Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?

Many believers wonder why evil and suffering exist in a world created by an all‑loving, all-good. all-knowing and all-powerful God. ¹ After all, didn't Jesus come to give us life more abundantly? (John 10:10).

Thomas Jay Oord, one of the leading voices in "Open and Relational Theology," offers a way of thinking about God that is both deeply hopeful and refreshingly honest about the world we live in.² When we ask, “Why do bad things happen to good people?”, Oord's response begins with a simple but profound conviction: God is love (1 John 4:8, 16).

Open and Relational Theology teaches that God’s love is inherently uncontrolling and non‑coercive. God does not override human freedom, natural processes, or the choices of others. If God controlled everything, then tragedies, injustice, and suffering would be acts of God—which would make God unloving. Instead, Oord argues that God works in every moment to heal, to nudge, to inspire, and to bring good—but never by force.

This means bad things don’t happen because God wills them, sends them, or “allows” them in some mysterious plan. They happen because we live in a world of genuine freedom, real relationships, and natural systems that operate according to their own integrity, limitations, and choices—both good and harmful.

God is constantly working with creation, moment by moment, to bring about the greatest possible good within the real conditions of the world. As St. Paul reminds us, "all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to [God's] purpose” (Romans 8:28). Notice St. Paul does not say God causes all things. Instead, God works within all things—every circumstance, every heartbreak—to draw us toward healing, hope, and deeper love.

Jesus shows this most clearly. When Jesus meets suffering, he does not explain it away. He enters it. Jesus heals, comforts, restores, and weeps. Jesus' response reveals God’s heart: God is always with us, always for us, always working toward life.

Why this matters for us today. If God does not control everything, then suffering is not a sign of God’s absence or punishment. It is part of a world still growing, still evolving, still unfolding, still becoming what God ultimately desires for us.

Another key insight: God is deeply affected by what happens to us. In Open and Relational Theology, God is not distant or unmoved. God feels our pain, grieves our losses, and is present in every moment of suffering. When bad things happen, God is not the cause—God is the companion. God is the One who stays with us, strengthens us, and works with us and through us to bring healing and new possibilities.

Because God’s love is relational, God invites us to join in the work of healing the world. We are not passive recipients of divine action; we are partners. When tragedy strikes, God works through our prayers, compassion, our courage, our creativity, and our willingness to help one another and to transform suffering. In this view, every act of kindness becomes a way God’s love enters the world.

This perspective doesn’t solve every mystery, but it does offer a practical and hopeful way forward:

We don’t blame God for suffering.

We trust that God is always loving, always present, always working for good.

We recognize that our choices matter and that we can cooperate with God’s healing work.

We find comfort in knowing that God suffers with us and never abandons us.

In a world where bad things do happen, Open and Relational Theology encourages us to lean into love—God’s love and our own—and to become instruments of hope.

You are invited to reflect today about where in your life do you most need to remember that God is present and working for good, even without controlling outcomes? How might you cooperate more intentionally with God’s healing love in the face of suffering—your own or someone else’s?

Loving God,
I hope you are always with me,
especially in moments of pain and confusion.
Strengthen my trust in your gentle, healing presence.
Help me to recognize your invitations to bring
compassion, hope, and courage into the world.
May your uncontrolling love guide my heart, shape my choices,
and draw me into a deeper and more loving partnership with You.
Amen.

1. Suffering and evil are part of our human experience. Theodicy ("the justice of God") is the term that theologians use to seek to explain why or how an all-loving, all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful "God" can allow suffering, evil, and injustice in the world. There are many components of this question and many books have been written seeking to provide answers. The limitations of this brief article prevent a full and complete discussion of all of these components or the answers offered. Many of the answers offered by others have been challenged or found wanting. For example, see Ehrman, Bart D., God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer (New York: HarperOne, 2009)

2. Thomas Jay Oord and other theologians have written extensively about the guiding principles of "Open and Relational Theology" pertaining to this issue. For example, see Oord, Thomas J., God Can't: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils (U.S.: SacraSage Press, 2019); see also, Kushner, Harold S., Why Bad Things Happen to Good People(New York: Anchor, 1981); cf. Spitzer, Robert, S.J., Ph.D. The Light Shines on in the Darkness:Transforming Suffering through Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017).

Oord challenges the assumption that God can prevent evil singlehandedly. According to Oord, God cannot be other than who God is. God cannot deny or oppose God's own nature or character (cf. 2 Timothy 2:13).

For example, scripture teaches that God is truth (Isaiah 65:16). Therefore, it is impossible for God to lie. (Titus 1:2; Hebrews 6:18)."God is light, and in [God] there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5). God is all-good. "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:9; cf. Psalm 100:5; Mark 10:18; Luke 18:19). “God cannot be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.” (James 1:13, NRSV). God is faithful. "If we are unfaithful, [God] remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself" (2 Tim. 2:13). God can't do what is logically self-contradictory. God can't make a circle out of a square.

Oord asserts it doesn't make any sense to claim that an all-loving, all-good God either causes evil or permits evil. God's essence is love and love does not cause evil, nor can God's love control, force, or coerce others to do something against their nature or will.

This article was prepared with the assistance of CoPilot.