I have an atheist classmate who asks: If God exists, why is there misery and suffering? Who made God? If science is based on facts, did God make those facts? Why does God watch people suffer and allow things like rape?

These are important questions, and the Bible does not ignore them.

First, suffering exists because the world is affected by sin. God created the world good (Genesis 1:31), but humanity chose to rebel against Him, and sin brought death, pain, violence, and corruption into creation (Genesis 3; Romans 5:12). God is not the author of rape, murder, cruelty, or injustice. These things result from sinful choices and from living in a fallen world.

God also gave human beings genuine freedom. Love and obedience would have little meaning if people were programmed to do only good. Unfortunately, freedom can be abused. God permits human choices for a time, but that does not mean He approves of evil or will never judge it. Scripture teaches that God will ultimately bring every act into judgment (Ecclesiastes 12:14; Revelation 20:11–15).

The cross also shows that God is not distant from human suffering. Jesus experienced rejection, violence, injustice, torture, and death. God entered our suffering in Christ and provided the way to ultimately end sin and death (Isaiah 53; John 3:16).

As for “Who created God?” the Bible teaches that God was never created. He is eternal. Psalm 90:2 says, “from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” Everything that begins to exist requires a cause, but God did not begin to exist. He is the eternal Creator and the source of everything else.

Science does not contradict the existence of God. Science studies the natural world and how it operates. Christians believe that the laws, order, matter, energy, and processes studied by science exist because God created and sustains the universe (Genesis 1:1; Colossians 1:16–17). Scientific facts describe creation; they do not by themselves answer why anything exists in the first place.

The Bible does not claim that every tragedy will make sense to us now. But it does teach that God sees suffering, condemns evil, offers hope through Christ, and will eventually restore creation so that “there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain” (Revelation 21:4).

So Christianity does not answer suffering by pretending evil is not real. It says evil is real, God did not originally create the world this way, He has acted through Christ to defeat sin, and He promises that suffering and injustice will not continue forever.