical Christian explanation begins with creation. God made the world good, without death or suffering. He gave humanity freedom, and within that freedom, humans chose against Him. That brought a rupture that not only produced moral evil (hatred, oppression, war), but also affected nature, so that disease, disaster, and death became part of our existence. Paul says all creation groans as in labor pains. That means evil is not a created substance but a distortion of something good.
Yet that is not enough. For why did God create a world in which such a rupture was even possible? Why give a freedom that could be misused? Could He not have created humans immediately in such a way that they were fully free and yet could never choose against God, just as God Himself is fully free and yet does not do evil? And furthermore: Scripture promises that one day there will be a new creation in which evil will no longer be possible. So freedom and the absence of evil can coexist. Why not from the start?
Here we reach a deep mystery. Theologians have given various answers. Augustine viewed evil as a privation, a lack of good, possible only because there is freedom. Plantinga, a modern philosopher, argued that a world containing real love and real goodness necessarily includes the possibility of rejection. But even that does not convince everyone, because it remains true that God can ultimately create a world in which there is freedom without evil—the new creation.
Some therefore argue: the entire process of sin, suffering, and redemption adds something that otherwise never would have existed. Without the fall, we might have known God as Creator, but never as Redeemer. Without suffering, we would never know real comfort. Without death, we would never understand resurrection. The new creation is not a simple return to paradise, but a richer existence in which redemption, reconciliation, and the victorious love of God echo eternally. Then our freedom is no longer vulnerable, but fulfilled: we will know and love God so completely that falling away simply no longer exists—not because we are chained, but because our will is fully aligned with God.
But even that does not answer the raw accusation that God is thereby simply a sadist or at least an egotist who structures everything for His own glory at the cost of countless human lives. We must be honest: that accusation is real and is voiced in Scripture itself. Job accuses God of harshness. The psalmists ask whether God has forgotten them. The Christian faith does not make this accusation impossible but takes it seriously. Yet we must also say: a sadist watches from the outside and delights in suffering. The God of Scripture does the opposite: He takes the suffering of the world upon Himself. In Christ, He becomes human—the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief. He bears betrayal, loneliness, torture, and death, and cries out abandonment. This is not a God who elevates Himself above pain, but a God who stands in the middle of it.
And regarding the accusation of egoism: yes, Scripture says that creation is ultimately meant for God’s glory. But that glory is not self-exaltation at our expense; it is the manifestation of His love, His faithfulness, His mercy. God’s glory and our salvation are not two competing goals. He glorifies Himself precisely by redeeming us and bringing us into His glory. If God were focused only on Himself, He would never have involved us, and certainly would never have chosen to share our suffering.
Thus, a tension remains. Philosophically, you can draw lines; theologically, you can establish connections; but in the end, the experience of suffering often feels like a wall. Faith does not claim to solve this mystery. What it does claim is that God does not stand outside this mystery but descends into it. He does not give us a complete theory but a person: Jesus Christ. In Him we see both God’s solidarity with our suffering and His victory over death. The cross and the resurrection are God’s ultimate answer—not in words but in deeds.
That also means suffering is never only a puzzle but also a call to action. We are called to oppose evil, bind wounds, and seek justice. The existence of evil raises not only questions toward God but also responsibilities for ourselves. If we claim to believe in God but turn away from the pain of others, we have understood nothing of Him.
Still, it remains true: there will always be people for whom none of this is enough— people whose pain is so great, whose disappointment in God is so deep, that any explanation sounds like rationalization or even insult. And perhaps this should be acknowledged: that evil is greater than what our words can handle. But right there, where words fail, faith points to a hope deeper than reasoning: the hope that death and evil do not have the final word, because Christ rose. It is not a cheap answer. It is a promise only faith can hold onto—and one that still leaves room to weep, to lament, and to cry out: “How long, Lord?”
