The Non-problem of Suffering

Atheists like to claim that atheism better accounts for a world in which suffering exists than does Christianity. This argument is perhaps best considered slightly differently, as a syllogism similar to the problem of evil:

Premise 1: If God were omnibenevolent (all-good or loving), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipotent (all-powerful), then there would be no suffering in the world because God would want to, know how to, and be able to avoid suffering while still achieving His purposes.

Premise 2: There is suffering in the world.

Conclusion: Therefore, there is no God.

As structured above, the argument is iron-clad, and mainstream Christianity struggles to provide a response, as the God they profess is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent and suffering clearly exists. Generally, Christians counter-argue that suffering is necessary for human growth and development (or for some other good), and that is why God allows it. That, however, is not a sufficient response because it doesn’t explain why an omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent God would not avoid suffering. Such a God would be good enough, smart enough, and powerful enough to achieve whatever ends He desires without inflicting or even allowing suffering.

It turns out there is a Christian worldview—that of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or LDS Church—that has no problem accounting for a world with suffering. According to the LDS worldview, Premise 1 is not totally accurate, and is, therefore, false, thus breaking the syllogism. Hence, the existence of suffering is not at all evidence of God’s non-existence and presents no challenge to an LDS worldview. In fact, an LDS worldview would expect a world with suffering.

Why is Premise 1 not true? Doesn’t the Bible teach such a God? It is true that the Bible teaches that God is omnibenevolent (Psalm 100:5, 1 John 4:8), omniscient (Psalm 145:5, 1 John 3:20), and omnipotent (Genesis 17:1, Job 42:2, Jeremiah 32:17, Matthew 19:26, among others). Mainstream Christianity seems to accept these three characteristics of God in strict terms, which is why such adherents struggle to counter the problem of suffering. However, the LDS worldview suggests a softer interpretation of what it means to be omnipotent. LDS scripture teaches that God is subject to some constraints. As such, scriptures characterizing God as omnipotent should not be taken literally; they should not be interpreted to mean that God is free from any and all constraints. A better interpretation would be that God is omnipotent in the sense that He can do anything that can be done, implying that even He faces some constraints. Following are LDS scriptures specifying some of God’s constraints, teaching that God cannot:

· save us in our sins (Alms 11:37),

· allow mercy to rob justice and remain God (Alma 42:13, 25),

· change and remain God (Mormon 9:19),

· dishonor His promise when we do what He says (D&C 82:10).

How do we reconcile this position with the Bible? Quite easily. Even the Bible directly identifies at least one limitation of God—that He cannot lie (Titus 1:2). Once we accept one constraint, we cannot consider God strictly omnipotent, and, unless the Bible teaches there is only one constraint on God, which it doesn’t, we must be open to further constraints.

Furthermore, a soft interpretation of God’s omnipotence is consistent with the larger story of the Bible, wherein God’s gospel is described and outlined as a way—the way—in which His children can be saved. This way involves faith and works on our part and an atoning sacrifice and grace on God’s part. If God were totally unconstrained, there would be no need for the gospel, faith, works, atonement, or grace—each and all of His children would be saved automatically, regardless of anything they or God did. But that is not what the Bible teaches. Hence, one must conclude that God faces at least some constraints.

Probing the notion of omnipotence reveals an interesting finding—that the idea of an unconstrained being is actually a nonsensical notion. Let’s consider how an unconstrained being, in this case God, would operate. If totally unconstrained, God simply wouldn’t do anything because anything He wanted done would already be done—without any condition requiring Him to do anything. He would effectively just sit there—no interacting with prophets or man of any kind, no waving a wand to part the Red Sea, no answering His children’s prayers. God couldn’t even cause something to happen by simply wishing for it because even needing to wish for it would constitute a constraint. But maybe the universe could somehow simply read God’s mind and act accordingly—but even that involves a constraint, as God would have to have thoughts in His mind first. So an unconstrained God is in a pickle. If he wants something done, he can’t do anything to cause it because that would be operating under constraint. And if He never does anything, then, well, He can’t get anything done. So we see, paradoxically, that an unconstrained being is actually completely impotent, or in other words, maximally constrained. Hence, it is impossible to even imagine or describe an unconstrained, all-powerful being. It’s a nonsensical notion.

