One of the most common and emotionally powerful arguments against God is the problem of evil, pain, and suffering. The reasoning often goes like this: 

 

“If God exists, and God is all-loving, then He would want to stop all evil and suffering.”

“If God exists, and God is all-powerful, then He would be able to stop all evil and suffering.”

 

Yet the fact of the matter is, evil still exists, innocent people suffer, war crimes affect millions. Therefore, we tend to conclude that either God is not all-powerful or all-loving, or that simply God does not exist. While this conclusion seems reasonable at first glance, we need to slow down to understand and examine the assumptions behind it. 

 

How do we define evil, pain and suffering? You’re probably thinking, these are fairly simple terms to define. In reality, these  concepts are more complicated than we tend to see them. Evil is defined as “profoundly immoral and wicked”, pain and suffering refer to physical and emotional stress caused by an injury, trauma, or loss. They can be caused by an act of evil like mass shooting, crimes, abuse, bullying, etc. or caused by natural phenomenons like diseases, a loved one passing away, natural disasters, etc. At the heart of the problem of evil is a deeper question: what standard of morality are we using to call something evil? If morality is purely subjective, then calling something “evil” simply means “I don’t like it.” But that is not how we actually talk about evil. When we say genocide is wrong or child murder is evil, we don’t mean “wrong for me” but rather that it is plain wrong. Consider this comparison: Adolf Hitler versus Mother Teresa. Who was the better person, and why? Subjectively, Hitler and his followers believed they were doing the right thing. He convinced people they were improving humanity. Yet we still say, objectively and without hesitation, that Hitler committed moral atrocities. That judgment only makes sense if there is an objective moral standard. And the question then becomes: who sets that standard? 

 

Here is a critical point: we recognize evil because we have an understanding of good. C.S. Lewis once explained that his own argument against God was that the universe seemed cruel and unjust, but then he asked where that idea of “unjust” came from. A person does not call a line crooked unless they have some idea of a straight line. The very act of protesting evil assumes that we know what is considered good. That knowledge of good points towards an objective morality. Objective morality points to a moral law. A moral law implies a moral lawgiver. And that leads to the idea of a good Creator. In this sense, evil does not disprove God, it actually points us toward Him. The question remains: if God is all-loving and all-powerful, how can evil exist? The bible says “God is love”, which means that not only is God all-loving, His nature is love. Everything God does stems from that nature; He cares for us in love, He protects us in love and He gives us the choice to love Him back. The freedom of choice is what we call “free will”. So back to the reasoning, if God is all-powerful, why can’t He stop evil? Christianity teaches that God cannot create love without free will. This is not a limitation of God’s power, but a logical reality. Love that is forced is not love, imagine forcing someone to be in a relationship with you, giving them no choice, that’s not considered love right? Freedom requires choice, and that choice carries the possibility of evil; choosing evil then brings the possibility of pain and suffering for others. If God constantly intervened to stop every evil act; if He stopped every bullet and every harmful decision, human choice would become meaningless. And if you ask God to remove all kinds of evil by midnight, we would have to ask ourselves an uncomfortable question: would any of us still be here at 12:01? Every person commits moral wrongs.

 

Evil is not something that needs to be “created.” It is better understood as the absence of good, much like darkness is the absence of light. You don’t create darkness; you get it when the light is turned off. In this sense, God did not create evil; humans choose actions that lack goodness. Without choice, concepts like heaven and hell would be meaningless. Moral responsibility requires the genuine ability to choose. The issue remains that some forms of evil don’t stem from human choice but circumstances that lead to pain and suffering. Which leads to another hidden assumption behind the problem of evil; false expectation. When someone dies unexpectedly or doesn’t get a long, healthy life, people often say, “They shouldn’t have died.” But where does that expectation come from? Were humans ever promised long, painless lives?

This reasoning may feel cold, but it is logically consistent. Expecting a pain-free life assumes a moral order that guarantees comfort and that assumption itself is not justified in Christianity. Sometimes what we consider evil is, unknowingly to us, working for our good. Consider a child receiving a vaccination, the child experiences pain caused by someone meant to help them and he seeks comfort from his father. The father allows the pain, even though he is supposed to protect his child. When he goes to get vaccinated again, the child may pull away and no longer trust the father. Similarly, when people experience pain and suffering, they often push God away. It is hard to understand the reasoning behind their pain while they’re grieving, but later on, just like that child, they can understand why the Father allowed the pain they went through. 

 

Even if we feel alone during the suffering, God is always with us. From a Christian perspective, God is not distant from suffering. A loving Father is hurt by evil and pain, but our suffering is not meaningless, and tragedy can produce good outcomes; one example being the crucifixion itself. 

 

God is all-knowing meaning He knows the end of all things, He is all-loving meaning He desires a good end and He is all-powerful meaning He can bring about that good end. Therefore, we know that all things will ultimately come to a good end. That’s why we believe in eternal life with Christ, all of our pain and suffering will come to an end when we live eternally in Heaven. And if you’re not a believer, but you experience outrage at injustice, grief over suffering, or moral clarity about what is wrong, it may be worth asking: why do I know this is wrong? Where does that knowledge come from?

 

The argument is not that suffering feels good or that evil is trivial. It is that the recognition of evil itself points beyond a meaningless universe. The path from evil to good, from moral outrage to moral law, leads not away from God but toward the idea of a good Creator who makes moral judgment possible in the first place.