The problem of evil and suffering — Hinduism

What the specification asks for

Paper 1, Section 1, 1.7 (Hinduism). Assessed on AO1 (knowledge and understanding) and AO2 (analysis and evaluation), weighted equally. Incandio is aligned to this specification. It is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson, and it reproduces none of Pearson's indicative content — the point numbers are given so you can check every unit against your own copy.

1 · Understand it

Two children are born in the same hospital on the same morning, one into comfort and one into a household with nothing. Most religious answers to that explain why there is suffering in the world at all. Hinduism does something no other tradition on this course attempts: it explains why this one and not that one, and everything difficult about the doctrine follows from how much it is willing to explain.

What it means

The specification names karma as the particular reference, and the account has four moving parts.

Karma is action and consequence carried across lifetimes, and it is what explains the distribution of suffering: circumstances follow from action rather than being handed out at random. Samsara is the cycle of birth, death and rebirth in which all of that is worked out. Moksha is release from the cycle, which ends suffering rather than explaining it. And lila, the divine play, is a devotional account in which creation is God's free activity rather than a necessity, sitting alongside the karmic account rather than replacing it.

The fourth part is what stops the doctrine collapsing, and it belongs to the doctrine rather than being a softening of it. Compassion is required regardless of why somebody is suffering. Daan is giving and seva is selfless service, and neither is conditional on the sufferer's history. Explanation does not remove obligation, and Hindu teaching says so explicitly.

The schools divide over whether God is implicated at all, and the division decides whether Hinduism faces the classic problem of evil. For Advaita, Brahman is beyond the categories in which the problem is posed and karma operates impersonally, so the problem largely dissolves. For Vaishnava Hindus, God is personal and involved, so the problem arrives in something close to the Christian form and grace becomes part of the answer.

The error to avoid is the one that dogs every Hindu unit: karma is not divine punishment. There is no judge, no sentence and no verdict. Saying God is punishing somebody through their circumstances is recorded by examiners, and it also makes the Advaita position incoherent.

Why believers hold it

The reasoning starts from a discomfort about randomness. If suffering fell arbitrarily, the universe would be unjust in a way nothing could correct. Karma removes the randomness by giving every circumstance a history, and that is why it explains something no theodicy attempts — not why suffering exists but why this person is suffering.

Now hold the two halves of that together, because they are the whole evaluation. An explanation complete enough to reach the individual case is necessarily an attribution of that case. The strength and the moral danger are not two features that have to be weighed against each other; they are the same feature described twice. That is a far better argument than either praising the coherence or condemning the social use.

The hardest instance is the child born into extreme suffering, who has not acted. Karma answers by extending the account across lifetimes, and it matters to see that this is not a dodge — it is exactly the move that makes the explanation complete, and exactly the move that makes it uncomfortable. There is no version of the doctrine that keeps the explanatory power and loses the attribution.

The tradition's own guard is the compassion requirement, and it should be presented as part of the doctrine rather than as damage control. If giving is owed regardless of cause, then knowing why somebody suffers changes nothing about what is owed to them. Gandhi's insistence that this teaching had never justified failing to relieve anybody's condition is the sharpest modern statement of it.

But the misuse is real and has been consequential. The doctrine has been used to explain and accept caste disadvantage, and a reply that quotes teaching without acknowledging the record has not met the objection. The defensible position is that the doctrine's own resources argue against that use, and that the use happened anyway — a claim about people rather than about the doctrine, and still a cost the doctrine carries.

Where it comes from

• Hindu teaching — Karma, samsara and moksha; Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita (translated)

  Karma — action and its consequence; samsara — the cycle of rebirth; moksha — release from it.

  Action produces consequence, which shapes future existence within the cycle of rebirth; the goal is release.

  What it is doing here: Supplies the whole explanatory apparatus — action, consequence, the cycle and release — which is what makes the Hindu account reach the individual case.

• Hindu teaching — Daan and seva; taught across the epics and in modern Hindu practice (translated)

  Daan — giving; seva — selfless service.

  Giving and service as religious duties which purify the giver as well as helping the receiver, and which generate good karma.

