Why does God allow evil and cause innocent victims to suffer?

You are right when saying that evil committed by men is a possibility that arises due to the “free will” given to them by God. Without free will, the entire human history would have been one made out of God’s coercion and thus He would have been contradicting his own very nature – that of love (true love can never be coercive). 

Now, coming to the question of why God allows the victims to suffer, there are many reasons behind why God might have done so. Lets see if we can try to understand some of them.

1. The world is governed by natural law
2. Suffering is an indicator that shows that something is wrong
3. Suffering can make a person strong and empathetic 

Let’s look at the first point – the world is governed by natural law – with the help of an example. Suppose a man stabs another person with a knife. The act in itself is committed out of the free will the attacker has. Now the question would be – How can God prevent the victim from feeling the pain of the stab wound? Well he could either change the physical properties of the knife before it cuts the flesh of the victim or he could change that of the victim’s body so that the knife is unable to cut through it. There are other options too – like sudden healing, nerves not transmitting the pain to the brain until the wound is healed etc. But in each one of these we can see that God will have to suspend the natural laws that govern our world for the victim not to feel pain. If this is what happens every time someone uses his/her free will to harm others, then the natural laws would not hold. As a result we would never be able to say for certain how the natural world would behave under a given circumstance which in turn leads to further problems.

Continuing with the example of the attacker and the victim, when the victim feels the pain of the stab wound he immediately knows that something could be wrong with his body and he proceeds to defend himself and later on takes care of the injury until the pain is gone (the wound is completely healed). The same can be said about society. When someone in the society experiences pain and suffering (may it be physical or emotional) due to the actions of another, it too becomes an indicator that the said action could be wrong. If found to be wrong, the society comes together and tries to help out the suffering individual. Here we can see how the pain and suffering felt by the victim helps in his/her healing and also how it helps the society to understand which actions are right and which are not.

For explaining the last point – Suffering can make a person strong and empathetic – I would like to tell a true story, that of Terry Gobanga. She was kidnapped by three men on her wedding day, was gang raped, stabbed in the stomach and left for dead at the side of the road. She was found hours later and taken to the hospital. When she recovered she was told that because of the stab wound, she will not be able to conceive. Even after all of this her fiance wanted to marry her and seven months after the gruesome ordeal, they got married. The story doesn’t end here. Almost a month later her husband dies due to carbon monoxide poisoning from the charcoal burner they had used to heat up the room and she barely survives. She felt let down by God and by everybody. But God had a plan for her. She met a man named Tonny Gobanga and some time later they were united in marriage. God had another surprise for her – a year into their marriage she was found to be pregnant and God gave them a child. Four years later they had their second daughter. She went on to write a book, Crawling out of Darkness, about her ordeal, to give people hope of rising again. She also started an organisation called Kara Olmurani where she works with rape survivors offering counselling and support. They are also looking to start a halfway house for the survivors where they can come and find their footing before going back to face the world. She has also found strength to forgive her attackers.

Did she suffer? The answer would be beyond I can ever imagine. Did she feel pain? Much more than I have ever endured in my lifetime. But, amidst all this, she was being formed by the loving hands of God. With the grace from God she was able to look beyond her own suffering and see that of others and knowing what they were going through – as she herself had gone through the same – she was able to become the healing hands of God for many. 

This is not just her story. It is the story of every single one of those who having experienced pain themselves can understand the pain of others and reach out with healing hands. When given to God, he can take our suffering and pain and mould into something beautiful, something beyond our imagination and expectation.