Atheist
How can a good God allow evil and suffering?
God permits evil only because he can draw a greater good from it, respecting human freedom rather than reducing us to puppets, and he himself entered into suffering in Christ to redeem it from within rather than merely explain it from outside.
Catholic teaching
The Church does not offer a tidy theoretical solution but a person: God permitted evil to enter through human freedom, yet in the Cross and Resurrection he transforms even the greatest evil, the murder of the innocent Son of God, into the world's redemption.
Biblical foundation
Joseph tells his brothers, 'You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good' (Gen 50:20), and Paul writes that 'in everything God works for good with those who love him' (Rom 8:28), while Christ's own passion shows God entering suffering rather than remaining aloof from it.
Scripture references
Historical evidence
Since the second century, Christian thinkers like St. Irenaeus have argued that a world with real freedom and moral growth requires the genuine possibility of evil, a philosophical account (the 'free will defense') still regarded by many philosophers of religion as a coherent response to the logical problem of evil.
The Church Fathers
“God judged it better to bring good out of evil than to suffer no evil to exist.”