If God is truly all-good and all-powerful, then why is there so much suffering in our world? Why do the wicked prosper, while the virtuous falter? If God loves us, then why are we compelled to undergo the trauma of death? Derived from the Greek words for God (theos) and justice (dike), theodicy is the quest to answer such questions and “justify the ways of God” in the face of his seeming indifference toward suffering. Theodicy strives to reconcile three realities: God’s omnipotence, God’s justice, and the fact that people still suffer and die.

Theodicy involves a wide range of issues, including natural calamities, the underserved suffering of the most innocent, the prosperity of the wicked, the appearance of divine malice, and the threat of eternal punishment (Crenshaw, Defending God: Biblical Responses to the Problem of Evil, 17). Since time immemorial, theodicy has been a challenge faced by mankind and the subject of reflection in philosophical and religious traditions the world over. This concern becomes more intense for Christians, who profess faith in the Lord as “the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations” (Deuteronomy 7:9), [1] and who affirm that God is love (1 John 4:16) (Crenshaw, Defending God: Biblical Responses to the Problem of Evil, 17). The Bible not only casts the problem of evil into sharp relief but also serves as a uniquely privileged locus for understanding how to confront it.

Scripture does not give one “right” answer to the problem of evil, but rather provides a rich tapestry of responses. One fundamental reason for this is that theodicy is a constant concern across the canon of the Bible, which itself is a library of texts spanning a plethora of times, places, and cultures. Another has to do with the complexities of life and how the Lord comes to meet every person in the unique circumstances of his life. The inspired authors of Scripture did not write to provide information about God in the abstract, which would satisfy inquiring minds in a classroom. Rather, they intended to recount what God has done, is doing, and will do about evil (Wright, Evil and the Justice of God, 45). The various texts of Scripture reflect the real-life, concrete concerns of people against the horizon of events that transpired many centuries ago, especially the national tragedies that befell Israel in 722 and 587 B.C. The marvel is that the inspired text of Scripture, which is endowed not only with a literal but also spiritual sense, speaks about the problem of evil just as powerfully today as it did to God’s people in past millennia.

I. Traditional Retribution Theology

The issue of theodicy was confronted by authors throughout the biblical world of the Ancient Near East [2]. Egyptian authors typically addressed the issue by attributing the blame to humans (“The Protests of the Eloquent Peasant” (ANET, 407–10), “Suicide” (ANET, 405–7), and “The Instruction of Amenemhet” (ANET, 418–19), although one text accuses the gods of loving death and sleeping peacefully while chaos reigns on earth (“The Admonitions of Ipuwer” (ANET, 441–44). Mesopotamian texts generally offered a wider range of explanations for evil’s presence in the world. For example, while the Sumerian text “Man and His God” states that every human was born sinful (ANET, 589–91), “I Will Praise the Lord of Wisdom” explains that humans simply cannot grasp the will of the gods (ANET, 434–37). Another work, “The Dialogue of Pessimism,” indicts the gods by asserting that social disorder strips life of its sense of meaning (ANET, 600–1). Stronger still is “The Babylonian Theodicy” in which a suffering individual accuses the gods of giving humans “twisted speech” and endowing them with lies, speaking well of the rich while treating the poor man like a thief and even conspiring to “plot his murder” (ANET, 601–4).

The various approaches to theodicy in the Bible resemble their ancient counterparts while exhibiting distinct characteristics owing to the presence of God’s saving words and deeds among Israel. Diverging from other religious currents of antiquity, Israel professed belief in a harmonious, rationally ordered universe governed by a single God who is involved in people’s lives. This outlook provided God’s people with an antidote to the notion of divine caprice, as divine revelation made it clear that life’s misfortunes cannot be attributed to conflicts between deities with opposing wills who capriciously mete out their vengeance upon humanity. Israel believed in a single God who was both omnipotent and just, and on whose shoulders alone rested the responsibility for rewarding virtue and punishing vice. This knowledge led Israel to recognize that any evil in the world must ultimately be traced back to Yahweh in one way or another. The tenet that, in his wisdom, God rewards the good and punishes evil is embedded in the structure of the universe. This is known as the law of retribution, and the body of theological reflection developed on this premise is known as retribution theology.

Retribution theology is a thread that runs throughout the Old Testament, and it has implications beyond the realm of theodicy. It can be seen, for instance, in the lex talionis of Exodus 21:23–27, where the principle of retributive justice authorizes retaliation even as it limits it to “life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.” This same principle can be observed in the conquest narratives in which God’s people are instructed to “devote to destruction” the nations that lay before them and to “show them no mercy” (Deuteronomy 2:34; 7:2; Joshua 6:21). This ancient Near Eastern practice of totalizing herem warfare is reflected in other texts where the Israelites are said to have “utterly destroyed” entire cities—exterminating men, women, children, and animals alike (1 Sam. 15:3–9). Although such practices do not reflect the fullness of revelation in Christ, by the standards of contemporary retribution theology they would have been considered acceptable. Indeed, the Psalmist deemed “blessed” the man who would take the children of his enemies and “dash them against the rock.” This he justified on the basis of the retributive principle: “Happy shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us!” (Ps. 137:8–9) Additionally, Psalm 94 interprets the sufferings of the righteous as temporary divine chastisement that will ultimately lead to deliverance (94:12–15), but declares that the wicked will eventually suffer severe punishment:

He will bring back on them their iniquity 
and wipe them out for their wickedness;
the LORD our God will wipe them out (Psalm 94:23) [3].

Biblical theodicies grounded in retribution theology are especially evident in earlier texts that sought to establish the oneness of God against the backdrop of the regnant polytheistic culture. In a pagan context, individuals might ascribe a specific instance of good fortune to the actions of one deity while evil and suffering were thought to stem from another. Countering this standpoint, a variety of biblical texts reflect Israel’s conviction that Yahweh was directly responsible for everything that befell humans.

A classic statement of this theological vision is enshrined in the Lord’s covenantal promise in the Book of Exodus, where he renews his covenant with Israel while declaring plainly that he will administer vengeance not only upon those who break faith with him, but upon their descendants for generations to come:

The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation (Exodus 34:6–7).

The prophets describe this assurance in vivid detail. Amos, for instance, asks this rhetorical question:

Does evil befall a city,
unless the LORD has done it? (Amos 3:6)

Isaiah, meanwhile, portrays the Lord directly identifying himself as the source of human suffering:

I form light and create darkness,
I make weal and create woe,
I am the LORD, who do all these things (Isaiah 45:7).

Commenting on this very passage, Origen writes that God “calls into existence” corporeal or external evils for the sake of “purifying and training” (Origen, Against Celsus, Book VI, Ch. 56).