D. In itself, it is interesting to know what philosophers and theologians have thought about this, but most of them have long since abandoned the authority of the Bible, so we should not place too much weight on their opinions (assuming that the Bible is God’s Word to us). Therefore, the main issue is how the Bible itself speaks about this and what we can derive from it. That must be the standard. What does Scripture itself say?
The Bible begins with the testimony that God created the world good. Everything was in harmony: no death, no disease, no suffering. “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Evil and suffering, therefore, are not acts of creation by God but disruptions of His good work.
Scripture shows that this disruption does not originate with humanity alone. Before man falls, a personal adversary already appears: the serpent, later explicitly identified as Satan, “the ancient serpent, who is called the devil” (Revelation 12:9). Jesus describes him as “a murderer from the beginning” and “the father of lies” (John 8:44), indicating that rebellion and deception precede human sin. Scripture speaks of a fall among the angels, in which Satan and others did not keep their original position but rebelled against God (Isaiah 14:12–15; Ezekiel 28:12–17; Jude 1:6; 2 Peter 2:4). Cast down, Satan becomes the deceiver of the whole world (Revelation 12:9), the tempter of humanity (Genesis 3:1–5; Matthew 4:1–11), and the one whom the New Testament calls “the ruler of this world” and “the god of this age” (John 12:31; 2 Corinthians 4:4). Evil thus enters history through an angelic rebellion that actively draws humanity into disobedience. Human sin is real and fully responsible, but it is not the original source of rebellion; it unfolds under the influence of a prior, personal adversary who opposes God and seeks the ruin of His creation.
In Genesis 3 these lines converge. Humanity turns away from God and chooses autonomy, listening to the voice of the deceiver rather than the Creator. God had given humans real freedom, and that freedom was misused. From that moment on, a curse runs through creation: the earth brings forth thorns and thistles; pain, struggle, and ultimately death appear. Paul summarizes this in Romans 5:12: “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, so also death spread to all men, because all sinned.” Here moral evil (human actions), spiritual evil (satanic deception), and natural evil (disease, death, disaster) are shown to be inseparably connected.
But Scripture also shows that God is not absent or reactive. Immediately after the fall comes a promise: the seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15). Evil is real and powerful, but from the very beginning it is marked for defeat. Satan is not God’s equal, nor an independent force of darkness, but a created being whose time is limited and whose judgment is certain.
Scripture fully acknowledges that suffering and evil remain, for now, a profound mystery. Job receives no explanation for his suffering, but he does receive an encounter with the greatness of God. The psalms frankly express that it sometimes feels as if God is far away or ignores injustice. And in the New Testament we read that “the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22). Evil is not minimized but described as something that deeply permeates creation.
This raises the question: why does God not intervene immediately? Scripture gives several answers. First: God is patient. He withholds judgment because He does not want anyone to perish but wants all to come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). If God were to remove all evil definitively now, He would have to execute final judgment on all who do evil, and Scripture testifies that this includes every human being. History continues because mercy precedes judgment. Second: Scripture shows that God, without ever calling evil good, is sovereign even over it. What others intend for evil, God can use to accomplish His purposes (Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28).
The central point of Scripture, however, is that God does not look from a distance but enters into suffering Himself. Isaiah calls the Messiah the “Man of Sorrows, acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). In Christ, God Himself enters a fallen world, confronts Satan, bears sin and curse, and submits to death. On the cross the deepest lament is heard: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Psalm 22, fulfilled in Matthew 27:46). God does not merely allow suffering; He takes it upon Himself.
The resurrection is the decisive turning point: Jesus conquers death and breaks the power of the evil one. Paul calls death “the last enemy” to be destroyed (1 Corinthians 15:26). Evil will end. Revelation promises that God will wipe away every tear; there will be no more death or mourning (Revelation 21:4). The beginning and the end of the Bible form an arc: a good creation, a fallen world, and finally a new creation where evil is forever gone.
