When disasters like that in Haiti occur, and we are confronted with human suffering of the most terrible kinds, people naturally ask how such events can be squared with the existence of God.

This is a reasonable question, and what answers can be given are complex and partial. The starting point for any answer has to be that it is better for God to create a world in which suffering is possible than one in which it is not. In a world in which suffering is possible there are goods that could not otherwise exist: for example, our actions have consequences and so our choices have moral significance, and we become interdependent, forming communities instead of living in isolation. A world without suffering can only be desolate. A world with the possibility of suffering can sometimes be cold and lonely, but it can sometimes be so much more. (more…)