It’s all too common today to hear someone criticizing God along the lines of, “I could never worship a God who does that.” The critiques of God that are most growing in strength today relate to morality rather than logic, science, or society. One classification of these criticisms relates to God allowing seemingly pointless suffering, even gratuitous suffering. William Lane Craig offers the following helpful reminder:
Given the dizzying complexity of life, we are simply in no position at all to judge that God has no good reason for permitting some instance of suffering to afflict our lives. Every event that occurs sends a ripple effect through history, such that God’s reason for permitting it might not emerge until centuries later and perhaps in another country. Only an all-knowing God could grasp the complexities of directing a world of free people toward his envisioned goals. Just think of the innumerable, incalculable events involved in arriving at a single historical event, say, the Allied victory at D-day! We have no idea of what suffering might be involved in order for God to achieve some intended purpose through the freely chosen actions of human persons. Nor should we expect to discern God’s reasons for permitting suffering. It’s hardly surprising that much suffering seems pointless and unnecessary to us, for we are overwhelmed by such complexity. This is not to appeal to mystery but rather to point to our inherent limitations, which make it impossible for us to say, when confronted with some example of suffering, that God probably has no good reason for permitting it to occur. Unbelievers themselves recognize these limitations in other contexts…Some short-term good might actually lead to untold misery, while some action that looks disastrous in the short term may bring about the greatest good. We don’t have a clue.
William Lane Craig, On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2010), p. 160
As finite human beings, we are just not able to comprehend the complexity of how God makes decisions. Ironically, Hollywood has churned out several irreverent movies over the years making precisely this point. God gives someone the job of running the world for a limited period of time and that person discovers just how difficult it is. If there is a universe-making God, then it stands to reason that he would have reasons beyond our capability to understand for allowing this or that event to happen. This answer may not be satisfying, but it is a helpful warning to hesitate before getting up on our high horses and judging the Almighty.
The points raised at Luke 13:1-5 was whether those involved in these tragedies deserved to die? Similarly at John 9, Jesus’ disciples asked why the man was born blind. It is interesting that Jesus, in these accounts, did not provide explanations for suffering.
We do not have all the answers to why suffering. We cannot and must never judge God – we do not have all the facts, and our knowledge is limited, but what we can do is pray for more faith when we are disturbed by the terrible suffering in the world, and through that faith trust in God’s wisdom and the outworking of his grand purpose.