Why Do We Suffer?

A Reflection on the Christian Witness of Theodicy and Hope

As the floodwaters rise across Texas and the death toll mounts, we are once again left asking some of the most difficult questions in the human vocabulary: Why? Why does suffering occur?  Why do bad things happen to good people?  And where is God in all this?

These questions are not new, but they are deeply urgent.  They belong to a long tradition of theological inquiry known as theodicy—the attempt to understand how a good, loving, and all-powerful God can coexist with a world marked by tragedy, injustice, and pain.  Theodicy doesn't seek to explain away suffering but to help us bear it, confront it, and even redeem it through the lens of faith.  And in moments like these—when nature devastates communities, when innocent lives are cut short, and when suffering seems to rain down without warning—the Christian witness of theodicy matters more than ever.

The Instinct for Meaning

Our human instinct is to make sense of suffering.  We long to find meaning in pain, to see the arc of divine purpose traced through our hardships.  For many, phrases like “everything happens for a reason” or “God has a plan” provide a kind of comfort—an assurance that even if we don’t understand what’s happening, God does.  That instinct is understandable.  But it’s also deeply complicated.

This impulse can lead us into a trap theologians call proportionality bias—the assumption that big events must have big causes.  A global pandemic must have been a judgment.  A natural disaster must be part of some secret divine agenda.  And sometimes, we end up putting God in the impossible role of authoring tragedy in order to accomplish some hidden good.

But what if suffering doesn’t always mean something?  What if some suffering is just what the Bible says it is: chaos, brokenness, groaning? In a world gifted with freedom—where both creation and humanity have been allowed to flourish and falter—there are moments when tragedy strikes without a clear moral or spiritual reason.  The Apostle Paul himself speaks of a creation that is “groaning in labor pains” (Romans 8:22), longing for redemption.

Different Pictures of God

The way we approach theodicy is deeply shaped by how we understand God’s nature.  In some theological traditions, especially those rooted in Calvinist or Reformed thinking, God’s primary attribute is seen as sovereignty.  In this framework, God controls all things, and therefore, every event must have a purpose—even if we don’t understand it.  This is where the idea that “everything happens for a reason” often finds its theological home.

Other Christian traditions, such as the Wesleyan, Arminian, and Holiness streams, begin in a different place.  They start not with God's power, but with God's love.  In this view, love is not subordinate to power—power is shaped by love.  God’s sovereignty does not mean rigid control, but radical commitment: a covenantal faithfulness that never overrides freedom but always works through it.  As Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians, “Love does not insist on its own way” (1 Cor 13:5).

This vision of God does not deny God's power.  It simply reimagines what divine power looks like.  It is the power of incarnation, not domination. The power to enter our suffering, not avoid it.  The power to heal, to forgive, and ultimately to resurrect.

The Problem of Evil

Still, the question remains: If God is loving and powerful, why does evil persist?

The Christian answer is complex, but it begins with the recognition that evil is not part of God’s original intention.  From Genesis to Revelation, the biblical story makes clear that God creates not for death but for life—not for chaos but for order, beauty, and delight.  Evil, sin, and death are intruders in the story, not divine tools.  They are the result of freedom misused, love rejected, and justice undone.

And perhaps most profoundly—they are senseless.  Evil often defies logic, mocks meaning, and leaves us grasping for answers that may never come.  The Book of Job reminds us that not every question finds a tidy resolution.  Sometimes, like Job, we sit in the ashes and cry out—not because we lack faith, but because suffering demands lament before it allows for resolution.

This is why Christianity doesn’t explain evil so much as it dares to proclaim that God is with us in it.

The God Who Suffers With Us

The most radical claim of Christianity is not that God controls all things, but that God enters into all things.  The Incarnation—God made flesh in Jesus Christ—is the answer God gives to suffering.  Not a theory.  Not a platitude.  A person.

Jesus suffers not as a divine bystander but as one who weeps, bleeds, and dies.  At the cross, the logic of power is overturned.  The Creator of the universe is crucified by his own creation.  And yet, even there, love does not give up.  Christ rises, not in vengeance, but in victory—a victory that promises that even death itself will one day be swallowed up in life.

In this way, Christian theodicy is less about finding a reason for every tragedy and more about discovering God's response: presence.  Presence in the ER.  Presence at the graveside.  Presence in floodwaters and refugee camps.  Presence in the faces of those who rebuild, who feed the hungry, who grieve with the grieving.  As Psalm 34 says, “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).

Hope Without Explanation

So, no—not everything happens for a reason.  But in all that happens, we can discover the reason for hope.

We do not worship a God who causes death to teach us lessons.  We worship a God who defeated death so that it would not have the final word.  We do not need to find purpose in every pain to believe that God is working toward redemption.  Even in the absurdity of suffering, God can bring new life—not because the tragedy was good, but because God is good.

And if we need proof of this, we look not to easy answers, but to the cross and the empty tomb.  In Jesus Christ, we see a God who does not explain away suffering, but bears it.  A God who descends into the pit of death itself, and rises again to say: Even here, I am.  Even now, you are mine.

This is why the Church does not say, “Everything happens for a reason.”  Instead, we say: Christ is risen.  And that is reason enough to hope.

Let us then, in the face of tragedy, become the hands and feet of the God who suffers with us.  Let us mourn honestly, serve faithfully, and love fiercely—refusing to let evil and death be the final word.  The floodwaters may rise.  The world may groan.  But even now, resurrection is on the move.

Pax et Bonum!

Fr. Ben +