Book Club Questions for Walking with God through Pain and Suffering

1.Keller describes suffering as "the great challenge to Christian faith" and argues that it is also the great challenge to every other worldview. Why do you think suffering feels so destabilizing — not just emotionally, but philosophically and spiritually?

2.Before reading this book, how would you have described your own default response to pain and suffering — whether your own or others'? Where did that response come from (upbringing, culture, past experience, faith tradition)?

3.Keller notes that secular Western culture tends to see suffering as an interruption to normal life — something to be fixed or escaped as quickly as possible. How have you seen this assumption at work around you, perhaps even in yourself?

1.Keller presents the classic philosophical problem of evil: if God is all-good and all-powerful, why does suffering exist? How had you previously thought about this argument — as something you'd worked through, something you'd avoided, or something that genuinely troubles you?

2.Keller distinguishes between the "philosophical problem" of evil (an intellectual argument) and the "personal problem" of evil (the existential reality of suffering in one's own life). Why is this distinction important, and how does each require a different kind of response?

3.Keller points out that many people lose their faith not because of a new philosophical argument but because of a new personal experience of loss or pain. Have you seen this happen — in your own life or in someone close to you? What did that look like?

1.Keller argues that modern Western culture is uniquely bad at suffering compared to most human societies throughout history. What are the specific features of contemporary Western life that make this so — and do you agree with his diagnosis?

2.Keller contrasts the modern Western approach to suffering (avoid it, medicate it, escape it) with the approaches of many traditional cultures, which wove suffering and hardship into their understanding of what a good human life looks like. What has the West lost by disconnecting suffering from meaning?

3.Keller draws on the work of sociologists and historians to show that the expectation of comfort and ease — as a norm rather than a luxury — is historically very recent. How has this expectation shaped your own sense of what you are "owed" from life? Be honest.

1.Keller engages secular thinkers — including Nietzsche, Albert Camus, and others — who have wrestled honestly with suffering without appealing to God. What do these secular accounts of suffering get right that Christians sometimes miss?

2.Keller argues that if there is no God, then suffering ultimately has no meaning — it is just "natural selection" or "bad luck." But he also argues that secular people nevertheless act as if suffering matters and injustice is real. What is the tension here, and why does it matter?

3.Keller points out that the very argument "a good God would not allow suffering" implicitly assumes a moral standard — a way things ought to be — that is very difficult to account for in a purely secular framework. How do you find this argument? Is it convincing, or does it feel like a dodge?

1.Keller surveys how religions like Buddhism and Hinduism approach suffering — broadly, by seeing it as an illusion to be transcended or as the result of karma. What genuine wisdom do these traditions offer? What do they miss, in Keller's view?

2.Keller argues that one of the key distinctives of the Christian account is that God does not stand aloof from suffering but enters it personally in Jesus. How does this differ from the ways other religions relate God (or ultimate reality) to human suffering?

3.Many Christians hold what Keller calls a "prosperity gospel" or a "health and wealth" understanding — the idea that faith leads to blessing and suffering is a sign of spiritual failure. How does this approach to suffering distort the gospel, and what damage does it do to real people?

1.Keller distinguishes between the "logical" problem of evil (the claim that God's existence and suffering's existence are logically incompatible) and the "evidential" problem of evil (the claim that the amount and type of suffering in the world makes God's existence highly unlikely). What is the difference, and why does it matter?

2.Keller engages the philosopher Alvin Plantinga's "free will defense" — the argument that God could not create beings capable of love without also creating beings capable of choosing evil and causing suffering. Do you find this argument convincing? What are its limits?

3.Keller argues that if God exists and has good reasons for allowing suffering that we cannot fully see or understand — reasons that are proportionate to the suffering — then the existence of suffering does not disprove God. But he also argues that our inability to think of good reasons is not the same as there being no good reasons. How do you respond to this move?

1.Keller defines God's sovereignty not as God "causing" every evil event but as God's ability to work purposefully through all events — including evil — without being the author of evil. How does this distinction help? Does it fully satisfy you?

2.Keller draws heavily on the story of Joseph in Genesis — whose brothers sold him into slavery, yet who could later say, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good" (Genesis 50:20). What does Joseph's story tell us about the relationship between human evil and divine purpose?

3.Keller also engages Romans 8:28 — "We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him." He is careful to note what this does NOT mean (that everything is good, or that we will understand the good that God is working). What does it mean, and how does it function as a promise rather than an explanation?