For his part, St. John Chrysostom suggested that such passages are best understood through an analogy that likens God to a medical doctor. A physician, he says, should be commended not only when he heals a patient with medicine, but also when he orders him to perform tasks that involve pain: “When he cuts, and when he cauterizes and when he brings his bitter medicines, he is equally a physician” (John Chrysostom, Three Homilies Concerning the Power of Demons, Homily 1, para. 5).  In more elaborate detail, St. John of Damascus explains:

It is, then, customary for sacred Scripture to speak of his permission as an action and deed, but even when it goes so far as to say that God “creates evil” and that “there is not evil in a city which the Lord has not done,” it still does not show God to be the author of evil. On the contrary, since the word evil is ambiguous it has two meanings, for it sometimes means what is by nature evil, being the opposite of virtue and against God’s will, while at other times it means what is evil and painful in relation to our sensibility, which is to say, tribulation and distress. Now while these last seem to be evil, because they cause pain, actually they are good because to such as understand them they are a source of conversion and salvation. It is these last that Scripture says are permitted by God (John Damascene, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book IV, Chapter 19 at 384-385).

Assuming precisely such a distinction, Aquinas in his turn says, “God therefore neither wills evil to be done, nor wills it not to be done, but wills to permit evil to be done; and this is a good” (Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I, q. 19, a. 9 ad 3). According to the Angelic Doctor, God is the primary or universal cause of all things, yet in nature he operates through secondary, creaturely agents whom he at times allows to fail for the sake of bringing about a greater good (Aquinas, ST, I, q. 105, a. 5; I, q. 19, a. 6). 

Even with these distinctions in mind, some instances of theodicy offered by Old Testament retribution theology pose exceedingly difficult challenges for modern readers. For instance, consider those times when God seduces people in order to exact retribution upon them: the pharaoh of the Exodus whose heart he hardens (Exodus 4:21; cf. 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 14:8, etc.); King Ahab, who was set up to fail when the Lord sent a “lying spirit” to deceive him (1 Kings 22:19–22; cf. 2 Chronicles 18:21ff); King Saul, who suffered torment through an “evil spirit from the Lord” (1 Samuel 16:14; cf. 18:10; 19:9), and King David, whose sinful census apparently resulted from the Lord having “incited” him to do it (2 Samuel 24:1). However, once monotheism had been firmly established in Israelite thought, some of these actions would no longer be attributed to Yahweh, but rather to an intruder in the created order: the devil, or Satan. A notable instance of this can be seen in the Chronicler’s rewriting of 2 Samuel, in which he attributes the instigation of David’s census not to God but to Satan (1 Chronicles 21:1) [4].

While the Old Testament frequently assumes that the law of retribution operates by divine decree, at other times it is described as a fundamental law of the universe. This is especially evident in the wisdom literature. The Book of Proverbs offers a succinct summary of the dynamic:

The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight,
but the wicked falls by his own wickedness…
The righteous is delivered from trouble,
and the wicked gets into it instead (Proverbs 11:5,8).

Misfortune pursues sinners,
but prosperity rewards the righteous (Proverbs 13:21).

The Psalmist speaks from this same deep conviction. Indeed, the Psalter itself is framed around the belief that “the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish” (Psalm 1:6). Shaped by a lifetime of experience and observation, the sacred author reflects:

I have been young, and now am old;
yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken
or his children begging bread…
The righteous shall be preserved for ever,
but the children of the wicked shall be cut off.
The righteous shall possess the land,
and dwell upon it for ever (Psalm 37:25,28–29).

As this last line intimates, personal misfortunes were often interpreted as Yahweh actively punishing his people for their transgressions, and these failures alienated them not only from God but also from themselves, one another, and their land. These effects are famously portrayed in the opening pages of the Bible. Affirming a primeval event in figurative language (CCC, 390), the Book of Genesis deploys retribution theology to account for a wide variety of struggles faced by humans across the ages, including the problem of why women must suffer birth pains and feel attraction for men in spite of the harsh treatment they received from them in the ancient world (Gn 3:16); why farmers must eke out a living by the sweat of their brow, facing interference in their labor from thorny vegetation (Gn 3:17); and even why man must die and turn to dust (Gn 3:19). Genesis firmly locates the source of these trials in human disobedience, understanding them as curses that culminate in Adam, who as the first man also represents Israel and mankind at large, being exiled from the paradisical land where he once enjoyed communion with God (Genesis 3:23) [5].  

As the Pentateuch comprises a coherent whole in which each book is intended to be read in light of the others, the most poignant expression of the aforementioned curses is found in the Book of Deuteronomy. This final book of the Torah develops a theodicy intended to explain the theological rationale for Judah’s earth-shattering defeat at the hands of the Babylonians in the 6th century B.C. Why would the God who swore an everlasting covenant with his people allow his very own Temple to be destroyed and his people forcibly removed from the land he had promised them? According to the Pentateuch, the reason for the Exile is quite simple: Israel had sinned, and God punished her by means of the nation’s foes (Brooks and Neal, “Theodicy,” in The Lexham Bible Dictionary).

Within the community of believers who either had been exiled (or anticipated it as a likely prospect), this “theodic settlement” dictated that wrongful actions produced negative consequences [6]. The people’s affliction was thus interpreted as God’s rightful punishment for sin—in other words, as retribution:

If you are not careful to do all the words of this law which are written in this book…then the LORD will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting…And as the LORD took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the LORD will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you; and you shall be plucked off the land which you are entering to take possession of it (Deuteronomy 28:58–59, 63).

Whether delivered by Moses in the autumn of life or placed upon his lips centuries later as a prophecy after the fact (Harrington, Why Do We Suffer? A Scriptural Approach to the Human Condition, 22), this extensive homily represents the sacred author’s effort to make sense of the tragedy that had befallen Israel and to provide a program for the renewal of God's people. Since Israel’s suffering stemmed from her failure to heed God’s commandments and worship him faithfully, the path to restoration lay in right worship and vigilant obedience to his laws.

The Pentateuch is by no means alone in this approach to theodicy in time of national tragedy. This application of retribution theology is evident also in Isaiah, where the prophet challenged the people:

If you are willing and obedient,
you shall eat the good of the land;
But if you refuse and rebel,
you shall be devoured by the sword;
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken (Isaiah 1:19–20).

In passages that recall the people’s cannibalism during times of siege, Jeremiah and Ezekiel paint an even more dire picture of the consequences of disobedience:

Because the people have forsaken me, and have profaned this place by burning incense in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents, and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal…I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and their daughters, and every one shall eat the flesh of his neighbor in the siege and in the distress, with which their enemies and those who seek their life afflict them (Jeremiah 19:4–5, 9).

