The problem of suffering cannot really be solved. If we view it theologically, it is a dead end; there is no way to blend God harmoniously with intractable suffering. But if we view it existentially, then there is a way to preserve a sense of God's presence in spite of suffering. We don't need a solution, we just need a clue, something to keep us going, just enough to keep our faith from being destroyed. Job does not find a solution. What he does find is faith in spite of not having the solution.
No true solution to the problem of suffering is available to us on this side of the boundary between life and death. This is why every attempt to solve the problem of "theodicy" has failed. It is just not something we are given to know. The question before us is: given that we cannot know it, can we still have faith that our lives have meaning and make sense, or are the atheists and naturalists correct and is life really no more than a random accident, with no value greater than its mere existence?
We cannot avoid the hard questions: Even if suffering does not rule out the existence of God, and even if it is possible to respond to it with compassion and faith, what about those who cannot so respond, who are so crushed by the weight of their suffering that they seem to have no chance of moving beyond it? The tired cliché that "God never gives us more than we can handle" seems demonstrably false if only we look at what is going on in the world.
It does seem true that many are crushed by their suffering. Either they do not survive, or their lives are destroyed. Life's unequal treatment of those who suffer is part of its tragedy, all the more reason for compassion. We can never fully understand why an individual life may become so shattered by the force of its pain that it appears to be taken beyond the possibility of any meaningful response. The problem is only compounded when we think of the large-scale tragedies that have occurred in history and still occur, the great natural disasters, the wars and genocides, the murder of children who can hardly know what mature love is, the extreme cruelty and torture that people inflict on each other. Certainly no response to the problem of suffering can explain or justify such tragedies.
Nevertheless, the existence of such tragedies does not make faith impossible or unrealistic. First, we must approach these events with humility. We can at the very least take comfort in knowing that all suffering, no matter how severe, comes to an end. We don't know what is beyond that end. If Paul is correct "that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18), then perhaps if we did know, the whole problem of suffering would disappear. But there is a reason we do not know. We are not meant to have the answer now, but rather to learn to live by faith and love. This could not be possible without even the most extreme forms of suffering that we witness.
We cannot say that everyone who suffers will find healing in this life. We know that is not true. What we can do is find a response that does not rule faith out in a world in which such suffering exists. Our inability to solve the riddle of the inequality of suffering is also a form of suffering; therefore we endure it and respond to it with compassion. Again we confront the paradox: without this inequality, the greatest compassion of all, the embrace of life's tragic aspect, could not be fully realized.
We may want to ask God: If we must suffer, why must our suffering at times be so extreme that some of us seem left with no chance to respond, to find faith, or even a tolerable existence? This question is unanswerable, but we can say this: if we were able to suffer only on the terms of our own choosing, then suffering would lose its meaning; it would not offer us the same possibilities of awareness, strength, and love. A better question was asked by the Hasidic Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev, who would cry out to God: "I do not wish to know why I suffer, but only that I suffer for your sake." In other words, as long as suffering does not destroy our consciousness, let it also not destroy our faith.
The longer we live, the more quickly time passes and the shorter it seems. If we could live long enough, we would see that time is no more than a single instant. It is barely anything when compared to eternity. The suffering that, in the dimension of time, seems to be our total reality, becomes hardly anything when seen from the perspective of eternity. But right now, that is not what we see. Right now any comfort such reflections can give cannot be complete, but they can keep us from making Job's mistake, which was to draw hard conclusions from limited knowledge. Within every life there are incidents of intense suffering that take on different meanings with the passage of time.
Given that we cannot know with certainty what our suffering ultimately becomes or whether it is ever completely redeemed, we can still explore this faith and put it to the test. With or without a belief in God, from nothing more than our own experience we can discover that the world is so constructed that love in all its fullness can come only from the existence of suffering. This is not the final answer, but it is a very important clue, and is perhaps all that we really need. If we take this clue and follow it to the end, we may just discover the power of love - and therefore the presence of God - in our lives.