The Evidential Version (It's improbable):
Here we get into a version of the argument that requires far less proof from the atheist. Their claim in this version is that it's highly improbable that God could have good reasons for allowing suffering and evil in the world, therefore God does not exist. Their line of thinking is that if there were a God, then surely He could have created a good world that doesn't require suffering on our part. Here you have a much more modest claim from the atheist, and that puts less of the burden of proof on their shoulders. There are basically three claims that you are logically able to use to refute this statement.
Human Limitations:
Given that our scope is finite since we are creations and not the creator, then we certainly aren't in any position to say that God lacks good reasons for permitting suffering in the world. We might be able to agree with them that on the surface that most suffering looks unjustified. We sometimes see neither it's point nor it's necessity. So the key to the atheist's argument depends on whether we consider ourselves qualified to infer that just because suffering looks unjustified that it actually is unjustified. As believers we recognize God's sovereignty and His ability to order the past, present and future providentially. In order to achieve His purposes God may have to allow a great deal of suffering and evil to exist along the way. Our ability to recognize how it's beneficial is governed by our limited ability to see only what we can see.
Even confined to our own small vantage point, we have all certainly seen where suffering has gone on to produce good. Just one small and very recent example would be texting and driving. In 2008 Heather Hurd was killed by a truck driver that was texting and driving. Her father went on to aggressively promote laws for states to ban texting while driving. It is now illegal in 6 countries and the number of lives saved is unable to be calculated. Her suffering produced visible good in just a few short years. I won't even waste time going back in history to detail the horrific events that have resulted in advancement for the entire human race. Only an all knowing God could begin to grasp the complexities we're trying to explain. If anything this would be an argument in favor of God and His sovereignty, and a poor argument against it.
Full Scope of the Evidence:
When given the full scope of the evidence, God's existence is probable. All probabilities are relative to some background information. Let's use Joe College Student as an example here. If someone told you that 90% of all college students drank beer, and that Joe was a college student, then relative to only that information it's highly probable that Joe drinks beer. Now what if I told you that Joe was a student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and that 95% of their students don't drink beer. Relative to the new information, it now becomes highly probable that Joe does not drink beer. So again, probabilities are all relative to background information.
So here we have an atheist saying that God's existence is improbable. Immediately you should ask, "Improbable relative to what? What kind of background information are you using to support this claim? Are you basing it off of the suffering in the world?" Because if that's all of the background information they have, then it's no wonder God's existence looks improbable relative to that. On a superficial level suffering can call God's existence into question, on a deeper level it can also be used to prove His existence. This really goes back into my posts on relativism, but in short, suffering cannot be considered bad from a moral standpoint since morals are all relative. If we are all byproducts of evolutionary chance, then good and bad, suffering and evil, are all relative to your own personal opinion. The very fact that the atheist will concede that there is such a thing as universal suffering, that is to say something that's universally considered evil or bad, just goes on to validate that we are given moral standards from an intelligent designer.
Christian Doctrine Explains Suffering:
Stepping out of the basic concept of a creator and into the God explained in Christianity increases the possibility that God and suffering can coexist. Certain Christian doctrines increase the probability of suffering, but I'll just mention a few.
1. The chief purpose of life is not our happiness, but rather the knowledge of God. People naturally assume that if God does exist, then His purpose for humans life is happiness in this world. They believe that if God does exist then His role is to provide a soft, comfortable environment for His human pets. If you're a Christian then you know that this is false. We are not God's pets and the goal of our existence is not happiness. It's the knowledge of God that leads to our fulfillment. So much of the suffering we experience would be completely pointless if happiness were our goal, but it would not be pointless in producing a deeper knowledge of God.
It's here that the "prosperity," the "health and wealth," or the Gospel sometimes referred to as the "Gospel of positive thinking " have created problems for believers and created a false belief system for even the atheist. With "pastors" like Joel Osteen and Creflo Dollar occupying television networks that reach millions of people per week, various denominations have gone on to teach a milder form of this in the name of church growth. Scripture has been reduced to a milky self help book so it's not too intimidating to non-believers. These churches teach it and believers read it in an effort to fix problems in their lives, but rarely to gain knowledge of God. In this process we have set the atheist up to think that suffering cannot coexist with the God of the Bible, when in fact we are promised to suffer in this life.
2. Mankind is in a state of rebellion against God. This is sometimes taught as The Doctrine of Total Depravity, which states that man is born into sin and a state of depravity. Rather than being born into a state of goodness, humans are born to sin. As a result, innocent people suffer from our sinfulness in varying degrees. Not all of our sinfulness or rebellion could directly be classified as evil on a universal level, but for some people their sinful behavior causes suffering for others. It isn't until we are saved by the power of the Holy Spirit that we can begin to love God. This is why Christians aren't surprised by the evil in the world, we expect it.
3. God's purpose isn't limited to this life, it spills over into eternity. Christian's understand that this life is just a small door that opens up into a glorious eternity. We see a great example of this in the life of the Apostle Paul. Paul lived a life that was filled with hardship, beatings, imprisonment and yet he lived it all with an eternal purpose. Paul called the sufferings in this life "a slight momentary affliction."
The simple use of these three basic Christian doctrines greatly decreases the probability that God and suffering cannot coexist. Of course the atheist would naturally respond by saying that there's no proof that these doctrines are true. Then he's trying to shift the burden of proof back to you, but that's a cheap shot in a debate that centers around logic. He might need to take his debate to a prosperity believer at this point, for we have already shown that the Christian God is completely compatible with suffering and evil by virtue of our own doctrine. He might make the statement that he would never worship the Christian God since suffering is at the very heart of our salvation and spills over into our beliefs, but then he's decided to get out of the intellectual argument and back into the emotional argument. At that point all you've done is proved that it's not impossible for God and suffering to coexist, the rest of the real work has to be done by the Holy Spirit.
Going Forward:
It looks like I will be studying the problem of pop culture and Christianity. I plan on spending a lot of time here. Some of it will focus on how Christians are portrayed in our culture, but a lot of it will focus on why. In my preliminary scanning of the material, it appears that some of it is focused on where the church went wrong. There was a time when Christians dominated the intellectual landscape through the teaching of sound doctrine and apologetics in the church. It appears that the church culture in the last century has taken a turn for the worse as solid Biblical teaching has given way to watered down Sunday morning messages. Church growth now means going wide and seldom going deep. Christianity can use popular culture to it's advantage, but it might mean making church culture less popular.