Understanding Why Innocents Suffer
One of the most knotty questions asked by all and sundry is why innocents suffer. This constitutes the most influential argument for disbelief in God. For those who believe in God or His good governance this calls for a response. And countless theologians have struggled to answer. One of the most difficult formulations of this problem – two children of the same father one dying before the age of maturity and one becoming quite old and leading a sinful life earning him hell and the later asking God why didn’t He cause him death with his brother so that he too would have escaped punishment – we find in the story of split between Mu’tazilites and Ash’arities . Much influential modern formulations of it are in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazarov through Ivan and in The Plague by Camus through Dr Rieux. In the days of coronavirus, the latter especially appears striking. The best response from a religious and metaphysical point of view is in the writings of Frithjof Schuon Shaykh Isa Nu...