And because of all your abominations I will do with you what I have never yet done, and the like of which I will never do again. Therefore fathers shall eat their sons in the midst of you, and sons shall eat their fathers; and I will execute judgments on you, and any of you who survive I will scatter to all the winds. Wherefore, as I live, says the Lord GOD, surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things and with all your abominations, therefore I will cut you down; my eye will not spare, and I will have no pity. A third part of you shall die of pestilence and be consumed with famine in the midst of you; a third part shall fall by the sword round about you; and a third part I will scatter to all the winds and will unsheathe the sword after them (Ezekiel 5:9–12).

Later in his book, Ezekiel suggests that this cannibalism was not only permitted by Yahweh but indeed positively willed by him, as he had to humble his people in order to bring about their repentance:

Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not have life; and I defiled them through their very gifts in making them offer by fire all their first-born, that I might horrify them; I did it that they might know that I am the LORD (Ezekiel 20:25–26).

The repeated reference to cannibalism is no mere metaphor invented by the prophets Scripture elsewhere testifies to its practice during times of desperation in the cities of Samaria (2 Kings 6:26–29) and Jerusalem (Lamentations 2:20; 4:10). Moreover, extrabiblical sources such  as Josephus document this form of atrocity during the Roman siege of Jerusalem, and a similar scenario can be found in the Vassal Treaties of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria in the late-7th century B.C. (Keener and Walton, eds., NIV Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible: Bringing to Life the Ancient World of Scripture, 1257). Commenting on the above passage from Ezekiel, Ambrose affirmed that the reason God refrained from providing Israel with “good” laws is not that he is an unjust ruler, but rather that “He cannot impart perfect precepts to an imperfect age, because it cannot bear them” (Ambrose, Letter 68, in Letters, 1–91, 406). For his part, Chrysostom acknowledged that these dictates do not so much promote virtue as serve to “curb” Israel’s vice (John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians, Homily 7, para. 9).

As will be discussed below, certain currents within ancient Jewish thought would eventually challenge the hegemony of retribution theology. Nevertheless, it is important to note that this ancient perspective on theodicy remained a pillar of Israelite thought even up to the early second-century B.C. This is especially evident in the wisdom book Sirach, also known as Ecclesiasticus.

Integrating Israel’s more internationally focused wisdom tradition with salvation history and the unique patrimony of the Torah, author Ben Sira’s approach to theodicy resembles the traditional retribution theology of Proverbs and other ancient Near Eastern wisdom writings. Despite writing late in the Old Testament period, Sirach held out no hope for rewards and punishments after death, saying that “from the dead, as from one who does not exist, thanksgiving has ceased” (Sirach 17:28) and that “a son of man is not immortal” (Sirach 17:30). From Sirach’s vantage point, the inheritance of a dead man is “creeping things, wild beasts, and worms” (Sirach 10:11), and death itself a state from which “there is no coming back” (Sirach 38:21). The deceased thus warn the living that everything that is theirs will eventually pass on to someone else. “Yesterday it was mine, and today it is yours” (38:22). Yet, rather than lamenting our finite condition, Sirach views the brevity of life as a form of mercy, saying, “Death is better than a miserable life, and eternal rest than chronic sickness” (Sirach 30:17; 17:29).

A unique contribution of Ben Sira is his application of retribution theology to a domain that earlier writers by and large avoided: natural disasters. From the perspective of this sage, it is inappropriate to question God’s motives when it comes to such events. “No one should say, ‘What is this?’ or ‘Why is that?,’” for one very simple reason: “At his command whatever pleases him is done, and none can limit his saving power” (Sirach 39:17–18). Insisting that “everything has been created for its use” (Sirach 39:21), Sirach held that God from the beginning created good things for good people and evil things for sinners (Sirach 39:25). Thus, even things that are fundamentally good—water, fire, flour, milk, honey, etc., “are for good to the godly, just as they turn into evils for sinners” (Sirach 39:27). Accordingly, Ben Sira holds that fire, hail, winds, famine, the teeth of wild beasts, scorpions, and vipers have all been “created for vengeance” in order to “calm the anger of their Maker” (Sirach 39:28–31). In sum, this approach to theodicy seeks to preserve the sovereignty and justice of God by professing that “the works of the Lord are all good.” As a result, he insists, “No one can say, ‘This is worse than that,’ for all things will prove good in their season” (Sirach 39:33–34).

Sirach was aware of potential challenges to his position. For instance, he observed firsthand that the Lord could be slow to punish sinners for their misdeeds, yet warned them not to say, “I sinned, and what happened to me?” The danger here is that, by being presumptuous of God’s mercy, the sinner will “add sin to sin” while forgetting that “both mercy and wrath are with him [God], and his anger rests on sinners.” As Sirach understood well, this is crucially important because the day of judgment will arrive like a thief in the night, bringing with it a deathbed reckoning: “Suddenly the wrath of the Lord will go forth, and at the time of punishment you will perish” (Sirach 5:4–7).

Something similar can be said concerning the Wisdom of Solomon, also known as the Book of Wisdom. Recognized as part of the Deuterocanon and generally regarded as the final book of the Old Testament to be composed, this first-century B.C. work presents its theodicy firmly within categories of retribution theology. This text tells us that the ungodly people who oppress the righteous poor man have “summoned death” by their words and deeds, making death a friend with whom they went so far as to “made a covenant” (Wisdom 1:16). According to this text, with its background in the Fall narrative of Genesis 3, God created man for immortality but did not make death. Yet, death entered our world through “the devil's envy” (Wisdom 1:13; 2:23–24).

Wisdom unequivocally declares that the ungodly will eventually receive a stern recompense for their sins. Evildoing invites death and destruction (Wisdom 1:12). Accordingly, those who mistreat the righteous and rebel against the Lord “will be punished as their reasoning deserves,” for despising wisdom renders their lives “miserable,” their hope “vain,” their labors “unprofitable,” their works “useless,” their wives “foolish,” their children “evil,” and their offspring “accursed” (Wisdom 3:10–13). Whereas good labor will be renowned and produce fruit without fail, the text proceeds to note that “children of adulterers will not come to maturity, and the offspring of an unlawful union will perish” (Wisdom 3:15–16). It is at this juncture that we observe a striking similarity with Sirach. Wisdom acknowledges that it may take a long time before the Lord finally carries out his promised judgment:

Even if they live long they will be held of no account,
and finally their old age will be without honor.
If they die young, they will have no hope
and no consolation in the day of decision.
For the end of an unrighteous generation is grievous (Wisdom 3:15–19).

Offering encouragement to the faithful who may feel inclined to indict God for not upholding the traditional principles of retributive justice, Wisdom expands upon its earlier affirmation that “righteousness is immortal” (Wisdom 1:15), responding here to the baffling scenario of the wicked man who manages to live a long life:

Better than this is childlessness with virtue,
for in the memory of virtue is immortality,
because it is known both by God and by men (Wisdom 4:1–2).

