For every worldview, perhaps the greatest problem it faces is the problem of suffering. I have never met anyone so dishonest that he denies the reality of suffering. Everyone experiences it. All suffer. No one gets a pass.

For some women, it comes in the form of being unable to bear children. For some parents, it comes in the form of enduring the death of their children. My own family endured this, and it was horrible. Even when we ‘lose’ our children while their mothers still carry them, it is excruciating. For other people, suffering comes in the forms of cancer, Parkinson’s, or diabetes. For others, suffering comes in the way of ‘accidents’ involving motor vehicles, or drunk drivers, or death due to another’s crimes. The list could go on and on.

“Why?” we ask. “If God exists; if God is good, then why? How can a good God allow such levels of suffering?” These are all excellent questions, and they deserve to be sufficiently addressed. Though libraries of wisdom have been written on the topic, what I offer below is a streamlined overview, and at the end, the only worldview that answers the problem of suffering.

Worldview:	Problem:	Practitioners:	Means of Dealing with Suffering:
New Age	Suffering	Shirley MacLaine; Swedenborg; Carlos Castenada	Visualization; meditation; crystals; higher consciousness.
Islam	Suffering	Muhammad;  Erdogan (president of Turkey); Osama bin Laden	Jihad (“fight” or “struggle” or “submission”) to obey Allah with a view that one’s works sufficiently merit salvation by the impersonal Allah.
Judaism	Suffering	Noam Chomsky; Saul Bellow; Bernie Sanders	Sabbath observance; obedience to the Torah; prayer; good deeds.
Atheism	Suffering	Lenin; Stalin; Mao; Hitler; Richard Dawkins; Freud; Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood)	Man is material in motion. To complain of suffering is nonsense in a secular worldview. Rocks don’t complain. Cosmic dust does not write symphonies or novels.
Christianity	Suffering	Jesus; C.S. Lewis; Apostle Paul; da Vinci; Billy Graham; Jonathan Edwards; Martin Luther; Flannery O’Connor; John Calvin; Cervantes; Bonhoeffer; Wilberforce	Suffering is real and horrific, but no suffering was more unjust than the betrayal, death, and crucifixion of the only holy one—Jesus. Through sinners’ repentance and faith in the person and finished work of Jesus, the Christ, suffering can and will ultimately be made right. Because Christ lives and intercedes for His people, all who are in Him likewise will live. He is the One who became sin for all who flee to Him in repentance and faith. He lived a life of perfect obedience. He satisfied the wrath of God against sin as the all-sufficient one-time sacrifice. The work of Christ at Calvary is the most important event in history. And suffering can be endured because there is the personal redeeming God over it, and over all things. Man is not just matter in motion, but a soul and body loved by the infinite-personal God.