This raises another sharp question: why not immediately create that perfect new creation, without the entire history of suffering and death? Scripture does not give a fully rational explanation. What it does show is that the path to redemption necessarily goes through the cross. It is not enough for humanity merely to be created; it must also be redeemed and renewed. The new creation is more than a restoration of paradise; it is a world that has passed through suffering and redemption, where God’s grace and justice are eternally visible.
Thus, Scripture is not simplistic. It acknowledges the depth of evil, names both satanic deception and human sin, promises redemption, and shows that God Himself enters suffering and conquers it. It does not give us a complete intellectual explanation for every question, but it points us again and again to Christ: He is the proof that God is not a sadist, not an egotist who glorifies Himself at the expense of others, but a God who gives Himself for the world.
E. It seems that God’s plan was to arrive at a higher goal…
E. It seems that God’s plan was to arrive at a higher goal of perfection and understanding; the question then is… was that not possible from the start? Apparently not… but if that is the case, cynics will say, then God is not almighty.
This is indeed exactly the point where many people either drop off or become cynical: if God is truly omnipotent, why couldn’t He have made everything right in one single act? Why did there have to be a whole history of suffering, sin, and death before reaching that final perfection? It then seems as if God is either not all-powerful or deliberately chooses a cruel detour.
What Scripture shows, however, is that God’s omnipotence can never be separated from His wisdom and His love. Omnipotence in the Bible is not the same as arbitrary power to do absolutely anything at any moment, no matter how contradictory. God cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18), He cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13), and He cannot sin. His omnipotence is always the power of faithfulness and goodness. This means that He can do everything that is in harmony with His own being and His own plan. It is not that there is a limit to God’s power, as if He were incapable, but there is a unity between His power and His nature: He does only what is good, wise, and loving.
If we take that into account, we see that Scripture portrays the history of sin and redemption as more than a mistake or an emergency solution. Paul says in Romans 11:32, “God has consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy on all.” This means that the path through the Fall and redemption is not evidence of God’s inability but of His plan to reveal mercy and grace. Ephesians 1 states that God’s purpose from the beginning was “to bring all things together under one head, in Christ.” In other words, redemption in Christ is not Plan B but woven into God’s design for creation from the very start.
But then why not go straight to the consummation, without the history of evil? Here we must admit that Scripture does not give us a fully rational explanation. What it does show is that the final glory is richer and deeper than the original state. In Genesis 1 we see a good creation; in Revelation 21 we see a new creation in which there is not only goodness, but conquered evil, reconciliation, grace, and a people who know God not only as Creator but also as Redeemer. The end result is therefore not simply a return to Eden, but something greater: a renewed creation in which the fullness of God’s love and justice is revealed forever.
To the cynic you can therefore say: the issue is not that God is not omnipotent, but that we cannot grasp the depth and scope of His plan. Omnipotence does not mean that God acts according to what we would expect to be the fastest or easiest route, but that He perfectly accomplishes His purpose in the way determined by His wisdom and love. To us it seems like an unnecessary detour, but Scripture teaches that it is necessary in order to reveal the fullness of God’s love and grace.
And that is exactly what the cross displays. If God were omnipotent only in the sense of brute force, He could have wiped out evil with a single command. But by conquering evil through self-giving love—through death itself—He reveals a power that is far deeper and richer. God’s omnipotence is not the power of a despot who forces everything into submission, but the power of a Redeemer who gives Himself. That is not a limitation of omnipotence, but the highest revelation of it.
F. But — surviving Jews will certainly ask — “Does that higher purpose justify the death of six million of His people? His own people? Does that truly weigh against it? If He is omnipotent and just and loving, why did He not intervene? Why did He look on while many prayed to Him as they ‘went into the showers,’ only to be gassed en masse instead…?”
This is one of the most chilling and radical questions that exist, and rightly so. No explanation about “a higher purpose” can make the reality of Auschwitz or Sobibor bearable. Here theodicy reaches its ultimate limit. Anyone who answers too easily makes himself guilty of cheap words about something too horrific to reduce to abstractions.