The author goes on shortly thereafter:

But the righteous man, though he die early, will be at rest.
For old age is not honored for length of time,
nor measured by number of years;
but understanding is gray hair for men,
and a blameless life is ripe old age (Wisdom 4:7–9).

Even as this text envisions a childless person attaining a form of immortality through virtue, such a man might nevertheless be tempted to envy the wicked who have children through whom they might live on after death. Addressing just such a concern, Ben Sira expounds:

But the prolific brood of the ungodly will be of no use,
and none of their illegitimate seedlings
will strike a deep root or take a firm hold.
For even if they put forth boughs for a while,
standing insecurely they will be shaken by the wind,
and by the violence of the winds they will be uprooted.
The branches will be broken off before they come to maturity,
and their fruit will be useless,
not ripe enough to eat, and good for nothing (Wisdom 4:3–5).

It is here that Wisdom’s retribution theology introduces something critical and new, as it locates the reward for virtue after death. The deaths of the righteous having been accepted by God “like a sacrificial burnt offering” (Wisdom 3:6), the sacred author attributes this great hope to them:

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be an affliction,
and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace…

In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
and will run like sparks through the stubble.
They will govern nations and rule over peoples,
and the Lord will reign over them forever (Wisdom 3:1–3,7–8).

Even as Wisdom does not present us with the full eschatological vision of Heaven and Hell that will later emerge in the New Testament, the book’s novel manner of extending retribution theology in the direction of a post-mortem recompense is highly significant.

II. Resignation to Fate and Rejection of Conventional Wisdom

As we have seen, retribution theology remained a cornerstone of Israelite theodicy throughout the Old Testament period. Coexisting alongside it, however, was a perspective that affirmed the complete opposite: namely, that God is indifferent to human morality, yielding authority to chance and, ultimately, to death. While it makes an appearance in multiple texts, the epitome of this outlook is embodied in the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Traditional retribution theology placed unwavering confidence in the proposition that God, either immediately or in the distant future, always rewards virtue and punishes vice. Ecclesiastes, however, examines the data of experience and flippantly remarks, “Who knows?” (Ecclesiastes 2:19; 3:21; 6:12; 8:1). Reflecting on a long life spent in the pursuit of wisdom, the Preacher concludes that wisdom is superior to folly. However, this does not stop him from remarking:

In my vain life I have seen everything; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evil-doing (Ecclesiastes 7:15).

I said to myself, “What befalls the fool will befall me also; why then have I been so very wise?” And I said to myself that this also is vanity. For of the wise man as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise man dies just like the fool! So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a striving after wind (Ecclesiastes 2:15–17).

Indeed, at certain points within this book the sacred author takes his skepticism one step further, declaring confidently that everything in this world—including hope for an afterlife—is futile:

For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again (Ecclesiastes 3:19–20).

As for those who have died, the Preacher issues a dark claim: “[T]he dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, but the memory of them is lost.” He adds that “there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going” (Ecclesiastes 9:5,10). Prompted by disillusionment with the apparent failure of God’s promised justice to materialize in real life, passages like these reflect a strand of the biblical tradition that has been characterized as anti-theodicy—that is, a view in which all hope for the triumph of divine justice is abandoned (Crenshaw, “Theodicy,” 444–47).

A devout student of Sacred Scripture, Pope Benedict XVI constantly reiterated the Church’s belief that study of the sacred page is “the soul of sacred theology” (Second Vatican Council, Dei Verbum, 24). This pontiff believed that approaching theodicy from the perspective of Scripture was essential for grasping the overall truth of things. Having reflected on this theme numerous times throughout his ministry, Benedict found it highly significant that the supremacy of retribution theology first began to erode during a time of national crisis— Israel’s captivity in Babylon:

The early wisdom of Israel had operated on the premise that God rewards the righteous and punishes the sinner, so that misfortune matches sin and happiness matches righteousness. This wisdom had been thrown into crisis at least since the time of the Exile. It was not just that the people of Israel as a whole suffered more than the surrounding peoples who led them into exile and oppression—in private life, too, it was becom­ing increasingly apparent that cynicism pays and that the righteous man is doomed to suffer in this world. In the Psalms and the later Wisdom Literature we witness the struggle to come to grips with this contradiction; we see a new effort to become “wise”—to understand life rightly, to find and understand anew the God who seems unjust or altogether absent (Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration 212-213).

Though works such as Ecclesiastes may not convey the full vision of God’s justice and mercy, Benedict held that both retribution theology and its eventual repudiation represented important stages in the divine pedagogy. In other words, they were crucial means by which, over many centuries, the Lord prepared Israel to welcome the fulness of revelation in Christ. They continue to retain vital spiritual significance today (CCC, 53; Benedict XVI, Verbum Domini, 42).

The place of Ecclesiastes within the divine pedagogy is described well by St. Bonaventure, who in the Medieval period took the disconcerting claims of this book seriously while seeking to contextualize them within the fullness of revelation in Christ. Like many other Patristic and Medieval interpreters, this saint believed this work to be authored by a faithful Israelite, namely Solomon himself.  Unlike many traditional exegetes but in agreement with the approach more common today, Bonaventure held that the dark statements issuing from Ecclesiastes’ mouth were not merely stated by the sacred author as a foil (for example, to criticize the outlook of an Epicurean philosopher with no faith in God), but represent his genuine perspective, reflective of a time when man could not know with certainty whether virtue would be rewarded or not (Bonaventure, Expositio in Ecclesiasten, 9:656).  As far as Ecclesiastes could tell living prior to the Incarnation of Christ, there was no firm reason to hope that human beings could ever escape Sheol (Latin inferos, Greek Hades). Writing of this underworld realm of the dead, St. Bonaventure said, “Sinners go there, and everyone [went there] before the advent of Christ, as regards the outer part (limbum)” (Bonaventure, Expositio in Ecclesiasten, 9:656).  Given this, the Seraphic Doctor refrained from blaming Ecclesiastes too harshly for his ostensibly rash assertions. 

Important as its historical role was, the significance of Ecclesiastes extends beyond this, remaining as relevant as it was millennia ago. In other words, this dimension of Israel’s faith journey has a significance insofar as it sheds profound insight into every man’s walk with God [7]. The Book of Ecclesiastes is important for today’s believer because every person who embarks on the pilgrimage of faith participates in the mystery of Israel’s ancient journey. The Preacher realized what St. Paul would teach centuries after him: that each of us must at some point come to understand that God alone suffices and that everything is vanity or “refuse” without him (Philippians 3:8). Like Ecclesiastes, every believer must undergo a process of questioning, struggle, and trust at some point in their walk of faith. The fact that the Church deemed Ecclesiastes worthy of a place within the canon of Scripture underscores the veracity of this assertion. The great dignity of suffering and prolonged hardship is real, and those who walk in darkness are following the footsteps of God’s people across the ages (Wright, “Ecclesiastes,” in The New Jerome Biblical Commentary, 31:8).

