GIn the movie ‘Dawn of Justice’, Lex Luthor makes the common argument that due to the existence of suffering in the world, God is either NOT all powerful, or NOT all good. For if God WAS all powerful AND all good, then he would obviously step in and end all suffering. This argument however fails to take into account several important factors.
The first is that God HAS promised to step in and end all suffering in this world. According to Revelation 21, this will happen on Judgment Day; when Jesus returns. However, if you don’t have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, this will not be a pleasant day. The reason being that part of ending suffering MUST include passing judgment on those who have caused this suffering; which is all of humanity. There is of course a dead simple way out of this judgment; to repent of our sin before God and ask him to take that sin (including it’s punishment) away.
The second is that suffering is part of living in this fallen world. When Adam and Eve sinned against God in Genesis 3, God HAD to pass judgment on them. To simply let Adam and Eve off the hook for their high treason is not justice. Our suffering is a natural outcome of God’s own punishment on his creation for Sin.
The third is that because God is God, he is actually able to use bad things in our world (like suffering) to bring about his good purposes. We see this in Romans 8:28:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him
If God is truly an infinite being, as rational humans believe, then it is arrogance of the highest order to deny that he isn’t perhaps doing 1 or 2 things in this universe that we as humans cannot see. Now God does not CAUSE people to sin against us; but he is able to use such suffering to make us into the glorious humans he wants us to become.
