Why Is There Suffering? The Gnostic Answer
If God is good and all-powerful, why is there suffering? This question has tortured thinkers for millennia. Every religion offers some answer. The most common in Western tradition: suffering is punishment for sin, or a test of faith, or a mystery beyond human understanding. We’re meant to trust that a loving God has reasons we can’t comprehend. Many find these answers unsatisfying. The ancient Gnostics offered a radically different response. They didn’t try to explain how a good God could create a world with so much pain. They said: the highest God didn’t create this world at all. ...