How Can God be Good if there is Suffering and Evil in This World?

Many people ask, how can there be death and disease and suffering and violence if there is a loving God? Is God good? Atheists see death and suffering, and they mock Christians. They ask, “Isn’t your God powerful enough to prevent these bad things from happening?”

Why does God allow dictators to persecute and kill innocent people? Why does God allow war and terror? Why does God allow children to be sex trafficked? Some people claim they were once Christians, but because of some kind of tragedy or abuse or other bad situation, they’ve walked away from the Christian faith. How are we supposed to make sense of all this suffering?

Today we look at nature and we say, “look how beautiful the world is! Can’t you see that there’s a God?” But others look around see death and murder and disease and tragedy. Our world contains an amazing variety of plant and animal life! Scientists are often astounded at the intricate design. But what happens when you brush against a poison ivy plant? Or how comfortable would you be to see a mosquito that carries malaria buzzing by and landing on your arm? What is your response when you hear the phrase, “lions and tigers and bears? Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.”

Yes, it’s a line from the Wizard of Oz movie. But why did Dorothy respond by saying, “Oh, my!” when the tin man told her there would be lions and tigers and bears? It’s because as cute as they look in the zoo, meeting any of those animals in the wild is a deadly situation. It would immediately make any of us panic in fear. What would happen if you tried to pet a wild tiger? What would happen if you petted an adorable bear cub? If the momma is close by, you are likely to be torn to shreds.

Is this the way that God created the world? If He is loving God, then why did He create creatures that would hurt us and kill us? Why doesn’t God stop the evil in the world? It seems like He’s either a benevolent grandfather of a God who doesn’t have the power to change things, or He is all powerful, but He doesn’t really care about the evil around us. Which is it? Perhaps God isn’t good after all. Or maybe God doesn’t exist. That is the conclusion many people come to when faced with the paradox of evil in this world.

People Stop Believing in God Because of Evil and Suffering

Did you know that Charles Darwin grew up in a church? He even intended to become an Anglican clergyman.[1] Darwin had a daughter named Annie. Annie became extremely sick. According to the writer of his biography, “Any vestige of belief in God left him when his daughter Annie died. Annie’s cruel death destroyed Charles’ belief in a moral and just universe.” Later he would say that this period claimed the final death knell (a death knell was used to announce the death of someone) for his Christianity. Charles now took his stand as an unbeliever.

His disbelief in God because of the pain he experienced compelled him to reinterpret the world without God. He came up with The Theory of Evolution and many writings about how everything evolved from more basic lifeforms. Now many people around the world believe the false gospel of evolution because of his writings.

Sadly, even many Christians believe God used the process of millions of years to produce Adam and Eve. That would mean Adam and Eve’s parents were not human, right? They would have been subhuman. People who believe in evolution look at the geological record and they see millions of years of death and disease before humans even appeared. Genesis teaches us that after God created humans, He declared that everything he had created was very good![2]

If we believe in evolution over millions of years, we’re saying animals eating other animals (or humans) was very good. If we believe in millions of years, we’re saying that diseases like cancer are very good. We’re saying death is good.

Do you think God was calling those things very good? That false belief means that God is responsible for death, not our sin. People who believe God used evolution to create the world are attacking God’s character. They are saying that God built in imperfection and brokenness.

People in our society think God created them LGBT, and they think that the world that is now is how God originally made it to be. So they ask, “if I was born this way, and if God made me this way, then why would you have a problem with my lifestyle? After all, I can’t change the way God made me. God doesn’t make mistakes, right?”

God existed eternally before the earth, and the universe came into existence. We can’t comprehend that because everything in our world had a beginning. He is all-powerful, and a God who knows everything. He is loving and merciful. Genesis chapter 1 says, “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Then God looked all over He had made, and He saw that it was very good.

We Were Created for the Garden of Eden

In fact, the Garden of Eden was a perfect place. There were no deaths and no disease. The people and the animals were originally vegetarians, and God intended for people to live in a personal relationship with Him. He intended the animals to live in harmony with people. God created the animals for our enjoyment and to be our friends and helpers.

The Garden of Eden is where God established His perfect design for marriage and sexuality, pointing to the relationship between God and humanity. God intended man and woman to live in peace and to help one another. He created great beauty in nature. He created everything we would need to live healthy, fulfilling lives in perfect freedom.

What happened to Eden? What happened to our world? The world we see now is very different from the perfect paradise we were created for. Sin is what happened. The first man and woman rebelled against God and disobeyed Him. They chose to do what seemed right to them rather than choosing to trust God. (See Genesis 3).