Scripture itself does not avoid such questions. Think of the psalms in which the people of Israel cry out, “Why do You hide Your face, why do You forget our affliction and oppression?” (Psalm 44:24–25). Think of Habakkuk’s complaint: “Why do You make me see iniquity, and why do You idly look at wrongdoing?” (Habakkuk 1:3). These words could have come literally from the mouths of survivors of the Shoah. And the New Testament itself acknowledges that suffering can at times seem absurd and unbearable: Paul writes that he and his coworkers were at times “utterly burdened beyond our strength, so that we despaired of life itself” (2 Corinthians 1:8).
But how does Scripture speak in such deep darkness? First: it never declares suffering to be good. Evil remains evil. It is never minimized or relativized. The prophets thunder against oppression, Jesus weeps at Lazarus’s tomb, and the martyrs beneath the altar in Revelation cry out for justice: “How long, O Sovereign Lord, holy and true?” (Revelation 6:10). That cry is heard in God’s own book, without God silencing that voice.
Second: the Bible shows that God sometimes is silent and does not intervene, and that this very silence becomes the deepest test of faith. Job experienced it, the psalms give it words, and the prophets wrestle with it. But nowhere does Scripture say that this means God is powerless or indifferent. On the contrary, again and again comes the promise that evil will be judged and that God will call every wrongdoer to account. Scripture ends with a judgment from which no perpetrator escapes, no matter how powerful he was.
Third: God’s ultimate answer is not a philosophical explanation but an act: the cross. There something happens that no human being could have imagined: God Himself enters abandonment, cries out the words of Psalm 22 (“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”), and undergoes violence, humiliation, and death. By this He shows that He was not standing outside the gas chambers but was there in the midst of His people. He did not remain silent because He took pleasure in it or was indifferent, but because He chose to walk the path of suffering Himself in order to bear and conquer it from within.
The question remains: does that outweigh six million dead? Here we must be humble: nothing can compensate for that weight in human terms. One can never say, “It had meaning, because something higher came out of it,” as though the death of a child in a gas chamber were a means to an end. Scripture itself forbids us to speak that way. What it does say is that God does not give evil the final word. He keeps our tears in His bottle (Psalm 56:8–9), He will execute justice for the dead and not forget their names, and He promises a resurrection in which all who are in Him will not perish but live.
Scripture therefore does not give an answer that “explains” the Shoah. The only thing it gives is a promise: that a day will come when God Himself will set all things right, when the perpetrators will be judged and the victims vindicated, and when tears will be wiped away forever. In this light, the question of whether God is a sadist or an indifferent spectator is answered by the cross: He Himself suffered what His people suffered, and He has promised that it will not be in vain.
This is not airtight logic. It is rather a confession one either holds fast to or rejects. To the cynic it may always sound insufficient. But for the believer, this remains the only foundation: that God did not stand far away when His people cried out, but was Himself present in that cry, and that He will one day bring justice to all that was unjust.
G. And… if God is omniscient… why did He begin at all, knowing that He would have to offer His Son, and knowing where it would lead? Is that not a double anguish — for Himself and for humanity? Why was everything “very good” if He had built in the possibility of sinning?
This may be the most painful sharpening of the whole issue. For indeed: if God is truly omniscient, then He knew from the very first moment that humanity would fall, that history would run through blood and tears, and that His own Son would have to bear the cross. Why, then, creation at all? Why does Genesis 1 say, “And behold, it was very good”? And why call something “good” while knowing it would derail almost immediately?
