Quite recently, I had a conversation that brought me back to a question humans (I suppose keenly atheists) have been asking for thousands of years.

If God is inherently good, as stated so many times within the Bible, then why does suffering exist? And even deeper than that. Does the idea of good even make sense without the existence of bad?

This short but inspiring conversation took place in an Instagram DM, which had moved from a group chat after I brought about the idea of a particular theory. We had agreed that the universe seems to be governed by a certain set of laws and limitations that can be measured. And so I asked that perhaps we were in agreement on simulation theory as well. To which he denied. Thereafter, he invited me to a one-on-one discussion.

It started simply. He posed his question to understand mine.

“Hmmm, so you are asking why don’t we live in a utopia if God is good?”

I replied, “Sure, a benevolent God, yes. It’s a paradox.”

He says, “If it was perfect and good, how would we know it’s good?”

To which I respond, “Well, good, I would say, is intrinsic. Not defined by the opposite. If we think about love, we experience it first in most cases before hate. We still identify love, connection, creativity, harmony.”

And here, a game of semantics began, which, admittedly, I had taken a misstep in my explanation.

He writes back, “I disagree. Good is an adjective, not a noun; it describes the nature of something. Love is a noun or verb, it doesn’t have an opposite. The opposite of love is not hate; it’s indifference, which is a neutral state. So my point being, you can’t know good without bad, especially if you have never experienced it.”

I read his message over a few times. He had a point, but I felt that the conversation had gotten away from its base. So I agreed and put forth another view.

“Indifference being the opposite of love makes sense. I agree with you there. But once we start talking about a “good” or benevolent God, it becomes a different conversation. Humans might need contrast to recognize good, but God would not be limited by human psychology.

So the real question is not whether we need bad to understand good. The real question is whether God needs suffering for goodness to exist.

This is where your point about free will comes back in. You said free will is limited, which means humans are not causing suffering through their choices alone. If that is true, then every form of suffering or most would have to be intentional or allowed directly by God.

Which is fine, but it’s still messed up and doesn’t really stay consistent with many other theories and claims of the nature of God.

And also, living in a utopia doesn’t have to be exact. There are certain things we suffer that could just not exist without throwing off the balance of “good” for contrast.” I fire back.

After this response, he retreated to prayer, as it was that time.

Reflection

So, to break it down. His suggestion is that human beings can only recognize good because bad exists. Without suffering, good would lose meaning. Without darkness, we would not understand light.

I believe that is a very human way of interpreting the world, and in many ways it is accurate. Our minds rely heavily on comparison. The principle of polarity.

Unfortunately, that framework fails when applied to a divine being. When we talk about God, we speak of something beyond human perception, beyond human thought patterns, and beyond the structure of our experience.

That shifts the framework in its entirety. The question is no longer whether humans need contrast. The real question becomes,

Does God need suffering in order for goodness to exist?

I think it’s a fair question to ask of an omnipotent, gracious, benevolent God. And to that, I have yet to receive a response from my friend. Perhaps he is still at prayer.

But that is where our conversation took an interesting turn. And it would have been quite an insightful turn out. I plan to give an update if we are to ever pick up where we left off.

Another thing he mentioned was that free will does not exist. If that is true, then we are not deliberately choosing to suffer. This raises another layer of complexity. If God is infinite, benevolent, and completely unrestricted, would a being like that require suffering to define goodness? Perhaps there are restrictions to an almighty power?

At any rate,

This is where my own reflection began.

Humans rely on contrast. We understand joy more fully after pain. We appreciate peace more deeply after chaos. Our perception of good is often shaped by the absence of it. However, that does not mean good only exists because bad exists. It means our sense of meaning is shaped through experience.

A divine being, one not limited by human perception, would not need suffering as a reference point. Goodness could stand on its own. Love, harmony, joy, and compassion do not need an opposite to be real. They can exist as their own complete qualities without comparison.

Suffering does play a role in the human experience. It forces introspection. It strengthens empathy. It reveals our values and our inner structure. It can push us toward growth even if we never chose it. Yet that does not automatically mean suffering should be required by divine intention.

This conversation helped me realize something important about perspective.

When we talk about God, we often give human limitations a divine label. We assume God thinks the way we think. We assume God learns the way we learn. We assume God values contrast the way we value contrast. It may be that the human experience of suffering says more about the way we understand reality than it does about what God requires or desires.

My takeaway is not that one of us was right or wrong. Instead, the conversation revealed something deeper about the way we search for meaning. We use our emotions, our analogies, and our limited understanding to reach for something that exists far outside our full comprehension. Of course.

So the question I am left with is not simply “Why does suffering exist?”

It is something more personal. What does our need to explain suffering reveal about us? What does it reveal about the universe and God?

As always, thanks for reading.