Theodicy - How can a good God allow so much suffering?

This document lays out some of the things we might want to bear in mind when working out a theodicy.

Theodicy Cards

The problem of suffering in the world; Classical Solutions in handy card size. here

Parameters

When trying to come up with a Christian theodicy, these are some ideas which can usefully be kept in mind
  1. There is no “answer” to the “problem” of suffering. There is nothing which we can say to make it go away. It is important not to minimize it. However, it is also important not to get so overwhelmed with it that we can’t rationally discuss it. All we can hope to do with a theodicy is to show that it is not impossible to believe in God in a world of suffering.
  2. God exists and is good. This has to be a belief which we bring to the conversation; we are not going to be able to go from all the evil and suffering in the world to giving a proof of God’s existence.
    1. For Christians, this is revealed through the life and resurrection of Jesus.
  3. God’s omnipotence. This is a traditional Christian belief about God. If God exists, then God can do whatever God wants.
    1. However, God cannot do intrinsically impossible things. As C.S. Lewis says in The Problem of Pain, nonsense does not stop being nonsense simply because you are talking it about God. So the sentence “God can make a square circle” is nonsense, without claiming that God is not omnipotent.
    2. b. Is omnipotence really something we want to predicate of God? What does it really mean?
  4. The essential goodness of nature.
    1. “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.” Genesis 1:31
    2. Nature exists and operates independently of God and of people’s desires. God is not to be identified with the world, though perhaps it might reflect something of God.
    3. Is it even possible to create a world without any suffering at all? If you don’t have pain sensors you can do awful things to yourself – for instance people with leprosy lose the sensation in their extremities, and thus can’t feel when they cut or burn themselves, and so have to be constantly checking, otherwise the injuries can get infected and go gangrenous.
  5. The distinction between “natural” and “human” evil.
    1. “Natural Evil” is things like being eaten by a shark, developing cancer
    2. “Human Evil” is things we do to one another across the whole realm of moral failure – wars murder, selfishness, pride….
  6. What, as Christians, are we to make of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus? How does his suffering inform the debate for us? What about the resurrection?

For further reading: