If God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfectly good, why does terrible suffering exist?

This is the problem of evil. It’s probably the strongest argument against God’s existence.

The logic is simple:

A perfectly good God would want to prevent suffering. An all-powerful God could prevent suffering. An all-knowing God would see suffering coming and stop it.

But suffering exists. Children get cancer. Natural disasters kill thousands. People torture each other.

So either God isn’t perfectly good, isn’t all-powerful, isn’t all-knowing, or doesn’t exist.

Believers have responses. Maybe suffering builds character. Maybe we need free will, even if people use it badly. Maybe God’s plan is beyond our understanding.

But each response creates new problems. If suffering builds character, why do babies suffer? They can’t learn from pain. If free will matters so much, why not create beings who freely choose good? And if God’s plan is mysterious, how can we call God good by any standard we understand?

The problem isn’t that evil proves God doesn’t exist. It’s that evil makes God’s existence much less likely than believers claim.

I think this is why so many smart, thoughtful people lose their faith when they really confront suffering. Not because they’re angry at God. Because the math doesn’t work.

Either the world is exactly what you’d expect without a benevolent creator — sometimes beautiful, often brutal, entirely indifferent to our pain.

Or God exists but allows horrors for reasons we can’t fathom.

One of these explanations is simpler than the other.

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