So what does all this have to do with suffering? Everything. If God is subject to some constraints, then He can’t simply wave a magic wand and achieve all His objectives. If He could, He would. Instead, there will be some tradeoffs, some sacrifice, some investment in order to achieve His ends. As such, we should expect to see some “undesired” results or conditions in the world, such as suffering and evil. And while we don’t know exactly what those constraints are or how they operate, we can speculate some. For example, it seems intuitive that in order to grow and develop, people need to experience trials and suffering. A weightlifter who wants to gain muscle mass must experience the pain of breaking down muscle tissue in order to grow stronger and bigger. Similarly, the person who lives in an emotional and psychological bubble will not develop resilience. It also seems reasonable to believe that personal growth, self control, and fulfillment come from exercising agency, which opens the door to a world with suffering. That God needs to allow for our agency in order to support our growth is consistent with the scriptures, which portray a God that does not compel or force His children to love and follow Him but rather loves, nurtures, and encourages them to do so while respecting their agency. And this leads to a related but separate point—agency cannot exist, at least not robustly, without suffering. Rational, sentient beings always act to reduce their discomfort and to increase their comfort. If we never experienced any discomfort, why would we ever make decisions? Even a palette of only high comfort-providing options would implicitly include some discomfort in the sense that some of those wonderful options are less wonderful than others and choosing a less wonderful option would be dissatisfying. So, a world with agency must include suffering or discomfort. (Credit to John Zimmerman for this point.) As another example, it seems reasonable to believe that God can’t overly-intervene in our lives without creating undesired ripples. As such, we must be exposed to the natural consequences of our and others’ actions, accidents, natural disasters, and so forth. These seem like plausible constraints God might face—constraints that result in suffering. A worldview that respects these constraints, would fully expect a world with suffering as a means to a higher good, as an unavoidable byproduct of agency, as a prerequisite for agency, and as a result of God’s limited intervention.

Popular podcast atheist Alex O’Connor presents a variant argument to the problem of suffering. He argues that gratuitous suffering is better explained by atheism than by Christianity. To be clear, gratuitous means “uncalled for; lacking good reason; unwarranted” (Oxford Languages as per Google). O’Connor includes the “gratuitous” qualifier in his claim because he seems to accept that unavoidable suffering resulting in a higher order good (or non-gratuitous suffering) is not problematic to the Christian worldview. But this variant argument is equally unsound to the original and doesn’t really add anything to the argument; whether suffering is warranted or not doesn’t really matter in the context of the problem of suffering. If God is omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, then he wouldn’t allow for suffering of any kind. But if God is subject to some constraints, then He may have to allow for suffering and may not be able to control whether that suffering is gratuitous or not. Any suffering that existed, gratuitous or not, would exist only because God couldn’t achieve His ends with less suffering. Let’s consider an analogy. Suppose you want to make a car. Based on the technology available to you, let’s suppose the best solution is an internal combustion (ICE) engine. Such engines require a lot of heat and pressure in order to drive the pistons, which turn the crankshaft, driveshaft, and then wheels. We don’t really want heat and pressure because they require fuel to generate and can be hard on the engine. What we really want is the car to move forward, but we are constrained—we need to create heat and pressure to get the desired effect, so we intentionally create such. Similarly, at times God intentionally uses or allows suffering as a factor to develop our character, to move us forward. Such suffering is warranted or non-gratuitous. In addition, the car’s engine will also create exhaust. The exhaust serves no productive purpose but is rather a byproduct of an ICE engine. In fact, the exhaust is totally undesired, as it causes harm to the environment. However, there is no way to run an ICE engine, and therefore power a car, without the formation and release of exhaust. And so it is with warranted, or gratuitous, suffering—it doesn’t obviously serve a productive purpose and is totally undesired. Both exhaust and gratuitous suffering are unavoidable byproducts of the path to achieving a higher good. Completing this analogy, we recognize that the perfect car would require no heat and pressure and release no exhaust. But that isn’t possible, so we intentionally, though reluctantly, create heat and pressure and reluctantly live with the exhaust. And so it is with God. If He could achieve His ends with no suffering, He would, but constraints don’t allow that. So He sometimes intentionally, though reluctantly, uses non-gratuitous suffering to develop His children and reluctantly lives with gratuitous suffering that serves no direct good but is unavoidable in the journey toward higher ends. So, no, adding the word “gratuitous” to the problem of suffering doesn’t change the nature or power of the argument.

