If God is love, why does pain still exist? The answer may change how you see suffering forever.
When Love Looks Like Suffering
What the problem of evil teaches us about the nature of agape.
The hardest question faith ever faces isn’t about a theological debate or a historical event.
It’s about the child crying in a hospital bed.
The community burying someone far too young.
The good person crushed by circumstances they didn’t deserve.
It’s about suffering.
Carter Scott’s piece this week doesn’t shy away from naming it: the problem of evil is the greatest emotional obstacle to believing in a good God.
But here’s the remarkable thing: when you hold that question up to the light of agape, the answer doesn’t dissolve the mystery. It transforms it.
💔 The Problem Is Really About Love
The classic argument goes like this: How can an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good God coexist with evil?
It’s a question that sounds like logic. But at its core, it’s really about love.
What kind of love would allow pain? If God is love, shouldn’t He act to stop suffering?
C.S. Lewis, in The Problem of Pain, points out where this question quietly goes off track. He writes that we often reduce God’s goodness to mere kindness — a soft, sentimental indulgence that simply wants everyone to have a good time.
But agape — the love described in the New Testament — isn’t that.
- Agape doesn’t remove every obstacle. It enters the obstacle with you.
- Eros seeks its own satisfaction.
- Philia loves what is familiar and safe.
- Agape loves at a cost — freely, sacrificially, without any guarantee of return.
The God of agape isn’t a kindly grandfather smoothing out every path. He is a Father who walks the hard road with His children — and who, as Scott reminds us, may have reasons for allowing suffering that we cannot yet see.
🔑 Three Attributes, One Love
Carter Scott’s exploration of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence is sharp. But when you view these attributes through the lens of agape, they reveal something even deeper:
- Omnipotence — Love That Refuses to Coerce
God could override every act of human cruelty. But if He did, He would destroy the very freedom that makes love possible. A forced choice isn’t a real one, and love cannot be compelled.Agape requires freedom. And freedom comes with risk. God’s decision to allow human choice — even when it leads to evil — isn’t weakness. It’s the cost of creating beings capable of genuine love. - Omniscience — Love That Sees Further Than We Do
Picture a child getting a vaccination. They’re screaming, confused, and feeling betrayed — unable to understand why their parent is allowing the pain.That’s agape, operating beyond our vision. The parent holding the child isn’t cruel. They simply know something the child cannot yet comprehend.God’s omniscience means He sees the full story — the ending we can’t yet imagine. We’re reading one page at a time, but He’s already written the last chapter. - Omnibenevolence — Love That Aims at Eternity
If God created us for eternal communion with Him, then His goodness is measured on a longer timeline than the immediate relief we crave.As Paul wrote, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him” (Romans 8:28).That doesn’t mean nothing will hurt. It means nothing will be wasted.
⚔️ Evil vs. Love — And Why Love Wins
Here’s the most striking truth: evil doesn’t disprove God. It actually requires Him.
Why? Because to call something evil — to declare it morally wrong rather than just inconvenient or unpleasant — is to appeal to a standard that exists outside of human opinion.
Where does that standard come from?
The very fact that suffering outrages us, that injustice cries out for an answer, that we instinctively feel things ought not to be this way — all of that points to a Moral Lawgiver.
And that Lawgiver, the Christian faith claims, is not a distant observer.
He is the God who, in Jesus Christ, entered suffering Himself.
He was betrayed. Abandoned. Beaten. Killed.
And He turned the worst evil in human history — the crucifixion — into the greatest act of agape the world has ever seen.
🌾 The Takeaway for Today
The problem of evil doesn’t have an easy answer. But when you view it through the lens of agape, it becomes something else entirely.
| The Question | The Agape Answer |
|---|---|
| Why does God allow suffering? | Because love requires freedom, and freedom carries risk. |
| Why doesn’t God just fix it? | Because He sees further than we do — and He is working. |
| Does evil mean God doesn’t care? | No — it means He cares enough to walk through it with us. |
| Does suffering have meaning? | Yes — because a God who defines goodness ensures nothing is wasted. |
The problem of evil isn’t a wall that stops faith. In the hands of agape, it becomes a doorway — an invitation to trust a love that’s bigger and more purposeful than our pain.
As Augustine once said, “Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil.”
That is agape.
It’s not the removal of the needle. It’s the arms that hold you while it hurts.