Yet, as we will observe when examining the next text, this message is not the only message of Ecclesiastes in its final canonical form. Despite this book’s persistent and emphatic rejection of traditional retribution theology, Ecclesiastes includes an epilogue penned by a later author who gave final shape to the book with a reassertion of the traditional viewpoint. While this message stands in tension with the overall thrust of the book, the epilogist’s inspired words convey a vital message that eluded its protagonist: that, in the end, what truly matters is to “fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:13–14).

III. Voicing Lamentations and Interrogating God

If Ecclesiastes approaches the problem of theodicy with an attitude of sober resignation, other authors confront it with raw anger and lamentation.

Numerous passages in the Old Testament present indictments of God, questioning his righteousness in the face of a lived experience that appears to discredit it. This can be seen in the historical books, as when Moses exclaimed: “O LORD, why hast thou done evil to this people? Why didst thou ever send me?” (Exodus 5:22) In the same vein, Elijah cried out: “O LORD my God, have you brought calamity even upon the widow with whom I sojourn, by slaying her son?” (1 Kings 17:20) Gideon the judge sharply challenged an angel’s assurance of God’s help: “Please, sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this befallen us? And where are all his wonderful deeds which our fathers recounted to us?” (Judges 6:13).

The biblical wisdom literature not only questions God’s goodness but outright accuses him of wrongdoing. Job casts numerous allegations against God, including the following: “You have turned cruel to me; with the might of your hand you persecute me” (Job 30:21). An audacious willingness to question God is present even among his prophets. For instance, Habakkuk challenges God: “LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?...Why do you look on faithless men, and are silent when the wicked swallows up the man more righteous than he? (Habakkuk 1:2,13) Meanwhile, Jeremiah rebukes God for lying to his people: “Ah, Lord God, surely you have utterly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, ‘It shall be well with you’; whereas the sword has reached their very life” (Jeremiah 4:10). Even so, Israel’s very act of scolding God occurs amidst a deep-seated belief in his justice:

Righteous are you, O LORD, when I complain to you;
yet I would plead my case before you.
Why does the way of the wicked prosper?
Why do all who are treacherous thrive? (Jeremiah 12:1–2)

As these texts illustrate, an enduring tradition of questioning God’s justice was a significant facet of life in ancient Israel. Undoubtedly, however, the most pointed and concentrated example of this practice is found in the lamentation psalms. Like other Old Testament authors, the Psalmist frequently implores God to reveal how long he must suffer through his miserable circumstances:

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me for ever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain in my soul,
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? (Psalm 13:1–2)

While the identity of the Psalmist’s “enemy” is not always abundantly clear, sometimes the reader can tell that he is operating within a definite historical context. As in the case of some other theodicy texts discussed above, these lamentations were uttered in the aftermath of the Babylonian Exile. In Psalm 89, for instance, the Psalmist charges God with breaking his covenantal oath by letting the city of Jerusalem be destroyed:

But now you have cast off and rejected,
you are full of wrath against your anointed.
You have renounced the covenant with your servant;
you have defiled his crown in the dust.
You have breached all his walls;
you have laid his strongholds in ruins.
How long, O LORD? Will you hide yourself for ever?
How long will your wrath burn like fire? (Psalm 89: 38–40,46)

Along the same lines, Psalm 79 vividly recalls the devastation surrounding Jerusalem’s fall to the Babylonians:

O God, the heathen have come into thy inheritance;
they have defiled thy holy temple;
they have laid Jerusalem in ruins.
They have given the bodies of thy servants
to the birds of the air for food,
the flesh of thy saints to the beasts of the earth.
They have poured out their blood like water
round about Jerusalem,
and there was none to bury them.
We have become a taunt to our neighbors,
mocked and derided by those round about us.
How long, O LORD? Wilt thou be angry for ever?
Will thy jealous wrath burn like fire? …
Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?” (Psalm 79: 1–5,10)

While texts like these have a specific historical backdrop, many others are composed in such a way that they readily apply to anyone praying them, regardless of epoch or geography. For example, while Psalm 22 held significance for its original context and audience, Christians recognize it as the psalm Jesus quoted when he cried out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1). As signaled by its presence in the canon and the Liturgy of the Hours, believers of every age are invited to imitate Christ and make this prayer their own, mindful that our Lord voiced this lament with unwavering trust in the psalm’s hopeful conclusion: “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted” (22:24) and indeed “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD” (22:27).

Another paradigmatic illustration of this dynamic can be found in Psalm 88. Arguably the bleakest text in all of Scripture, the Psalmist here considers himself abandoned by God, cast into “the depths of the Pit” like the slain lying in their grave whom the Lord “remember[s] no more” (88:1–6). Convinced that he is about to be consigned to Sheol, the tortured author then poses this dark, rhetorical question:

Do you work wonders for the dead?
Do the shades rise up to praise you?
Is your mercy declared in the grave,
or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
Are your wonders known in the darkness,
or your saving help in the land of forgetfulness? (Psalm 88:10–11)

As we have seen above, however, this is not to say that the Psalmist has succumbed to the sin of despair. Rather, like the great saints of the Church who endure the dark night of the soul, the sacred author repeatedly turns to God amidst his darkness:

But I, O LORD, cry to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
O LORD, why do you cast me off?
Why do you hide your face from me? (Psalm 88:13–14)

What we observe in these lamentations, then, is not a theodicy in the conventional sense of the term. The version of theodicy in this strand of the biblical tradition does not aim to explain the problem of evil so much as to comfort those who suffer, offering the assurance that the Lord accompanies them amidst their pain and that they can cry out to him from the depths of their souls. In short, the presence of the lamentation psalms in the canon means that believers have permission to ask bold questions of God. They provide the vocabulary for sufferers in every generation to lay bare the depth of their pain before God so that he might transform it into love and thanksgiving (Harrington, Why Do We Suffer?, x). By repeatedly recalling God’s fidelity and mighty deeds in ages past, the Psalms inspire hope that God will once again work wonders for his people today. The Psalmist knew well that every event in life is rich with meaning and opportunities for finding holiness, provided we surrender ourselves to God.

