High on the list of objections to Christianity is the problem of evil and suffering. This is not particularly surprising, as one needs to only catch a glimpse of newspapers and news channels. They are brimming with reports of all manner of atrocities and disasters, natural and man-made alike. This ill does not spare any known category under the sun. Rich or poor. Educated or not so educated. Royal or plebeian. Male or female. Whatever category one considers, varying degrees of suffering cut across all strata of human existence. Even the wider set of (non-human) living things are not spared.
Some calamities can be attributed to visible causes, and are subsequently ‘explainable’, but others remain shrouded in mystery. To such grim reality, the Bible speaks. Not in mere intellectual rhetoric or trite religious platitudes, but empathetically and ultimately in Christ, a man of suffering and one familiar with pain (Isaiah 53:3).
For the Christian, suffering brings into focus the question of how an all-powerful, all loving God could possibly exist in the face of pervasive evil and suffering.
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‘Sike Osinuga.