Scripture does not give a ready-made answer that removes all tension. What it does show is that God’s “very good” does not mean: a world without risk or without history, but: a world that fully corresponds to His purpose and intention. It was good because it fit precisely within the plan He had from the beginning. And that plan did not come to a dead end with the Fall, but ran straight through it. That is also why Scripture shows that Christ’s sacrifice was not devised only after humanity sinned, but “was foreknown before the foundation of the world” (1 Peter 1:20; Revelation 13:8). God created with full knowledge of the path that would follow — not because He desired evil itself, but because He knew that the way through the depths would lead to something greater.
Still, the tension remains. For then you are effectively saying: the possibility of sin was built into creation, and God knew that evil would become reality. Can one still say He is omnipotent and loving? Scripture speaks about this in a way that is both honest and mysterious. Paul writes in Romans 11:32: “God has consigned all to disobedience, that He may have mercy on all.” In other words: the history of sin is the dark backdrop against which grace shines all the more brightly. That does not make sin any less terrible, but it shows that God incorporated it into His plan to reveal mercy.
It seems like a “double anguish”: God Himself offers His Son, and humanity suffers for centuries under sin and death. And yet Scripture says: none of this stands outside God’s love. The Father gives His Son, but the Son gives Himself willingly. “No one takes My life from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord” (John 10:18). The cross is therefore not the cruel coercion of the Father toward the Son, but the voluntary act of God Himself, who in Christ bears the evil. And for humanity: our suffering is real, but it is taken up into a greater plan in which God ultimately makes all things new.
This does not remove the tension. We would say: if God knew it would go this way, why begin at all? Why this entire path? The only answer Scripture gives is that the goal is greater than we can comprehend. In Ephesians 1 Paul says that God’s purpose is “to unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.” That is more than a restoration of Eden: it is a consummation in which creation is not only good, but also redeemed, reconciled, sanctified, and eternally secure. The “very good” of Genesis 1 was not the endpoint but the beginning of a path that leads to the new heaven and new earth.
So yes, you can view it as a double anguish. But Scripture depicts it at the same time as a double love. God knew of the pain and chose to create anyway, because He knew that the final glory would be greater than the depth of the suffering. And He knew that this glory could be reached only through the path of self-giving. It is precisely this mystery Paul means when he writes that the cross is “foolishness to the world, but the power and wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:23–24).
H. Let’s put it this way: “A mathematician or a programmer wouldn’t understand any of this… any rational person wouldn’t understand it.” To be honest, I don’t understand it either.
And that is exactly where you hit the core. Because if we are honest, our reasoning always falls short here. You can go very far with argumentation—you can talk about freedom and responsibility, about God’s omnipotence and love, about the higher purpose of redemption—but at the point you are now describing, you inevitably run into a wall. A programmer, a mathematician, or simply a sober, logical person rightly says: “This doesn’t add up. If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why all of this? I cannot find a logical explanation.”
Scripture does not deny this. It never claims that we could fully comprehend the mystery of God. In fact, Scripture says the exact opposite: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, declares the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9). In other words: there is a plan, but it exceeds our capacity to grasp it.
And yet: that does not mean it is irrational or meaningless. What the Bible gives us is not a watertight logical system, but signs and promises. It tells us where everything began (a good creation), where it went wrong (the Fall), what God’s answer is (the cross and the resurrection), and where it ends (a new heaven and a new earth). But the question “why precisely this path?” remains beyond our understanding.
Perhaps we must simply admit: a human being cannot fully understand this, and does not need to. Faith does not revolve around understanding everything, but around trusting Someone greater than our understanding. And that trust is not blind; it is grounded in what He has shown: that in Christ He did not watch from a distance, but entered into the deepest suffering Himself, and that He proved Himself stronger than death.
Scripture therefore fully acknowledges that there are moments when you can only say, “I don’t understand it.” Job ends up there as well: he receives no explanation, but an encounter with God. And Paul ends his reflection on God’s plan with a doxology that is at the same time a confession of incomprehension: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways!” (Romans 11:33).