As a result, all of creation came under the curse of sin.[3] “Against its will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse.” (Romans 8:20, NLT).

Don’t be too quick to blame them, however. That’s what they tried. Adam blamed Eve for tempting him and he blamed God because of the wife that He gave to him. Eve blamed Satan for deceiving her.[4] But the Bible tells us in Romans 5:12 “When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.”[5] We all inherited a sinful nature from Adam, but all of us have chosen sin.

Psalm 14:2-3 says, “The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God. ³All have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.” It doesn’t mean no one does good deeds, but it means that none of us are good. All of us are selfish. We all hurt other people at times. All of us rebel against God. None of us would even want to obey God if He did not pursue us and rescue us.

Where is that Perfect Paradise?

We often fail to realize that what we see is only a shadow of the beauty that God created in the Garden of Eden. The world we see around us is just a distorted reflection of its original perfection. The truth is that the world around us is broken. It’s damaged. It’s under a curse.

Because of the curse of sin, people became sinful. Relationships became difficult and hostile. Animals became pests and enemies. Work was no longer the joyous blessing it was intended to be. Now, work would be hard and cause frustration. Relationships would be broken and damaged. And people who were created for love would hurt one another.

Now people live in rebellion to God, and creation lives in rebellion to mankind. We are at war with the very world that God created for our pleasure and provision. In like fashion, all of us have continued to sin, and we contribute to the brokenness of this world. The world we live in is not the same as the world God said was very good. So, we cannot blame God for death and suffering. It’s our fault, but we would rather blame God.

God allows suffering because we live in a fallen world. We are homesick for the perfect world He created. J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, said this about human beings: “We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.”

God allows man freewill because a lack of freedom is slavery. If we did not have the right and the ability to choose rebellion, we could not choose or know love. We would be slaves and robots without choice. We live in a fallen world, and we are both the victims and the perpetrators of it.

Jesus Heals Brokenness

But that’s not the end of the story. Jesus, God’s Son, came to earth and became a man. He sacrificed His life to make a way for us to be made right with God our true Heavenly Father. He made a way for our relationship with our Father to be restored. He lived a perfect, sinless life, and so He became the only worthy substitute for the death we deserve.

Someday, there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and there will be no sickness, no death, no suffering. God Jesus will be there, and all the believers will be there. And if we read further in Romans 8, it says, “…We know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. ²³And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.”

Those who believe in and trust in Jesus belong to Him and will join Him in the new Heaven and new Earth when creation will be restored to its original state of perfect glory. That belief in Jesus doesn’t just mean to acknowledge His existence, but to acknowledge to God that you are a sinner. You must recognize that you have no ability to save yourself and confess Him as Lord and Savior. You must choose to receive the sacrifice of Jesus as payment for your sin and commit that you will trust and obey Him rather than continuing to follow your own understanding.

Romans 10:9-10 makes it very simple: “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” It may be simple, but it isn’t easy. We must continually die to our sinful nature and allow Him to change us. It doesn’t mean we will be completely sinless in this life. For now, we wrestle between our sinful nature and the nature of Christ He puts within us when we become Christians.

Eden’s Redemption: Eternal Hope for those who Trust in Jesus

We long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as His adopted children, including the new bodies He has promised us. So right now, our spirit is redeemed, but in the new world, we’re going to have a resurrected body, a brand-new body, and a new mind, and they will be perfect. When your body hurts or feels awkward or uncomfortable, let it remind you that it is under the curse of sin. One day our bodies will be liberated from its broken state and will be fully renewed—never to be broken again!

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.” (Romans 8:22-23).

All the brokenness will be redeemed. Someday, God is going to restore all that was lost. All creation will be in perfect balance again. No more groaning, no more death, no more suffering, no more curse. The Lord has given Christians so much to look forward to and so much hope.

Someday, when we gaze in awe at the new heavens and the new earth God has created, we might just see lions and tigers and bears, but when we say, “oh my” in that moment, it will no longer be out of fear, but in awe at the majesty of God’s creation. The brokenness and the curse that came upon all creation in Eden will all be redeemed.

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[1] Darwin and the Church. University of Cambridge. https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/commentary/religion/darwin-and-church

[2] Genesis 1:31

[3] Genesis 3:17 – Some translations say ground instead of earth. We know from Romans 8 that all of creation came under the curse of sin, not just the ground.

[4] Genesis 3:12-13

[5] Romans 5:12, NLT