Why Does God Allow It?
Introduction
Few questions challenge faith more directly than suffering.
If God is good,
and if God is powerful,
why is there pain?
We encounter:
Illness and death.
Natural disaster.
Betrayal and injustice.
Personal loss and unanswered prayer.
This is not an abstract problem.
It is personal.
Any serious adult faith must address it without evasion.
1. Freedom and Moral Evil
Much suffering arises from human freedom.
Violence, exploitation, cruelty, neglect — these are not created by God.
They arise from misuse of freedom.
If love is real, freedom must be real.
If freedom is real, the possibility of rejection exists.
A world in which God prevented every harmful choice would not be a world of freedom.
It would be a world of control.
The dignity of the human person includes the capacity to choose wrongly.
This explains moral evil.
It does not make it less painful.
But it preserves coherence.
2. Natural Suffering
Not all suffering is caused by human choice.
There is disease.
There are natural disasters.
There is the fragility of biological life.
The Church does not claim to possess a complete explanation of every instance of natural suffering.
But she insists on two truths:
First, suffering is not meaningless.
Second, God is not absent from it.
The Christian claim is radical:
God entered suffering.
In Christ, God did not remain distant from pain.
He embraced it.
The Cross is not explanation in abstract terms.
It is participation.
3. The Cross and Meaning
The Crucifixion does not eliminate suffering.
It transforms its meaning.
If Christ suffered and rose,
then suffering is not the final word.
It can become redemptive.
Redemptive suffering does not mean pain is good in itself.
It means suffering united to Christ participates in His saving work.
Throughout history, saints have borne suffering with extraordinary patience.
Not because pain disappeared.
But because hope reoriented it.
Suffering without hope leads to despair.
Suffering with hope becomes purification.
4. Providence and Trust
Providence does not mean that every event is directly willed by God.
It means that God can bring good from evil.
Joseph in the Old Testament tells his brothers:
“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”
This does not deny the evil.
It affirms that God’s sovereignty is not defeated by it.
Providence operates beyond immediate perception.
The human perspective is limited.
The divine perspective is not.
Trust in providence is not naive optimism.
It is rational confidence in a God who is both just and merciful.
5. The Temptation of Quiet Atheism
In modern society, suffering often leads not to rebellion but to quiet disengagement.
God is not explicitly denied.
He is simply ignored.
If suffering appears pointless, faith weakens gradually.
But if God does not exist, suffering is ultimately absurd.
It has no ultimate resolution.
Christian faith does not promise immunity from pain.
It promises redemption beyond it.
Without eternal life, injustice remains unresolved.
With eternal life, suffering is bounded.
6. Hope and Endurance
The Resurrection is the decisive response to suffering.
It does not answer every emotional question.
It establishes that death is not ultimate.
The Christian life is not one of denial.
It is one of endurance grounded in hope.
Grace strengthens perseverance.
The sacraments sustain the weary.
Prayer anchors the distressed.
Faith does not remove grief.
It prevents despair.
Conclusion
Suffering is real.
It cannot be trivialised.
But neither can it be allowed to dissolve faith.
The Christian answer is not a philosophical formula.
It is a person — crucified and risen.
God does not explain suffering from a distance.
He enters it.
And He promises that it will not have the final word.
Reflection Questions
Has suffering weakened my faith or deepened it?
Do I see pain as meaningless, or open to redemption?
Do I trust that God can bring good from what I do not understand?
Closing Prayer
Lord,
You entered into suffering for our salvation.
Strengthen my trust when I struggle.
Guard me from despair.
Help me unite my trials to Yours
and persevere in hope.
Amen.
St. Mary's, St. John Bosco and St. Edward's 