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If you are asking that question in general, then it is an interesting one that you could debate for many hours. If you are asking about the God of the Christians, the answer is, because He has revealed Himself in His Son Jesus Christ, who claimed to be God, and whose life bore out that claim. We would ask you to seek the answer to that question – is Jesus who He said He was, and search the New Testament.

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We can’t know for sure why God allowed suffering to come into the world, but much of it is a direct result of our own human sinfulness, e.g. greed, lust, envy, pride – and even where it is not our own sin, it is usually someone else’s. For example drought caused by cutting down of forests to make money for a few, leading to crop failures and hunger. Sin is at the root.

n	Suffering comes because this is a fallen world – it is not how God made it to be, but how sin has twisted it in every way.

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Sometimes God uses suffering to cause us to turn to Him from our own ways; sometimes to discipline His children; sometimes to teach us important lessons about depending absolutely on God for everything. It is usually hard, and often wrong simply to say that suffering was for that reason. Often we only see looking back how God was close to us, helping us through.

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The good news of the gospel is that God has done something about our suffering – Jesus died and rose again so that everyone who believes in Him should have eternal life. That life will be in a new creation when God at last does away with the old, and makes everything new. Then there will be no suffering – especially because there will be no sin.