James Martin is a Jesuit priest who, in a recent New York Times op-ed, offered the following answer to the question: Where is God in a pandemic?

“In the end, the most honest answer to the question of why the COVID-19 virus is killing thousands of people, why infectious diseases ravage humanity and why there is suffering at all is: We don’t know. For me, this is the most honest and accurate answer.”

This statement is somewhat disconcerting. While it may be true that we do not know God’s specific reasons for what’s happening right now, it is also true that God has not left us clueless, nor without hope, when it comes to the question of suffering.

While Martin does point to the example of Jesus’ compassion for people with illness, he sidesteps offering a reasonable theodicy to the larger question for the Times’ readership. After all, the presence of pain and suffering in the world is the number one reason unbelievers reject Christianity. Therefore, let me try to fill in some of the gaps from Fr. Martin’s op-ed.

1. All suffering has its roots in sin

Genesis 3 is critically important to understanding the source of pain and suffering in the world, whether it’s on a personal or pervasive scale. Because of Adam’s sin, we live under a curse. All of creation “groans” under it (Romans 8:20-21), and as the Apostle Paul summed up in Romans 5:12: “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” Therefore, the horror of physical pain and suffering has its roots in, and should point us to, the horror of sin against an eternal and holy God.

2. Suffering isn’t evidence against God

In arriving at his “we don’t know” answer, Fr. Martin states that many believers are confounded by the “inconsistent triad,” which can be summarized as follows: God is all powerful, therefore God can prevent suffering. But God does not prevent suffering. Therefore, God is either not all powerful or not all loving.

As Timothy Keller wrote in Reason for God, many philosophers have identified a major flaw with this line of reasoning: “Just because you can’t see or imagine a good reason why God might allow something to happen doesn’t mean there can’t be one.” It’s a logical fallacy that makes our own cognitive abilities the infinite authority of what constitutes “good answers” to suffering.

Let me ask you: can finite man be certain that an infinitely wise God would not tolerate short-term evil and tragedy so that a greater good might come of it—one that only God could foresee?

Even if we cannot fully answer the question of suffering in the world, we can be sure that God has not abandoned us to needless suffering.

Consider a bear caught in a bear trap. A park ranger comes along and attempts to free him. First, he shoots the bear with a tranquilizer dart, which the bear perceives as an attack. Next, the ranger has to push him further into the trap to release the spring, causing the bear more pain. At this point, the bear would be convinced the ranger is cruel and hateful. However, the bear would be wrong because, well, it’s a bear and doesn’t see the full picture. Finite man can no more completely comprehend God than a bear can comprehend man. The bear should have trusted the ranger, and man should trust God, who seeks only man’s good.

3. Suffering also poses a problem for non-believers

C.S. Lewis, who was an atheist before he became a Christian, argues this point in Mere Christianity: “My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I gotten this idea of ‘just’ and ‘unjust’?”

Lewis realized that his objection to God was based on his personal notion of justice and what “ought to be” and what “ought not to be.” However, where did that notion come from? As a non-believer, the suffering brought about by a deadly virus can’t rationally be viewed as “evil” or “bad” or “ought not to be.” It’s simply a natural fact of evolutionary processes, which depends on natural selection, the survival of the strong, and death.

In other words, while the non-believer can personally believe that suffering is bad, he has no rational basis for claiming that his belief his universally true for everyone; otherwise, the whole argument against God collapses, as Lewis wrote: “For the argument depended on saying that the world was really unjust, not simply that it did not happen to please my private fancies.”

Even if a non-believer argues that altruism has been discovered to be more “practical” for the human race, that still doesn’t explain why he or she views suffering as unjust. As Keller states, “the problem of tragedy, suffering and injustice…is at least as big a problem for non-belief in God as for belief.”

4. God endured suffering for us

To someone that is suffering because of COVID-19, these logical reasons may seem distant and unmoving. However, the Bible reveals a God that not only cares about us and is moved with compassion toward us, but who also entered into our suffering.

In Jesus Christ, God came and experienced the curse of human suffering in a profound way for us. He endured tremendous pain and torture, and it was all completely unjust. His love for us drove him to the cross where he was abandoned by God so that we wouldn’t be. Jesus even appealed to God’s omnipotence to take away the suffering he was about to endure on the cross (Mark 14:36), but it was God’s will for him to suffer (Isaiah 53:10).

Christ suffered to bring an end to all suffering, and through death he destroyed him who had the power of death, the devil. Even if we cannot fully answer the question of suffering in the world, we can be sure that God has not abandoned us to needless suffering. Therefore, let us face our present suffering with the hope and courage found in Christ, rather than uncertainty and despair.