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The Bible tells us that God created a world without sin, death or suffering. Adam’s chose to sin against God and in so doing, brought about the curse of sin on the world. Jesus came to die on the cross to undo the works of sin. Death and suffering is seen as an intruder into the good world that God had created (1 Corinthians 15). Adam and every sinful being in the universe is at fault for the suffering in the world. When Jesus Christ returns at the end of creation, He will defeat death and sin and get rid of suffering. He will judge the world and see to it that justice is carried out for every sin in this world.

At the same time, we know from the bible that God had a reason for allowing suffering and sin in this world. For example, Matthew 10:29 tells us that not one sparrow can die apart from God’s will. All things therefore, including suffering and death, are in a sense part of the very scheme of things that God has willed to happen to accomplish his purpose. Glory of God Colossians 1:16 “All things are created by God and work together for the glory of God.” Job 42:2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”

The ultimate reason why God allows suffering is that all these work together for His pleasure and will. Because God existed before anything else, and created everything, He is not accountable to any external factor. He is the sum of all reasons and all factors. God’s will is the ultimate reason why anything is the way it is. As John Calvin writes, “The will of God is the highest rule of justice, so that what he wills must be considered just, for this very reason, because he wills it. … But if you go further and ask why he so determined, you are in search of something greater than the will of God, which can never be found. [3]” God knows everything and is all powerful, and as maker of the universe, He has already designed it to bring Him the greatest glory. We are only watching a portion of the plan unfold.

Other reasons for suffering in God’s will can include love and restoration. Since the ultimate act of love is for someone to lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13); and since God is love (1 John 4:6,16), it follows that for God to express his overflowing love, God would have to create man-kind, have them fall into sin, and then demonstrate the perfect act of love by redeeming them. God destroys sin, redeems sinful men, calls them friends (John 15:15), and then recreates heaven and earth such that the latter condition far exceeds the prior creation (Revelation 21) in splendour and perfection. This is what some theologians call the “fortunate fall” – where the fall of mankind allows for a future restoration which glorifies God.

In Romans 9, Paul explain that it is God’s sovereign right to choose some for salvation and not others. In explaining God’s purposes, Paul writes, “What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory”. It is to this end of glorifying His Name by both showing His mercy to undeserving sinners and His justice and wrath to other sinners that He allows sin and suffering in this world.

Reference: Clark, G. H. (1987). Predestination : the combined edition of Biblical predestination and Predestination in the Old Testament. Phillipsburg, N.J., Presbyterian and Reformed Pub. Co.