O’Connor also presents another twist on the problem of evil. Recognizing that Christians argue that human suffering is compensated for in mortality through growth and development or in the afterlife through blessings (which, as already established, isn’t a good response to the problem of suffering), O’Connor argues that animal suffering serves no good purpose and is therefore not consistent with a Christian worldview. Atheism, he argues, has no problem accounting for a world rife with animal suffering, for it is exactly what one would expect in a world governed by survival of the fittest. Again, this variant argument doesn’t work against an LDS worldview for the same reason already presented—a constrained God may not always be able to avoid suffering of any form. Surely, if God could have created a world with no animal suffering, while still achieving His ends, He would have. So let’s consider why there must be animal suffering. First, perhaps, animals have souls and spirits, and God wants them to undergo a growth and development process similar to humans. Second, perhaps, in order to fulfill their potential, humans need a world with animals. Said differently, perhaps animals provide growth opportunities for humans. Do I treat a lower form of life with dignity and respect, or do I exert unrighteous dominion over it? Third, perhaps animals provide humans with variety, beauty, and companionship and God felt it good to bless humans in that way, albeit at a cost to animals. Any pet lover will attest to the life-enhancing quality of their pet. Fourth, perhaps animals provide necessary food for human beings. “But couldn’t God have made humans and animals vegetarian, thereby avoiding predator-induced suffering?” one might ask. Perhaps He could have, but that would come with consequences, as ecosystems are highly interdependent. I am not a biologist, so take this argument with a grain of salt, but we do know unambiguously that the current ecosystem works very well for human life. In a world with no predators, significant imbalances would likely result. Overpopulation would likely initially occur, and that could lead to deforestation, which could lead to underpopulation or even extinction of all animals, including humans. So it’s easy to conceive that a constrained God could not make all animal life vegetarian and still achieve His purposes. But even if there were no ecosystem concerns, a vegetarian model still would present a problem to O’Connor’s argument. O’Connor claims that a vegetarian model would result in less animal suffering—less death at the jaws of a lion so to speak. But would it really? I don’t think so. Every creature will eventually die. Without predators, almost all death will be due to natural causes—and such deaths are often ugly. Would you rather die as a Zebra in a matter of minutes at the jaws of a lion or over years with excruciating pain due to cancer? Would you rather die of hunger over a couple weeks as a deer with a broken leg, or would you rather die of malnutrition over months due to an aging body no longer able to sufficiently forage? Death is death and comes in all forms—many full of suffering. So, no, even if God made all animals vegetarian, that would not have eliminated suffering. It probably would have increased it.

LDS theology is friendly to the argument that animals might have spirits and therefore potentially benefit from suffering. In fact, Doctrine & Covenants 77:2 states that beasts have spirits. In addition, Joseph Smith taught that John’s vision in which he saw beasts when he looked into heaven (Revelation 4:6-8) suggest there is an afterlife for animals: “John learned that God glorified Himself by saving all that His hands had made, whether beasts, fowls, fishes or men; and He will glorify Himself with them” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 291). If there is an afterlife for animals, then there is the potential for animals’ mortal suffering to be compensated or to lead to personal growth. And, in accordance with the argument laid out in this essay, such suffering would be unavoidable to achieve these good purposes.

For these reasons, an LDS worldview accounts very well for a world with human or animal suffering.

But does atheism better account for suffering than an LDS worldview? Given that an LDS worldview fully accounts for and even expects a world with suffering, it seems unlikely that atheism better accounts for a world with suffering. I am happy to call it a tie.

But if you want press the issue, one can argue that atheism actually does a very poor job of accounting for suffering. However, such an argument opens a scientific and metaphysical can of worms, which makes me uncomfortable. So consider this a discussion just for the fun of it. Here goes: At first glance, atheism seems to account quite well for suffering. An atheistic worldview incorporates unguided evolution and natural selection, or survival of the fittest, which necessarily involve suffering. But that’s not the whole story—an atheistic worldview suffers from two serious deficiencies. Suffering can exist only in living, conscious beings. So, for atheism to account for suffering, it must also account for life and consciousness. Currently, it can’t. A materialistic worldview doesn’t explain how life first formed from non-life and has absolutely no clue as to how consciousness is created or how it works. But even if we understood these mysteries and could recreate them in a lab (which could happen at some point)—the atheist would have to demonstrate a sufficiently high probability of such phenomena arising from mere chance. But even that wouldn’t suffice. To prove that atheism better accounts for suffering than a Christian worldview, an atheist would need to show that life and consciousness are more likely to arise by mere chance than with the guidance of an intelligent designer. But this is an impossible task because intelligence can only increase the probability of complex creation. Anything that can happen by chance can just as easily happen by chance in a world where God exists, with the added possibility of divine influence. So, to make his case, the atheist must disprove the existence of God, which is also impossible to do. In contrast, a theistic worldview, while it also can’t explain the details of such creations, would expect the creation or influencing of such highly ordered and complex systems from an omniscient designer, who may have used natural processes, such as evolution, as part of His creative process. Admittedly this argument is complex and bleeds from the realm of logic into science and metaphysics, which are beyond my originally intended scope. (Note: credit to Hayden Carroll for the consciousness argument, which he posed to O’Connor in a Jubilee debate in January 2025.)

In conclusion, it is clear that an LDS worldview, wherein an all-loving, all-knowing God subject to some constraints on His power, robustly accounts for a world with suffering. And it is not clear that an atheistic worldview better accounts for such.