An honest question
Why does God allow suffering?
Key points
- Short answer: Christians don’t have a tidy answer, and the Bible doesn’t pretend to.
- What Jesus did: Jesus was asked about suffering more than once. When people assumed a man was born blind because someone had sinned, Jesus said no, it was not anyone’s fault.
- The Lutheran view: Lutherans have a name for this: a “theology of the cross,” meaning we look for God at the cross.
The short answer
Christians don’t have a tidy answer, and the Bible doesn’t pretend to.
What it does say is this. Suffering is not a sign God doesn’t care. It is usually not anyone’s punishment. And God did not stay out of it.
What Jesus said and did
Jesus was asked about suffering more than once. When people assumed a man was born blind because someone had sinned, Jesus said no, it was not anyone’s fault. When a tower fell and killed eighteen people, he said they were not worse than anyone else. He refused to turn pain into a verdict.
He also didn’t explain it away. When his friend Lazarus died, Jesus stood with the grieving family and wept, though he was about to act. Christians take that seriously: God is not watching suffering from a distance.
A little longer
This is the hardest question there is, and the Bible lets people ask it out loud. Whole psalms are complaints to God. On the cross Jesus himself prayed one: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The centre of the Christian answer is not an explanation but a person. On the cross, Christians believe, God went into suffering and death himself, and on Easter came out the other side. The promise that follows is that one day God will wipe every tear away. Until then, the church is meant to do what Jesus did: stay close to people who hurt.
Where Christians disagree
Christians give different partial answers. Real love needs real freedom, and freedom can be misused. A world with natural laws is a world where things break. Some suffering shapes us. Many find these help a little. Most also admit they don’t answer the suffering of a child.
How Lutherans see it
Lutherans have a name for this: a “theology of the cross,” meaning we look for God at the cross. Luther said we should not look for God in success and strength, and then decide God is absent when things go wrong. God is found where he chose to be found, on the cross, with the suffering. So Lutherans don’t tell grieving people that everything happens for a reason. They tell them God is with them in it, and that death does not get the last word.
Where it is in the Bible
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John 9:1–3 Jesus: the man’s blindness is not anyone’s sin.
Read John 9:1–3
1 As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” 3 Jesus answered, “This man didn’t sin, nor did his parents; but, that the works of God might be revealed in him.
World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →
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Luke 13:1–5 Those who died were not worse sinners.
Read Luke 13:1–5
1 Now there were some present at the same time who told him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered such things? 3 I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way. 4 Or those eighteen, on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them; do you think that they were worse offenders than all the men who dwell in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no, but, unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way.”
World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →
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John 11:32–36 Jesus weeps with the family of his friend.
Read John 11:32–36
32 Therefore when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.” 33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, 34 and said, “Where have you laid him?” They told him, “Lord, come and see.” 35 Jesus wept. 36 The Jews therefore said, “See how much affection he had for him!”
World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →
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Revelation 21:3–4 The promise: God will wipe every tear away.
Read Revelation 21:3–4
3 I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more. The first things have passed away.”
World English Bible, public domain. The whole chapter on Free Scripture → · Read in the NRSVue, the ELCA’s standard translation →
What do these words mean?
| The word | It means |
|---|---|
| The cross | Where Jesus was put to death. Christians see God’s love most clearly there. |
| Sin | Anything that turns us away from God and from loving other people. |
Tap a word for more. All 228 church words: the glossary, A to Z
Where to go next
Other questions people ask
Written by Digital Lutheran Church, a small, free website from the nonprofit Hope for Americans, in the tradition of the ELCA. Bible passages are from the World English Bible.