Menu
“Why does God allow suffering”? I’m guessing that, like me, you’ve often heard this question asked. Or perhaps you’ve asked this yourself. I certainly have. The question is a tough one, but an important one, too. Making meaning out of struggle is essential in the spiritual journey. Many answers are often offered: God brings suffering to build our faith. Or God brings suffering because we have not been obedient to God’s Divine purposes. Or suffering is the result of humans “falling” from Grace in the garden of Eden. Each of these answers seems to create other suffering or blame the person raising the question. None of this helps to facilitate peace, in my experience.
Great theologians across centuries have excavated the question of God and suffering. Clear, easily reassuring answers just don’t seem to exist. While it seems we won’t likely ever have a complete comprehension of God and suffering, I have encountered a few ideas that seem helpful. Joanna Collicutt, psychologist and Episcopal priest makes three key points:
Discernment of the ways these themes play out in our lives is a key endeavor of spiritual growth. Spiritual direction, psychotherapy, mindfulness practices, and communal encounter are among the many paths that facilitate this aim. Maybe it’s the work of a lifetime to be in discernment of these elements.
Victor Frankl, Jewish psychiatrist and noted author, further sheds light on our consideration of suffering and healing. Following a years-long interment in a Nazi concentration camp, Frankl was ultimately freed when the war ended. His experiences in the camp became the basis for the remainder of his life work, which ultimately ended in a school of therapy known as logotherapy. His initial book Man’s Search for Meaning describes the hope, humor, and resilience he witnessed in his fellow campmates. It also puts forth a remarkable, essential response to our why question. Frankl’s view is that the question itself is the wrong one. We ultimately don’t have an answer. What we do have, and can focus on, is the meaning we find in hardship. He suggests that instead of asking why suffering exists, we ask, “How will I respond to my suffering?”
In the following quote, Frankl summarizes this idea beautifully:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” 2
1. Collicutt, J. (2020). Clinical applications of resilience. In Biblical and theological visions of resilience: Pastoral and clinical insights. New York: Rutledge
2. Frankl, V. (2006). Man’s Search for Meaning. Chicago, IL: Beacon Press