This capacity of the Psalms to put believers into touch with this reality is one reason why this book holds a special place in Catholic piety. The book includes prayers for virtually every situation in life. In the words of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Book of Psalms contains within itself “the whole of Scripture” and “the general matter of the whole of theology” (Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Psalms, Prologue at 21). What is more, the Catholic tradition is aptly expressed by the Angelic Doctor when he teaches us that our greatest “enemy” is not suffering or death, but rather the one who can destroy body and soul in Gehenna. Thus, about the Psalmist who laments the “cords of death” that ensnared him through the machinations of his “strong enemy” and “those who hated me” (Psalm 18:3–5, 17), St. Thomas makes a twofold observation: While the enemy immediately confronted by David in this psalm is his mortal enemy Saul, the passage also has a spiritual sense that is relevant in every age. From this vantage point, the ultimate source of our lamentations should not be the ineluctable prospect of physical death (mors) but rather the avoidable spiritual death of iniquity (iniquitas), whose terminus is Sheol (Infernus). With this in mind, the Angelic Doctor writes of David’s enemies: “Mystically, the powerful are fleshly sins…The hating are demons” (Aquinas, Commentary on Psalms, Psalm 17, no. 123 at 185; no. 133 at 202).

IV. God’s Silence amidst the Unfathomable Mystery of Suffering

Reflecting on the lamentation Psalms offers a fitting segue to another biblical approach to theodicy that does not so much offer an explanation for suffering as it suggests how to navigate it. The most comprehensive, sustained treatment of this perspective—one that accentuates the inscrutable mystery surrounding suffering—is presented in the Book of Job.

Of all the books in the biblical canon, it is Job which most directly and fearlessly confronts the problem of how to reconcile the existence of a just and all-powerful God with the suffering of innocents. As Aquinas notes, the subject of enquiry in this work is that “of the varied and grave afflictions of a specific just man called Job, perfect in every virtue.” As the Angelic Doctor observes, the fact that a just man is afflicted without cause “seems to undermine totally the foundation of providence.” Being such an extreme example of the difficulties bound up with belief in God, Aquinas says that Job’s case is “proposed as a kind of theme for the question intended [for discussion]” and that “the whole intention” of Job is aimed at demonstrating that human affairs are governed by divine providence (Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Book of Job, Prologue at 8).  Aquinas’s commentary thereby sheds light on the role played by the Book of Job within the canon of Sacred Scripture. Like Ecclesiastes, this book raises life’s most poignant questions. It does not intend to resolve them definitively, but it does accomplish something far from vital by putting man into dialogue with God.

The basic plot of Job is straightforward. It opens with a face-off between God and Satan over the question of whether Job is faithful simply because it pays dividends (Bergmann et al., Divine Evil? The Moral Character of the God of Abraham, 184, 195). To prove that Job’s piety is authentic and that he would love God irrespective of divine rewards, God permits the Accuser to test Job by stripping away his wealth, children, and health (Job 1–2). Despite prolonged and intense suffering, Job refuses to give up on God, even as he does forcefully persist in challenging him regarding the issue of why the innocent must suffer. The words of the book’s protagonist often resemble those of the Psalter, as when he laments, “Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power?” (Job 21:7). As the narrative of Job unfolds, we observe a vacillation between hope and despair, deliberately complicating the identification of a singular perspective in the book. At one point, Job expresses confidence that his “redeemer lives” (19:25). More often, his attitude is darker, as when he “cursed the day of his birth” (3:1), wishing he would have died at birth (3:11), loathing his life (7:16), expecting a fate of eternal gloom and darkness (10:18–22), and denying the possibility of ever rising again (14:12).

Meanwhile, Job’s “friends” repeatedly try to offer consolation by invoking traditional retribution theology, insisting that the desperate man’s suffering must stem from some hidden sin. Eliphaz, for instance, attempts to offer Job a pearl of wisdom:

Think now, who that was innocent ever perished?
Or where were the upright cut off?
As I have seen, those who plow iniquity
and sow trouble reap the same.
By the breath of God they perish,
and by the blast of his anger they are consumed (Job 4:7–9).

Not long thereafter, Job is then proffered this advice intended to provide reassurance:

Behold, happy is the man whom God reproves;
therefore despise not the chastening of the Almighty.
For he wounds, but he binds up;
he strikes, but his hands heal (Job 5:17–18).

Job, however, does not experience his sufferings as salutary. He is certain of having done no wrong and thus concludes that the source of his problems must lie in God himself. As we saw above in the case of Ecclesiastes, the Book of Job played a crucial role in the divine pedagogy whereby God gradually exposed the reality that conventional retribution theology alone cannot adequately account for the pervasiveness of evil in our world. Job’s blunt assertions thus frequently resonate with those of Ecclesiastes, as can be seen when he declares:

It is all one; therefore I say,
he destroys both the blameless and the wicked.
When disaster brings sudden death,
he mocks at the calamity of the innocent (Job 9:22–23).

Why would God in his providence permit such seemingly irreverent statements to stand within the canon of Sacred Scripture? As Joseph Ratzinger has written, only the kind of stark reality check that we encounter in Job and Ecclesiastes could enable Israel to grasp that the conventional, Deuteronomic theology of retribution does not provide an ultimate resolution to injustice in our world:

In their different ways, Ecclesiastes and Job express and canonize the collapse of the ancient assumptions…Job and Ecclesiastes, then, document a crisis.  With their aid, one can feel the force of that mighty jolt which brought the traditional didactic and practical wisdom to its knees (Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, 86).

To make a long story short, after countless complaints and interminable debates with his friends, God finally replies to Job after nearly forty chapters of dialogue. And, when the Lord does finally make his appearance, what is striking is that he responds to Job not with an answer but with his own series of questions:

Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!

…Have you entered into the springs of the sea,
walked in the recesses of the deep?
Have the gates of death been revealed to you,
or have you seen the gates of deep darkness? (Job 38:2–5, 6–17).

Not without a touch of sarcasm, the Lord then proceeds to inform Job that he already has the answers to his own questions: “You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!” (Job 38:21) After his initial barrage of counterquestions, God next instructs Job to consider the immensity of his power over chaos in the created order, making it clear that no mortal creature can match his power that is capable of subduing the mythical beast Behemoth (40:15–24) and drawing out the sea monster Leviathan with a fishhook (41:1–34).

At long last, Job has the opportunity to respond, admitting, “I know that you can do all things” and acknowledging that his prior questioning stemmed from ignorance of “things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (Job 42:1–2). Astonishingly, despite never learning the true rationale for his suffering, Job comes to recognize the experience as a genuine encounter with God:

I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes (Job 42:5–6).

In this way, Job’s approach to theodicy sharply diverges from earlier conventional retribution theology. In the end, this book bids us to humbly submit our finite minds to the ineffable mystery of divine justice, which cannot be measured by human standards. In the words of Joseph Ratzinger, “God’s answer to Job explains nothing; rather…it reminds us of our limitations. It admonishes us to trust the mystery of God in its incomprehensibility” (Benedict XVI, Introduction to Christianity, 26). Job did not receive the answer for which he had been longing. However, something deeper within him—and within the hearts of believers in every age—is profoundly nourished through the dialogue presented in this book [8].

