Do evil and suffering discredit Christian belief?

It is the question of questions for most believers, let alone countless others either drawn to religion or repelled by it. Our planet is steeped in suffering and cruelty. If we are lucky or wealthy enough to have avoided first-hand experience of these scourges, they are nevertheless on plain view at one or two removes from our doorsteps. Yet various major creeds – especially Judaism, Christianity and Islam – teach that the world owes its existence to a creator who is all-loving as well as all-powerful. Standing in a line of thinkers reaching back to Epicurus, David Hume famously sums up the challenge with disarming bluntness:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

If people of faith aren’t chastened by Hume’s reasoning, they certainly ought to be.