That may be the most honest position. Evil and suffering are not puzzles we can solve here and now, the way a mathematician solves an equation or a programmer fixes a bug. They are mysteries that transcend our understanding. But they are not empty mysteries—they are filled with a cross, a resurrection, and a promise. And there is the core: not in our understanding, but in God’s faithfulness.
I. But that sounds like fooling yourself, which could just as well lead you to claim that He doesn’t exist, if He never intervenes or shows Himself.
Yes, exactly. When you say, “God’s ways are higher than ours,” it can easily sound like a convenient excuse—as though you wave away every hard question by appealing to mystery. For someone deeply disappointed in God, or for someone who has never seen anything of Him, it indeed feels like self-deception. The thought naturally arises: maybe He simply isn’t there. Because if He were there, wouldn’t He show Himself, intervene, make it unmistakably clear that He exists?
Scripture takes that struggle with utmost seriousness. “Where is your God?” mockers cry in Psalm 42, and the psalmist admits that the question also rises in his own heart. Isaiah says that God is “a God who hides Himself” (Isaiah 45:15). And even Jesus cries out on the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”—the deepest expression of God’s silence in all of Scripture. This acknowledges that there truly are moments when God does not seem to speak, does not seem to show Himself, and does not seem to intervene.
Yet throughout Scripture there runs a second, equally strong thread. God has revealed Himself—but not in the ways people expected. Not in overwhelming displays of power, but in a manger in Bethlehem. Not as an emperor overthrowing Rome, but as a servant who suffers, heals, weeps, and ultimately dies. Not by avoiding suffering, but by bearing it. For many, that was disappointing; for many, it still is. But precisely there Scripture places its deepest testimony: that God reveals Himself most clearly in the very path that gives the greatest offense—the cross of Christ.
But the cross is never separated from the resurrection. Indeed, Scripture binds the two inseparably together. Christ’s death is the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins; He bore our guilt and took our judgment upon Himself. But without His resurrection, that sacrifice would not be confirmed, validated, or completed. As Paul says: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile, and you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:17). In other words: without His death no atonement, but without His resurrection no deliverance. The gospel rests on both pillars. One cannot stand without the other.
In the cross we see God’s solidarity with our suffering, His willingness to bear the deepest darkness. In the resurrection we see His victory, His power to give new life and dethrone death. Together they form God’s complete answer to suffering and evil: He bears it and He conquers it.
This places the thought, “He doesn’t intervene, therefore He doesn’t exist,” in a different light. It is understandable that people think this way. But faith says: God has intervened—not first by removing all misery from the world, but by stepping beneath it Himself and destroying it from within. That is why Paul calls the gospel both a stumbling block and foolishness to the world, but for believers “the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Is that then fooling yourself? Only if faith required that everything be logically explained and immediately visible. But Scripture says that faith is trust in what one does not see (Hebrews 11:1)—not blind trust, but trust anchored in God’s actions in history: in the cross and in the empty tomb.
Thus the choice becomes sharp: either one says cynically, “He doesn’t exist, because I see no intervention,” or one says in faith, “He is there, even when I don’t understand Him and sometimes do not experience Him.” Scripture allows room for struggle, but it always directs us back to the same center: Christ who died for our sins and rose for our justification. There—not in our reasoning, but in God’s acts—lies the foundation on which faith rests.
J. Earlier you said: “If He were to remove all evil today, He would have to judge all the people who do evil immediately.” Why? And why did natural disasters also have to become part of the consequences of the Fall? Could it not have remained limited to human evil? As if that weren’t enough already?
If we look at the first question: why would God, if He removed all evil today, also have to judge the people themselves? The issue is that evil in Scripture is never merely an isolated “thing” that can be cut away from the outside. Evil is woven into the human heart. Jesus says in Mark 7:21–23 that from the human heart come “evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, greed, wickedness, deceit.” Evil is not something that happens apart from us; it is something we ourselves produce. So if God were to eradicate evil while leaving the people who harbor it untouched, that evil would be reborn tomorrow. Removing evil “by itself,” without also judging the person who clings to it, is like pulling weeds out of a field but leaving the roots in place. In no time they grow back again. That is why Scripture always connects the removal of evil and injustice with judgment upon the person who persists in it (think of Psalm 1, or Revelation 20). It sounds harsh, but within Scripture it is logical: you cannot remove the fruit without striking the tree.