Yet, at this point, the text has still not reached its conclusion, for a prose prologue (Job 3:1–42:6.) and epilogue (1:1–2:13; 42:7–17) were later appended to its original poetic body. Through the prologue, the inspired redactor aims to demonstrate, however inchoately, that the source of Job’s suffering was not God but Satan (literally, the satan). Like other authors, Job does seem to accept that humans receive both good and evil at the hand of God (2:10). Yet, without being privy to later distinctions made possible thanks to Catholic theology, the book makes it clear that Job has endured pain not because God is cruel but because he has allowed the Accuser into his life (2:7). The later apocryphal Testament of Job will advance this trajectory a step further, locating the motivation for Satan’s advances not in a desire to win an argument with God but in an act of vengeance against Job for having destroyed a temple dedicated to “the power of the devil, by whom human nature is deceived” (Testament of Job, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments, para. 2-5).

In any event, Job’s canonical ending offers readers a perspective unavailable to the characters in the story: namely, that everything happening to Job is part of God’s plan, even if Job himself cannot perceive it. In the end, the prose bookends of Job affirm what the poetic parts deny, adding a layer to the story that its original author likely never envisioned. The Lord praises Job for speaking well of him and condemns his friends for their failure to do the same, lavishing even more gifts upon Job than he had possessed before (42:10–16). In this way, Job in its final canonical form declares that an answer to suffering indeed lies hidden in the depths of divine providence, though none of the characters in this story were able to comprehend it.

However, the story is not quite over. Most people reading Job in a modern translation would be surprised to discover that believers encountering the book within the Septuagint are privy to even further insights that concern theodicy. For example, the RSV translation based on the Hebrew Masoretic Text of Job 14:14 relays Job posing the pessimistic rhetorical question, “If a man die, shall he live again?” Considering the presence of the Hebrew interrogative marker in this verse, it is clear that this question anticipates the answer “No.” When one turns to the Septuagint, however, we find that this skeptical query has been transformed into a positive affirmation: “If a man dies, he will live again (ζήσεται) after completing the days of his life” (Job 14:14 LXX, author’s translation). Roughly contemporaneous with second century B.C. texts such as 2 Maccabees 6–7, this interpretation emerged within the context of Hellenistic Judaism, in which God’s people finally understood that the definitive answer to evil can only come in the form of resurrected afterlife.

What is more, following the Hebrew conclusion of Job, the Septuagint adds its own appendix to clarify the ultimate lesson that should be gleaned from the foregoing narrative. Whereas the canonical Hebrew text ends, “And Job died, an old man, and full of days” (42:17), the Greek includes several extra verses, one of which is particularly significant for theodicy. From the perspective of this ancient version, merely restoring Job’s fortunes is not enough. After all, being blessed with additional children does not make up for the tragic loss of the others. Aware of this, the Septuagint offers a vision of transcendent hope for fulfillment beyond the grave: “And it is written that he will rise again (ἀναστήσεσθαι) with those whom the Lord raises up” (Job 42:17a LXX, author’s translation).

Especially given the complex redactional history of Job, it is noteworthy that this book—like Scripture as a whole—does not present just one theodicy. The text and the characters within it present different and even conflicting responses to the problem of suffering. Job is a tale of intense agony and desperate questioning. Yet, as the New Testament teaches, it is also a testimony to the power of trust, hope, and perseverance (James 5:11). Although the book’s protagonist periodically succumbs to bouts of despair, he persists in arguing his case before God (Job 13:3) and refuses to yield to his “friends” who advocate for simplistic solutions that he knows from experience to be inadequate. Regardless of which ending one favors, the theodicy presented in this book, with its assurance that God remains in control, occupies a pivotal place within the canon of Scripture. This message challenges believers to embark on a pilgrimage of spiritual transformation in order to learn how to behold the trials of life against the horizon of eternity and the Lord’s unfathomable mercy.

V. The Definitive Theodicy Manifested in Jesus Christ and his Paschal Mystery

As we have seen above, the Old Testament does not present a single solution but rather a panoply of answers to the question of how the existence of a good and all-powerful God is compatible with all the suffering in our world. From the perspective of the fullness of truth revealed in the New Testament, there is indeed one conclusive answer to the problem of evil. It comes when God himself enters into our suffering.

One of the remarkable features of the Incarnation is how God perfects all things in himself, not abolishing but fulfilling what came beforehand. As a result, even as later Old Testament voices stressed its need for its purification, traditional retribution theology is not altogether absent even in the New Testament. As we have seen, Israel’s ancient theodicy emphasized that the wicked must suffer punishment if divine justice is to be upheld. Yet, throughout salvation history, unbounded merciful love is also a hallmark of God’s character. How are these to be reconciled

The New Testament definitively answers this question by explaining that the infinite, eternal God himself entered history and took our punishment upon himself. As a variety of biblical texts testify, Jesus Christ is the innocent servant (ebed) of Isaiah who dies on behalf of his people (Isaiah 52:13–53:12; Matthew 12:18; Acts 3:13–26; Romans 15:8). At the same time, the New Testament identifies Christ as the sacrificial “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (Isaiah 52:13–53:12; John 1:29; Acts 8:32; 1 Corinthians 5:7; 1 Peter 1:19; Revelation 5:6; 7:14). Condensing this perspective, St. Paul says, “Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3).

Jesus Christ is both God and man, priest and victim. St. Paul thus describes him as making “an expiation by his blood” (Romans 3:25). The Apostle also offers thanksgiving to the Lord who “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age (Galatians 1:4). The Letter to the Hebrews is a thorough and eloquent exploration of this idea:

Therefore he had to be made like his brethren in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make expiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered and been tempted, he is able to help those who are tempted (Hebrews 2:17–18).

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:14–16).

In short, the New Testament teaches that Christ has overcome the problem of evil by getting involved in it, taking responsibility for his creation by emptying himself (Philippians 2:7) and bearing the weight of our sins upon his own shoulders (Matthew 8:17; 1 Peter 2:24; cf. Isaiah 53:4–5). In the Middle Ages, St. Anselm of Canterbury endeavored to explain the rationale behind God’s choice of this approach to our salvation, stating that the responsibility of making restitution for sin rests solely with man. Yet no finite creature is capable of making amends for an offense before the eternal God. For this reason, the saint concludes that, because “no one can pay except God, and no one ought to pay except man, it is necessary that a God-Man should pay it” (Anselm, Why God Became Man, Book II, Chapter 6 at 320).

