We live in a world of pain,                        or meaning. It is irrational, meaningless
                       sorrow, tragedy, and        suffering.
                       injustice. It is only nor-
                       mal to cry out, “Why?”        What should our view as believers be
                       Those who rail against      toward human suffering? Do we adopt a
God usually posit their arguments some-            callous indifference toward the world’s
thing like this: If God is all-powerful and        misery? Do we view the tragedies which
has the ability to intervene and stop pain         seem to occur with increasing frequency
and suffering, then He must not be all-            as mere random events? Do we under-
loving and caring. If He is all-loving and         stand all suffering to ultimately be linked
would desire to stop suffering, then He            with the entrance and existence of sin
must not be all-powerful (able to do). It          in our world? Does suffering have any
is impossible, they say, for Him to be all-        redemptive value? In short, what view
powerful and all-loving and yet not stop           should a Christian take about suffering
the suffering in our world.                        and God? What is the Christian world-
                                                   view on this issue?
  The argument is strong and cannot be
ignored. Of course, the alternative, that            The reality is that we live in a broken
there is no God, or that He is a very limited      world. This is not the world that came
God (almost a contradiction of the term            from the hand of God, but a world that has
“God”), means that all the pain and suf-           been ruined by sin. The creation is groan-
fering of our world is without any value           ing and travailing, in the imagery of Paul
                                                   in Romans 8. It is longing for a day when