TL;DR:
Religious traditions offer diverse explanations of suffering and ways to respond. Hindu traditions discuss karma and liberation; Buddhism addresses craving and attachment; Islam emphasizes patience and trust in God during trials. Sikhism and Judaism emphasize service and responsibility, while some traditional religions address spiritual causes. Christianity offers hope through Christ, God's sustaining presence, and the promise of redemption. Christians are called to pray, accompany people in pain, and work to relieve suffering.
Suffering is part of the human condition. From a Christian perspective, suffering belongs to a world affected by the Fall (Genesis 3). Religious traditions differ internally, and their understandings of suffering are more complex than this brief overview can convey.
Many Hindu traditions understand suffering in relation to karma, the consequences of past and present actions, and samsara, the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. This is more complex than describing suffering simply as punishment for misdeeds in a previous life. Responses to suffering include spiritual knowledge, devotional worship, fulfilling one's duties, and compassionate service.
Hindu traditions offer diverse understandings of Brahman, ultimate reality, and of the divine. Many emphasize divine compassion and the possibility of liberation, or moksha, from the cycle of rebirth. Acceptance of one's circumstances need not mean indifference to the suffering of others.
Buddhism identifies craving, attachment, and ignorance as sources of suffering. Its teaching on dukkha includes the pain, dissatisfaction, and instability of ordinary existence. The Four Noble Truths affirm both the reality of suffering and the possibility of its cessation through the Noble Eightfold Path.
Nonattachment means relinquishing possessive clinging, rather than withdrawing from caring relationships. Buddhist practice includes ethical conduct, meditation, wisdom, loving-kindness, and compassion for those who suffer.
Muslims understand suffering as a possible test of faith and an occasion for patience, repentance, purification, and spiritual growth. They seek to respond with trust in Allah, prayer, and care for those in need. Hope in God's mercy and the life to come provides comfort.
Faithfulness does not guarantee freedom from suffering; Muslims are called to respond to trials with patience and trust in God.
Sikh teachings connect suffering with self-centeredness and attachment while encouraging remembrance of God, trust in His will, and courage in adversity. Selfless service, or seva, is central to Sikh life. Sikhs are called to serve those in need and resist cruelty and injustice.
Jewish traditions offer varied responses to suffering, including lament, prayer, questioning, and trust in God's covenant. The book of Job challenges the assumption that suffering always results from a person's wrongdoing. Acts of loving-kindness, social justice, and communal support express responsibility for those who suffer.
In some Indigenous and traditional religious settings, suffering may be understood in relation to disrupted relationships with spirits or ancestors, curses, or violations of communal obligations. Responses may include healing rituals, reconciliation, protective practices, and efforts to restore harmony. These traditions are diverse, and spiritual explanations need not exclude recognition of physical or social causes.
The Christian response to suffering is threefold:
Two biblical assertions help formulate Christian responses to suffering: First, "God is love" (1 John 4:8, 16), and second, we are created in His image and likeness (Genesis 1:27). God cares about us. He is indeed Immanuel, "God-with-us." Isn't that thought the inescapable message of passages like Psalm 23?
"Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me."
— Psalm 23:4, excerpt, NIV 2011
Paul's experience reminds us that God's grace and presence sustain us in every circumstance (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Mary Stevenson's classic poem "Footprints in the Sand" eloquently expresses how God's grace carries us even through the worst of times.
This point of view differs enormously from a fatalistic acceptance of our lot in life. God's presence and grace redefine suffering so it need not have the final word in our lives. While suffering is a distortion of the good and is certainly alien to that for which we were created, God's presence and grace in the midst of it help clarify who we are, what is most important in life, and how He can be more than adequate for us whatever the situation.
Sometimes, for reasons beyond our understanding, Yahweh intervenes miraculously and delivers us from suffering. That is in line with Scripture's proclamation that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a Deliverer (2 Samuel 22:2; Psalm 18:2).
To be sure, some believers have gotten off track in their desire that God be a Deliverer. Some fall into the trap of feeling that if they can get enough people to pray, God will be obligated to do what they want. Others think deliverance always comes if one thinks or prays just the right way. For instance, a "health-and-wealth gospel" proponent in California once cornered me to argue that believers in Haiti suffer from economic deprivation and severe health issues simply because they haven't properly "claimed" deliverance from suffering.
God is a Deliverer. However, He often looks to His people as the agents of that deliverance. The second part of the Great Commandment — "Love your neighbor as yourself" — (Matthew 22:39) calls us to seek to alleviate the suffering of fellow human beings.
Christians have a long history of working to relieve physical suffering. Christians all over the world run homes for orphaned children and care facilities for people affected by leprosy and shelters for the homeless. They set up hospitals and clinics. They seek to relieve famine and chronic malnutrition. They organize disaster relief efforts and fight against slavery. They rescue and rehabilitate victims of human trafficking. They run shelters for abused women and their children.
To summarize, God does sometimes miraculously intervene and deliver people from suffering. Other times, He calls His people to be the agents of such deliverance. The best news of all is that God Himself wants to walk with us in every circumstance of life. The image from Psalm 23 of God being with us in the direst circumstances should determine our response to suffering. The affirmation of Paul in 2 Corinthians that God's grace is sufficient sustains, strengthens, and even empowers us.
— Howard Culbertson, hculbert@snu.edu
Published in Illustrated Bible Life, a quarterly Sunday School resource produced for teachers of adult classes by The Foundry.
How to Approach the Study of Other Religions
Different religions have varying mindsets and responses to suffering. Here is a summary of the traditions discussed above:
