Book Review: Why God Allows Us to Suffer by Kevin Tewes.

Many theologians and writers had tried to provide reasonable answer to satisfy our never ending question-How could a loving and all powerful God allows pain and evil to dwell on earth?
Some have claimed that suffering is used by God for character building purposes. Others have argued it to be the fair retribution of of wrongful acts or the free- willed decision making by the individual or society around.

Kevin Tewes delves deeper into the problem of pain with a different lens. In Part 1 of the book, he make us to focus on the main four characters of God-all powerful, loving, wise and just.
In Part 2, he freshen up our memory of the story of Creation and Fall and methodologically reason out why pain and evil still exist.

The Great Commandment requires us to love God whole heartedly, and to love our fellow beings with no selfish motives. When we violate the commandment to love, the problem of pain shows up,

God, who made us in His own image wants us to love-the central purpose of human existence. And humanity exists only because God prioritized love over justice when the first act of sin was committed.

Tewes explains it beautifully as follows:
Indeed the problem of pain is unsolvable when one approaches it unmindful of the fact that love cannot occur without the presence of certain prerequisites. When unawareness of this fact is combined with a dismissive attitude regarding the consequence of sin, or a superficial understanding of the nature and character of God, the result is always the same-the conclusion that God is either not powerful enough or loving enough to prevent pain.

A must read book for insightful concepts on the problem of pain and suffering.

I received a complimentary review copy of the book through Bookcrash in exchange for an honest review.