One of the great problems of society is the problem of human suffering. In the face of it many have concluded that there is no God. They reason this way: “If God is both good and all-powerful why does he allow things like cancer, earthquakes, and heart attacks to happen? If he is good he surely doesn’t want them to happen, and if he is all-powerful he could prevent them from happening. Since they do happen, God must not be either good or all-powerful.”
So they doubt God.
While I do not have the final answer to suffering myself, I am convinced that the answer is not to doubt God or to conclude that life is absurd. You see, there is another side to all of this. There is good in the world as well as evil, pleasure as well as pain, and kindness as well as cruelty. The tendency is to concentrate on one aspect: on the evil rather than the good, on the pain rather than pleasure, on cruelty rather than kindness. It is a tendency that can be seen in novels and plays, and it is not a tendency peculiar to any one generation.
If evil in the world shakes faith in God, what about the good? Why not talk about the problem of good? What right have we to take the good for granted and seek only an explanation of the evil? Surely we ought to seek an explanation for the world as a whole. If evil shakes one's faith in God, good must strengthen and steady it.
How shall we explain good? If we refuse to believe in God, goodness is a mystery. Where did it come from? The beauty and bounty of nature, the unselfishness, nobility, and heroism of which we are capable also demand an answer. We cannot take one for granted and demand an explanation for the other.
To rule out belief in God does not solve all our problems; it leaves greater problems unsolved. If it is hard to believe in God, it is harder still not to believe in him. So in the mystery of suffering, do not lose your faith…use it! Even though you don’t understand, keep on believing that there is meaning to life and that God will help you through your troubles.