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# Problems with Apologetics (Part 4): Suffering
- URL: https://matthew-d-burkholder.ghost.io/problems-with-apologetics-part-4-suffering/
- Published: 2022-04-14T13:37:04.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-28T19:42:34.000Z
- Author: Matthew D. Burkholder
- Tags: Theology, apologetics, #Migrated-1787946130805, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-08-28 15:42

Suffering is often the biggest obstacle to belief in the Christian God. As the 17th c. philosopher Pierre Bayle points out in his *Historical and Critical Dictionary*, it is *always* better to prevent something terrible from happening. God could simply do so if he wishes. To give a reason for suffering is to betray the simple answer that the best solution is for suffering not to happen. As Bayle painfully points out, theodicies (a vindication of God’s goodness and justice in the face of evil and suffering) fail by analogy.

Could any human father give adequate reasons for allowing harm to his children, regardless of some so-called positive benefit? In other words, if I needlessly broke my daughter’s legs and caused her great suffering, to say it was for her good or the good of others would make me a moral monster. If someone was about to break my daughter’s legs and I stood by and let it happen, I would be derelict in my duty as a father. Of course, we know that pain is sometimes necessary to achieve something better-medical examples abound. But any doctor who willfully chooses a treatment that causes suffering if an equally effective treatment was available that did not... Well, would you want to be a patient of that doctor? Applying this moral framework to an all-powerful God, who could presumably achieve the same positive benefit without suffering, is problematic. Again, for Bayle, it is always better to prevent suffering when able.  
  
His response was the elevation of faith over the perception of reason. This is hardly something unfamiliar to those who experience deep suffering. We throw ourselves to God and proclaim faith despite reasons to the contrary. However, some believe Bayle was an atheist in disguise, refusing to renounce faith in God because of the culture of his time. But even if he was not an atheist, the reality of suffering has the power to make skeptics out of even the most pious. Suffering often gives birth to a theological doubt that a good God exists.

One cannot fault us for trying to develop a vindication of the goodness and justice of God in the face of suffering in the world. After all, apologists task themselves with giving answers to the big questions of life. What bigger question is there than, “Why is there suffering in the world?” Suffering, more specifically, senseless suffering, seems to fit the definition of evil and something that should be eradicated from life if possible. But the answer I've heard from apologists, and one I've even given before is that evil assumes an objective moral framework that requires the existence of God, which is then subsequently defined as the Christian God. But there is one glaring problem that apologists either ignore or simply don't grasp. *That's not how the problem of evil works*. The problem of evil assumes a Christian moral framework *for the sake of argument* to show an internal conflict within Christian theology's own system. No one is required to accept or adopt an objective moral framework for this argument to be valid. The problem of suffering and evil is an attack on the *Christian* God and not necessarily on the existence of a God. We really should not underestimate the strength of this argument.

However, sometimes there simply are no words to satisfy this question in the face of great suffering. When we speak for God to give an answer, other questions simply overwhelm the conversation. As the atheist Stephen Fry once put it,

*“I would say: Bone cancer in children? What’s that about? How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault? It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain? Because the God who created this universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac. Totally selfish. We have to spend our life on our knees thanking him?! What kind of God would do that? Yes, the world is very splendid, but it also has in it insects whose whole lifecycle is to burrow into the eyes of children and make them blind. They eat outwards from the eyes. Why? Why did you do that to us? You could easily have made a creation in which that didn’t exist. It is simply not acceptable. It’s perfectly apparent that he is monstrous. Utterly monstrous and deserves no respect whatsoever. The moment you banish him, life becomes simpler, purer, cleaner, more worth living, in my opinion.”*

How can we give an answer to this problem?

