It's a common question for people to ask: if there really is a loving God, then why is there suffering? Now, especially, it's a question people are asking as COVID-19 spreads, and it's one that apologists at RZIM are answering.

Dr. Vince Vitale is the Director of the Americas at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. In an address with fellow RZIM apologists, Vitale speaks on the subject but is also quick to point out that his answer is not an exhaustive answer on the topic.

known in philosophy as 'natural evil.' Things like the coronavirus fall under this category, Vitale says. "Can you get a moral category like evil out of something which is just physical. and natural? And if it's evil then is it really natural? If it's genuinely evil wouldn't that make it unnatural and not natural?"

Vitale says he often finds himself asking the question if this problem actually points towards God rather than away from Him. "If it points towards a moral lawgiver who can be the ground of a moral standard of a moral reality who can give us a category like moral evil. And, also, towards a narrative that makes some sense of the fact this seems very unnatural. This does not seem like the way things are supposed to be."

e that we as humanity as a whole are living separated from, outside the context of the relationship that we were most destined for? And we're not operating properly in our environment?"

'A hope to hold on to'

One final problem, Vitale says, is that if the world operated in a way opposite than it does now - that is one that is free from suffering - the likely reality would be that we simply would not exist.

"And, as a Christian, I don't think God likes that result because I think one of the things He values about this world, even though I think He hates the suffering within it, is that it is a world that allowed for you to come to exist, and allowed for me to come to exist, and allowed for every person we see walking down the street to come to exist. I believe that God intended you before the foundation of the world. That He knit you together in your mother's womb. That He knew you before you were born, He desired you, and this was a world that allowed you to come to exist and be invited into a relationship with Him.