Ultimately, however, the theodicy developed in the New Testament and outlined by Anselm should not be construed as a penal substitution in which a wrathful deity seeks to inflict vengeful suffering upon man. The New Testament’s approach to theodicy does not consist in a theodicy in the conventional sense of the word (i.e., philosophical explanation of suffering), but in a narration of Christ’s total gift of self on behalf of his creatures: “This is my body, which is given for you” (Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24). The Paschal Mystery is the story of how the living, sovereign God deals with evil by letting it do its worst to his own incarnate self (Wright, Evil and the Justice of God, 74). The suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ fulfill the words of Exodus 3:7: “I have seen the affliction of my people…and I have come down to deliver them.” God’s own presence saves mankind from evil.

A recurring theme of Christ’s ministry was the effort to reveal through his words and deeds something about evil that had been only faintly glimpsed in the Old Testament. This is the reality that the evils of sin, suffering, and death, while not desirable in themselves, become occasions for God to act on our behalf. Ancient Israel already had some experience reflecting on this truth, as when the patriarch Joseph, after emerging from a prolonged period of intense suffering, told his brothers, “It was not you who sent me here, but God” (Genesis 45:8) and that “… you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today” (Genesis 50:20). The idea that suffering leads to a greater good is also the message communicated amidst the people’s hardships in the wake of the Exodus:

And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but that man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD (Deuteronomy 8:3).

As the Gospels go to great lengths to demonstrate, Jesus perceived human afflictions as opportunities to manifest the glory of God, specifically through his miracles recorded in the Synoptic Gospels and through his signs narrated in John. In the latter, we witness Jesus not only perform mighty deeds but articulate the reasons behind the suffering that prompted them. For instance, Jesus indicates that he allowed his friend Lazarus to die “for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it” (John 11:4). In another episode, Christ offers a direct challenge to conventional retribution theology, which assumed that someone’s past sin must have been responsible for a man’s blindness from birth. Asked why this individual was born blind, our Lord responds, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be made manifest in him” (John 9:3).

While this interplay is especially evident in the great events of salvation history, Scripture tells us that it also unfolds in the ordinary experiences of life. James, for example, declares blessed those who face existential strife, for “the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” James 1:2–3). Interpreting early Christian persecution through the lens of Israel’s ancient wisdom, the Letter to the Hebrews explains that God allows suffering not despite our status as his children but precisely because of it: “It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline” (Hebrews 12:7, citing Proverbs 3:11–12). St. Paul, meanwhile, says that God allows suffering “to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9). Indeed, in this same letter the Apostle characterizes “this slight momentary affliction” as “preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). In one of his most moving expressions of this truth, he explains that God permits the faithful to experience intense afflictions so that through their lives they might manifest the life of Christ in the world:

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the transcendent power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies (2 Corinthians 4: 7–10).

One of the most important texts to engage in sustained theological reflection on this dynamic is the Letter to the Romans. In this rich epistle, the Apostle connects the onset and intractable spread of death with human sin (Romans 5:12–14), after which he pauses to observe something paradoxical about Adam’s sin revealed only through the Paschal Mystery: namely, “If because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17). St. Paul even goes so far as to affirm that, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). St. Thomas Aquinas would later receive this teaching and formulate it in his own way: “[I]t belongs to His providence to permit certain defects in particular effects, that the perfect good of the universe may not be hindered, for if all evil were prevented, much good would be absent from the universe” (Aquinas, ST, I, q. 22, a. 2). The theodicy latent in these words boils down to one fundamental truth: God allows evil in our world because it offers an opportunity for him to bring even greater good from it.

The most significant instance of this dynamic in history is found in the Paschal Mystery of Christ. The death of God—the greatest evil ever perpetrated in history—paradoxically became the event that led to the greatest good in all of history: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the Scripture’s climactic and definitive theodicy, the manifestation of his righteousness before all men. Remarkably, this revelation is enshrined in the Catholic tradition not only in writing but also in the Church’s prayer. The most solemn liturgical celebration of the year opens with a hymn featuring these poignant words:

O wonder of your humble care for us!
O love, O charity beyond all telling,
to ransom a slave you gave away your Son!
O truly necessary sin of Adam,
destroyed completely by the Death of Christ!
O happy fault
that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!

This leads us to consider a final dimension of Scripture’s treatment of the problem of evil. It concerns an important feature related to the definitive theodicy manifest in the Paschal Mystery. St. Paul puts his finger on this point when he proclaims, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24). To be sure, Jesus offering himself on the cross died “once for all” (Romans 6:10; Hebrews 7:27). Having said this, the complete understanding of redemption within the New Testament includes something further. While Christ’s sacrifice was certainly sufficient to secure the forgiveness of man’s sins, his providence has seen fit to reveal something even more wondrous: salvation in Christ not only heals us, but it elevates and empowers us to share that goodness with others.

In Christ, we are no longer merely contributors to the problem of evil but are also made part of its remedy. While the almighty God in principle could save us without the cooperation of human mediators, the principles of St. Thomas Aquinas reveal why it is more fitting that God makes us participants in his saving work: “It is a greater perfection for a thing to be good in itself and also the cause of goodness in others, than only to be good in itself” (Aquinas, ST, I, q. 103, a. 6). Related to the notion of co-redemption, Aquinas explains why it is that God does not bestow an immortal and impassible body upon believers at the moment of their baptism. According to the Angelic Doctor, God operates in this manner “so that we might suffer along with Christ,” for “if we suffer with him, we may also be glorified with him” (Rom 8:17) (Aquinas, Commentary on the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans, Ch. 8, lect. 3, no. 651). Indeed, it is noteworthy that St. Thomas described our struggles in this life as “suitable for spiritual training,” permitted in order that we may be fully conformed to Christ, receive the dignity of being his instrumental causes of our redemption, and thereby “receive the crown of victory” (Aquinas, ST, III, q. 69, a. 3). In this same vein, St. John Paul II offered his own take on theodicy, articulating why Christ allows us to suffer despite having defeated death once and for all: “[S]uffering is present in the world in order to release love…in order to transform the whole of human civilization into a ‘civilization of love’” (John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris, 31).

Sacred Scripture teaches us that God’s goodness is so great that he ennobles us to become “partakers in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), making his life our own and thereby empowering us to play our own part in Christ’s definitive theodicy. The critical point is that theosis, or divinization, only comes through kenosis—when we follow Christ and make our lives a sincere gift of self, carrying the cross daily (Philippians 2:7; Luke 9:23). By doing this, we not only embark on the path to salvation as individuals but also participate in a greater, cosmic drama. From the biblical point of view, the definitive answer to evil therefore extends beyond the knowledge that the virtuous endurance of trials produces character, leads to joy, and builds hope (Romans 5:1–5). In the light of Christ, we come to recognize that our suffering contributes to the restoration of the entirety of creation in Christ, as it longs to be “set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:19–21).