Then the second question: why did natural disasters and the entire creation have to be involved? Why not only moral evil, as though that weren’t already enough? Here we come to something Paul explicitly says in Romans 8:20–22: “Creation was subjected to futility… in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption.” What he is saying is that creation and humanity are inseparably linked. Humanity was appointed by God as steward, as His image in the world (Genesis 1:26–28). When the steward falls, the garden he is to cultivate falls with him. The earth reflects the spiritual condition of the one who governs it. Thus we read in Genesis 3 that the ground brings forth thorns and thistles “because of you” (vv. 17–18). It is as though all of nature is dragged into the brokenness of its caretaker.
That is hard to accept, because we would say: leave nature out of it. But Scripture portrays creation as a unified whole in which humanity occupies a central place. When human beings turn away from God, not only their hearts are damaged but also the cosmos over which they were appointed. This is why the prophets often speak of “the land mourning” and “the heavens withholding” when Israel lives in sin (Jeremiah 12:4; Hosea 4:3). Human evil leaves traces throughout all creation.
But why so severe? Why could it not remain limited to moral evil? Scripture’s answer is twofold. First, because creation and humanity do not exist independently of one another. Second, because cosmic disorder also points forward to cosmic restoration. If it were only about moral evil, redemption would be nothing more than an inner moral improvement. But the Bible teaches that redemption is far greater: a new heaven and a new earth, a total renewal (Isaiah 65:17; Revelation 21:1). The suffering of nature itself—storms, diseases, death—cries out for this redemption. Paul calls it “the groaning of childbirth”: not only human evil, but the entire created order longs for renewal.
None of this lessens the weight of the objection. It remains troubling that a child dies in an earthquake or tsunami while having nothing to do with moral evil. Scripture does not deny this, but roots the cause in the deep interconnectedness of humanity and creation. And it adds this: because evil is cosmic, God’s redemption is also cosmic. Christ did not die only for individual sins, but to “reconcile all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven” (Colossians 1:20).
K. Could you summarize all the points you addressed above in one single answer instead of separately?
The question of why God allows suffering and evil is not an academic puzzle but a wound that cuts into the soul. It is the question asked by parents at a grave, by the sick in a hospital bed, by those in war, by people broken by life. It is a question not raised with cold logic, but with tears: “Where are You, God? Why do You not intervene?”
Scripture does not diminish that question. It knows its rawness. Job cries out his despair, the psalms protest to God, and even Jesus Himself cries out on the cross: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Scripture acknowledges that there are moments when God seems hidden and His silence wounds us. The answers above can be gathered into seven points:
1. The world was good — and yet it is broken
The Bible begins with a perfect world, declared “very good” by God Himself (Genesis 1:31). No death, no pain, no fear. Everything that came from His hand was good—every perfect gift comes from above, James says (James 1:17). From the start it is clear: evil does not come from God.
Scripture states it without ambiguity: “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5)
Darkness—sin, evil, injustice—does not belong to Him and cannot arise from Him.
The psalms affirm this just as sharply: “Evil may not dwell with You.” (Psalm 5:4–5)
And again: “In Him there is no injustice; He is my Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” (Psalm 92:15–16)
Habakkuk states the same truth: “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil; You cannot look on wrongdoing.” (Habakkuk 1:13)
In other words: God is not the source of evil. Evil cannot proceed from Him. He is perfect light, perfect goodness, perfect justice.
But in that good world, free will was misused. Turning away from God brought not only guilt but rupture. Paul says it plainly: “Through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin.” (Romans 5:12)
Since then the whole creation groans, Paul says, as if in childbirth—and we feel that groaning in our own existence: something is deeply broken.
