Why God allows suffering

We’ve all heard it stated in many ways. Why does He allow babies to be born with disabilities? Why does He permit wars to rage? Why does He seem to turn the other way when innocent people are being killed? What about all of those horrible injustices in our world? This hurricane. That epidemic. This wildfire. Why do these horrible things afflict our world? If God can prevent such tragedies, why does He allow them to take place?

Here is the classic statement of the problem. Either God is all-powerful but He is not all good, therefore He doesn’t stop evil. Or He is all good but He is not all-powerful, therefore He can’t stop evil. And the general tendency is to blame all of the problems of the world on God. To say that God is the one who is somehow responsible.

By questioning God’s goodness and love, I am in essence saying that I know more about it than He does. The fact is, God doesn’t become good because that’s my opinion of Him, or because I happen to personally agree with His actions or His words. Nor does He become good because we vote on it and all agree that is the case. You see, God is good whether I believe it or not, and He alone is the final court of arbitration.
We need to keep in mind that humanity, not God, is responsible for sin. In light of that, one might then ask the question, “Why didn’t God make us incapable of sin?” Answer: Because He didn’t want puppets on a string. He didn’t want windup robots. He didn’t want preprogrammed people with neither choice nor will.