1.Keller outlines several possible reasons God allows suffering: to humble us, to deepen our faith, to free us from idols, to produce compassion for others, and to witness to the world. Which of these have you experienced most personally and concretely?

2.Keller draws on Hebrews 12 and the idea of God as a father who disciplines his children — not to punish them for specific sins, but to train and shape them toward maturity. How does this image sit with you? Is it comforting, difficult, or both?

3.Keller argues that suffering has the power to reveal and dislodge idols — things we have trusted in more than God (health, security, the approval of others, success). Has suffering ever exposed an idol in your own life? What was it, and what happened when it was taken away?

1.Keller argues that our suffering can only be properly understood in light of two realities: the weight of glory that awaits believers, and the reality of hell as the ultimate consequence of sin. Why does he think both are necessary for a complete picture?

2.Keller draws on C. S. Lewis's reflection on 2 Corinthians 4:17 — that our present sufferings are "light and momentary" compared to "an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." This is not a claim that our suffering is trivial, but that the future glory is incomprehensibly vast. How does the scale of the comparison affect you?

3.Keller argues that the hope of the resurrection and the new creation is not "pie in the sky" escapism but the only thing that makes full sense of what we intuitively know about justice, love, and beauty — that this world as it is cannot be the final word. Do you find this argument compelling?

1.Keller opens Part Three with the honest acknowledgment that good theology, by itself, does not automatically translate into a transformed experience of suffering. There is a gap between knowing and enduring. Have you experienced this gap? What has it felt like?

2.Keller draws on the metaphor of "learning to walk" — suggesting that suffering is a skill that can be developed, not just a crisis to be survived. What are the specific practices and dispositions he identifies as essential to walking well through suffering?

3.Keller emphasizes the importance of the Christian community — the local church — in bearing suffering together. He critiques the modern tendency toward radical self-sufficiency in grief. Have you experienced the church as a genuine community of suffering and support? What has worked, and what has fallen short?

1.Keller distinguishes between different kinds of suffering — suffering we bring on ourselves through our own sin, suffering caused by others' sin, "random" suffering through illness or accident, and suffering for righteousness' sake. Why does it matter which category our suffering falls into? Does it change how we respond or what we can say to God?

2.Keller gives specific attention to the suffering of grief and loss — the death of someone we love. He draws on both Scripture and the literature of grief to describe the disorientation, the waves, the unexpected triggers. How does the Christian account of death (as an enemy that has been defeated, not just a natural part of life) shape how we grieve?

3.Keller also addresses suffering caused by injustice — racism, poverty, oppression. He insists that Christian theology must take structural evil seriously, not reduce all suffering to individual spiritual issues. How does the gospel speak to suffering that is systemic rather than merely personal?

1.Keller draws on the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3 — who were thrown into the furnace and found, astonishingly, that there was a fourth figure walking with them in the fire. What does this image communicate about God's relationship to our suffering that no abstract theology quite captures?

2.Keller tells several stories of real people — often from his own congregation at Redeemer Presbyterian — who walked through devastating suffering and came out the other side with a deeper, more unshakeable faith than they had before. What patterns do you notice in these stories? What made the difference?

3.Keller quotes Isaiah 43:2 — "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned." Notice God does not say "I will keep you from the fire" but "I will be with you in it." How does this reframe what we should expect from God in suffering?

1.Keller makes much of the Psalms of lament — poems like Psalm 22 and Psalm 88 — which are brutally honest with God about pain, confusion, and even the feeling of divine abandonment. Why is this kind of prayer legitimate? What does it tell us about the character of God that such prayers are preserved in Scripture?

2.Keller contrasts the lament psalms with the kind of polite, sanitized prayer we often offer in suffering — prayers that say what we think God wants to hear rather than what we actually feel. Have you ever prayed a genuinely angry or despairing prayer? What was that experience like?

3.Psalm 22 begins with "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" — which Jesus himself cried from the cross. Keller argues that Jesus' use of this psalm on the cross means that honest lament is not unbelief but the deepest kind of faith. How does this reshape your understanding of what "faithful" prayer looks like in suffering?

1.Looking back across the entire book, which chapter or section had the greatest impact on you — and why? Was it the philosophical argument, the theological vision, or the practical pastoral guidance?

2.Keller's book is structured in three movements: understanding the landscape of suffering (secular and religious), the theology of suffering (what God is doing), and the practice of suffering (how to walk through it). Which of these three has most changed how you think, and which has most changed how you live?

3.Before you read this book, how would you have answered the question, "Why is there pain and suffering?" How would you answer it now? What has shifted — and what remains unresolved or still puzzling?