But precisely because evil does not come from God but from humanity’s turning away, God does not leave us to our fate in that brokenness.
2. God does not remain distant — He descends into our suffering
The heart of Scripture is not an explanation but an arrival: God becomes man. He does not come in power, but in vulnerability. Not in a palace, but in a stable. Not with an army, but with tears.
And then we read the shortest, yet perhaps the deepest verse in all of Scripture: “Jesus wept.” (John 11:35)
The Son of God stands at a grave, sees the pain of friends—and He weeps. He knows He will raise Lazarus, yet He weeps. Why?
Because God not only saves, He suffers with us.
What Paul later writes reveals God’s own heart: “Weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15)
This is not merely a command; it is a revelation: God weeps with those who weep. He is not an unmoved ruler but a God with tears.
3. God bears evil — and breaks it from within
Jesus’ coming does not end with tears. He carries the evil, guilt, and curse of the world in His body. On the cross He dies for our sins, in our place, as the Lamb of God.
But His death is not the end. Scripture is clear: without His resurrection His sacrifice would be unfinished, unconfirmed, and without power.
Paul says it bluntly: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.” (1 Corinthians 15:17)
His death atones. His resurrection frees. Together they form the heart of God’s saving work: He bears evil and He conquers it.
The world does not have a God who watches from afar, but a God who dies, and a God who lives.
4. Our suffering is not meaningless — it is taken up into God’s plan
Christ shows that God is greater than all darkness. He does not transform evil into good, but He shows that even the worst evil cannot stop Him from doing good. He can weave suffering, grief, and injustice into a process of redemption deeper than we can fathom.
As Joseph says: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” (Genesis 50:20)
As Paul says: “God works all things together for good for those who love Him.” (Romans 8:28)
This does not make our suffering light, but it keeps it from being meaningless. It does not stand outside God’s hand; He does not abandon us in it.
5. God is truly with us — in every step, every tear, every night
Because Christ suffered, we know that God understands our pain. Because Christ rose, we know that God holds our future.
He does not say, “It will be all right, stay strong.” He says, “I am with you.” “I will never leave you.” “I have overcome the world.”
And because He weeps with those who weep, our tears are not foreign to Him. He sits beside us at the sickbed, at the grave, in fear, in the night.
No tear unseen. No pain unknown. No brokenness in which He is absent.
6. The end of God’s story is not darkness, but glory
The Bible does not end in tragedy but in comfort:
- no death,
- no mourning,
- no pain,
- no night,
- and God Himself wiping away our tears.
Not symbolically. Truly. Forever.
The world as we know it does not end in absurdity but in renewal. The new creation is not simply Eden restored but Eden glorified: a world that has passed through suffering and redemption, and is therefore richer, deeper, and unbreakable.
7. The comfort that remains
We cannot solve every question. We cannot understand every sorrow.
But Scripture gives us something greater than answers:
A God who weeps, a Christ who dies, a Savior who rises, a Spirit who dwells in us, and a future in which all things are made new.
This is not cheap. This is not simplistic. This is not shallow.
This is God’s heart. This is God’s saving plan. This is God’s comfort.
He does not abandon His world. He does not abandon His people. He does not abandon you.
May the Lord descend into your pain and sorrow — with His compassion, His nearness, and His divine tenderness. May He see your tears, carry your heart, and fill your breath with hope. May He give you strength when you have no strength left, light when everything feels dark, and peace that surpasses all understanding. Yield yourself into His arms, into His care, into His loving rule. For the God who weeps with those who weep, who died for your sins and rose for your life, is the same God who invites you to surrender yourself to Him — to rest in His heart, to shelter beneath His wings, and to trust in His unshakable goodness. May He uphold you, preserve you, and bring you to complete restoration, until the day when He Himself will wipe every tear from your eyes.