Excellent Video on God and the Mystery of Suffering

Isn't human suffering proof that a just, all-powerful God must not exist? On the contrary, says Boston College Professor of Philosophy Dr. Peter Kreeft. How can "suffering" exist without an objective standard against which to judge it? Absent a standard, there is no justice. If there is no justice, there is no injustice. And if there is no injustice, there is no suffering. On the other hand, if a true, objective standard of justice exists, [which it does] God exists. In five minutes, learn more.

From the transcript:

"All good people are appalled by the sufferings of the innocent. When an innocent person is struck by a painful disease, or tortured or murdered, we naturally feel sadness, helplessness, and often rage.

Many people have claimed that such suffering is a proof that God does not exist. Their argument goes like this:

God is all good and all powerful. Such a God would not permit unnecessary suffering. Yet, we constantly observe unjust suffering. Therefore, at least one of the premises about God must be false. Either God is not all good or He is not powerful. Or He just doesn’t exist.

What’s wrong with this argument?"

[ ... ]

"There are two categories of suffering: Suffering caused by human beings, which we call moral evils, and suffering caused by nature, for instance earthquakes or cancer.

Free will explains how God could be good and allow moral evil. Because God has given people free will, they are free to behave against God’s will. The fact that they do evil does not prove that God is not good..."

"We can talk meaningfully about suffering being ‘unnecessary’ or wrong only if we have an underlying belief that a standard of right and wrong objectively exists. And if that standard really exists, that means there is a God.

Moreover, the believer in God has an incomparably easier time than the atheist psychologically as well as logically in dealing with the problem of natural suffering.If you accept that a good God exists, it is possible to also believe that this God somehow sets things right, if not in this world, then in the next...."

Video courtesy of PragerU a treasury of information and enlightenment.