Fyodor Dostoevsky Quotes

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must Disappointment all I endeavour end?

You enter a state of controlled passivity, you relax your grip and accept that even if your declared intention is to justify the ways of God to man, you might end up interesting your readers rather more in Satan.

How do you live with evil? Art is traditionally - certainly with my secular background - the answer, but art is very self-referential, whereas religion claims to go beyond the bounds of human existence.

It is very difficult to give a 15 second sound bite on why there is pain and suffering in this world and not have it come off as being flippant or surface level or superficial.

The problem of evil, that is to say the reconciling of our failures, even the purely physical ones, with creative goodness and creative power, will always remain one of the most disturbing mysteries of the universe for both our hearts and our minds.

People ask why God allows suffering. You could just as well ask the Minister of Transport why he allows accidents on Britain's roads.

It seems a bit unfair to my relatives to be murdered in order to provide an opportunity for free will for Germans, but even putting that aside, how does free will account for cancer? Is it an opportunity of free will for tumors?

If there are gods, why is the world so full of pain and injustice?' 'Because of men like you.

You can't just say there is a god because the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children

I cannot be a materialist - but Oh, how is it possible that a God who speaks to all hearts can let Belgravia go laughing to a vicious luxury, and Whitechapel cursing to a filthy debauchery - such suffering, such dreadful suffering - and shall the short years of Christ's mission atone for it all?

God has joined the innocent with the guilty.

God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering.

The problem of suffering is: why is there the suffering we know?

I do not believe that God tortures any person simply for its own sake. I believe that God enables all things to work for the greater good.

If I had to imagine omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent power in the universe that chose to make my mother suffer, I don't know how I would make that make sense in the universe.

I've been an atheist since I was nine years old. And my mom is really religious, so we have a strange relationship. But if my mother was right, what would be the reason that the gods could let anything bad happen in the world?

I love Jesus Christ. I am a Christian... I cry when I see injustice, children dying of hunger.

To those who do not love God, all things must work together immediately for pain and torment, until, by means of the tribulation, they are led to salvation at last.

This actual question of 'Why does God allow war?' is not considered or raised as such in the Bible at all.

This is perhaps the most profound meaning of the book of Job, the best example of wisdom.

I was enrolled in divinity school and thought I was going to become a minister - I'm Episcopalian - but I was disavowed of that notion pretty quickly while working at the hospital. I found myself really unfulfilled by the answers that are traditionally offered to questions of why some people suffer and why others suffer so little.

How could God allow cancer, poverty, the sheer unfairness of so many lives?

That cry of the soul to be lifted out of the bondage of the narrow circle of life, which carries up to God the protest and yearning of suffering man, never finds a more sublime expression than where humanity is oppressed and religion is corrupt.

Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured, but we can reduce the number of tortured children.

War violates the order of nature and causes parents to bury their children.