The question "If God is good and is All, why is there so much suffering in the world?" is age-old. The article by a Sunday School teacher on page 386 of this issue of the Journal indicates the possibilities such a problem presents for a group discussion among young people who know something of the teachings of Christian Science.
This question needs to be answered. Left without a satisfactory explanation, it underlies the rejection of God by many self-styled atheists. Natural faith in the Rightness of justice, goodness, and adequate supply for all is so strong with some people that they rebel against what they observe of the suffering of humanity around them. Believing that pain, the torments of hunger and grief, disease, injustice, and squalid living conditions actually exist but are wrong, they turn against the concept of a supreme power that could either cause or tolerate such conditions for its creations. The most charitable thing they feel they can say of such a deity is that he doesn't exist.
Yet the conclusion that may lead to such a denial of the existence of God is based on a faulty premise and on reasoning developed through speculative theories dictated by the testimony of unreliable witnesses. It is built on the acceptance of the suggestion that there actually is a mortal, material world in which suffering can exist. But, as Christian Science reveals, in truth there is no such world.