It is my belief that traditional theodicies actually fail. However, that does mean that God has not responded to our question. The response, however, is not a philosophical answer but a personal act that exists in a realm out of reach from the methods of apologists and skeptics alike. Truthfully, as an *argument*, the problem of senseless suffering seems to tip the scale for skepticism. And the moment *we* open our mouths to answer, we seem to lose. Silence then is our only appropriate response to suffering. However, we are reminded that God has acted as we approach the Easter weekend. God acts for us. God does not communicate through philosophical arguments but with the utmost empathy of the cross. God shares our silence and declares God’s own forsakenness. The good God becomes Godself’s own antithesis: senseless suffering incarnate. God is both a victim and victor who submits to death and is also Lord.

This simply baffles the mind. But perhaps even more baffling are the final words of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark uttered in his moment of extreme suffering: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Do you hear the despair in the words of Jesus? The fear? The anguish? The doubt?

For years I have gone back and forth on what Mark tells us about that moment. Perhaps, however, we are getting a glimpse of the human experience of our suffering - divine silence. The divine Son in the Incarnate Christ is more than free to experience this truly human phenomenon. But parallel to this silence is a divine action that reconciles the world, an act that almost seems to rob God of God’s divine prerogatives. And yet, this is how God has chosen to act. As Karl Barth points out,

“The problem posed is not that of a theodicy . . . It is a matter of the humiliation and dishonouring of God Himself, of the question which makes any question of a theodicy a complete anticlimax; the question whether in willing to let this happen to Him he has not renounced and lost Himself as God, whether in capitulating to the folly and wickedness of His creature He has not abdicated from His deity, whether He can really die and be dead? And it is a matter of the answer to this question: ***that in this humiliation God is supremely God, that in this death He is supremely alive, that He has maintained and revealed His deity in the passion of this man as His eternal Son***” (CD IV.1, 246-247).

Perhaps the question also needs to include how God could create a world in which God suffers. Granted, a skeptic who does not believe in God might find this answer quite unsatisfactory and attribute the whole theological enterprise as nothing more than something built on legend. To that, I can give no convincing answer. I submit to you in a moment of honesty *that I do not know*. I admit something that Christians say in theory but are often afraid to admit when challenged - I have faith. Not a faith that sees all things clearly. But perhaps a faith like Christ. Maybe I will genuinely wonder if I am being abandoned by God as I suffer and encounter a divine silence. But I have faith in hope. And hope is never a sure bet. It is never a checkmate but is always open to the possibility of defeat. That’s a reality that every Christian in every time should be willing to admit.

And this brings me to perhaps my biggest problem with apologetics. Of course, belief should require some kind of rationality to undergird it and evidence is an essential characteristic of rational thought. But apologetics has the potential to deflect from the preposterous claim that Christians are making - *God has raised Jesus Christ from the dead.* People who die stay dead, and every critical line of inquiry will turn up a more plausible alternative. If I buried my friend and saw him walking down the street a week later, what is more likely, that he was raised from the dead or had a twin brother? There is a reason why early Christian writers understood their words to be foolish. But they also profoundly understood their own experiences and found hope in the face of severe suffering. They did not come to faith because of an argument; they came to faith because of an encounter with what they believed to be the risen Christ.

And so here is my confession: suffering is a persuasive argument against the existence of a good God and yet I still have faith that a good God exists. Because between the poles of certain clarity and skeptical rejection lies a type of faith that is neither arrogant nor blind but a quiet place open to wrestle and hope. In that space lies something that has the potential to move a human person through suffering in courage. Is it the only space to find courage through suffering? No. Like a game of chess, life is attacked in a variety of ways. We are here one moment to make a move and are gone before the game is finished.

And yet in my space, I choose to reside. I've made my move based on what I see to be true. Apologetics sometimes offers me helpful advice but sometimes other moves impress me.Perhaps it is time to admit that we all ask and answer life's questions from a place of disadvantage. We all need humility, not hubris. What can we learn from one another? Are we merely preaching to the choir? Are we actually interested in *why* people believe what they believe? Or are we simply interested in creating straw-man fallacies to make ourselves *feel* better?

At the very least, can apologists practice occasionally saying "I don't know" and let the action of God speak for itself?