Why People Don’t See the Good Coming out of Suffering

William Rowe in his article devoted to the problem of evil objects the existence of god for he allows suffering of innocent people. This is a valid objection, but since there is an almighty, all knowing and all loving god, suffering must exist without people’s perception. God also does not choose the humans who must suffer and who must not.

God does not discipline the evil and recompenses the good. The good do suffer, because of that the sinless suffer as well, but it does not happen without a reason. One can not concentrate only on the suffering and miss the good that it leads to may be an essential part of it. It is common for people to define suffering of those whom they view to be innocent as meaningless for they do not want to believe that such terrible suffering may have sense or good.

Also, an almighty and loving god has motives for this kind of suffering and allows it so as to obtain greater goods. To human beings, the suffering and the good may be related in a way that can not be seen or perceived. From an atheist point of view, William Rowe might also dispute that a theist is not aware of the greater goods that might be obtained or evils that might be precluded, by every example of human or animal suffering. Humans have no way to know if there is actually good that appears from suffering.

Often the good can not be seen, so what would make a human think that there is an underlying good that is greater than the most terrible suffering? If the is really so great, then a person should see and understand it so as to take suffering.