  What it is doing here: Is the doctrine's own guard against indifference: giving and service are owed whatever the cause of somebody's condition.

• The Bhagavad Gita — Bhagavad Gita 2:22 (with 2:20) (translated)

  As a man casts off worn-out garments and puts on new, so the embodied soul casts off worn-out bodies.

  The atman is not destroyed by death; the body is exchanged. The basis of Hindu teaching on rebirth.

  What it is doing here: Supplies the second, quieter answer — that what a person really is was never touched by any of it — which is a different kind of consolation from an explanation.

Where it bites

It shows in an attitude to misfortune that observers often call fatalism and practitioners call understanding, and the difference between those two descriptions is most of the argument about this unit.

It shows in daan and seva as obligations rather than kindnesses, in Hindu hospitals and charitable trusts, and in the way Hindu relief work is argued for from within the tradition. Gandhi's public position is the clearest example: he took the teaching seriously and insisted it never licensed leaving anybody where they were.

What people get wrong

People think: Karma is God punishing you for what you did wrong.

Actually: Karma is cause and effect and not a verdict; nobody weighs evidence or passes sentence. The examiners record this error on Hindu material specifically, and it also collapses the difference between the Advaita account, where nobody is administering anything, and the theistic one.

People think: Natural evil means things like murder and theft.

Actually: Murder and theft are chosen by human beings, which makes them moral evil. Natural evil is suffering caused by the world itself with no human decision behind it — disease, earthquake, drought. The distinction is examined and the examiners record candidates reversing it.

People think: If suffering is caused by past actions, Hindus have no reason to help anybody.

Actually: Hindu teaching requires compassion and giving regardless of cause, and that requirement is part of the doctrine rather than an exception to it. The inference has been drawn in Hindu history and used to justify inequality, which is why reformers have argued against it from inside the tradition rather than outside it.

What the examiner expects you to understand

• Name karma explicitly, since the specification names it as the particular reference for this unit.
• Do not describe karma as divine punishment; it is the error most often recorded on Hindu answers about suffering.
• Keep natural and moral evil apart, because the examiners record candidates giving human crimes as examples of natural evil.
• The strongest available evaluation is that explanatory completeness and moral risk are the same property, so argue that rather than listing strengths and weaknesses.
• Include the obligation of compassion as doctrine rather than as mitigation, because an answer without it makes Hinduism sound indifferent when the teaching is not.

2 · Grade 9 Notes

Core belief / issue

The specification names karma as the particular reference. Hinduism's answer to suffering is more complete than any other on this specification and costs more: karma explains not only that suffering exists but why THIS person suffers, which no theodicy attempts. The price is that present suffering acquires a moral history, and the tradition has had to work hard to prevent that becoming a licence to blame.

Key terminology

Incandio's mark schemes credit the religion's own vocabulary; spelling variants are accepted, a vague paraphrase is not.

Karma (also karman)

Action and consequence across lifetimes; the Hindu explanation of the distribution of suffering.

Samsara

The cycle of birth, death and rebirth in which karma is worked out.

Moksha (also mukti)

Liberation from the cycle; the end of suffering rather than its explanation.

Lila (also leela)

The divine play; a devotional account in which creation is God's free activity rather than a necessity.

Dharma

Duty; what a person owes in their situation, including to those who suffer.

What Hinduism teaches

• shared — Karma explains the distribution of suffering: circumstances follow from action across lifetimes rather than being arbitrary.
• shared — Suffering is not permanent: samsara continues and moksha ends it, so the account is not one of endless injustice.
• shared — Compassion and daan are required regardless of why someone is suffering; explanation does not remove obligation.
• divided — The schools differ over whether God is implicated in suffering at all.
  • Advaita Vedanta — Brahman is beyond the categories in which the problem is posed; suffering belongs to the world of maya and karma operates impersonally.
  • Vaishnava — God is personal and involved, which means the problem arises in a form closer to the Christian one — and grace is part of the answer.

Why it teaches this

The reasoning is that a universe in which suffering is randomly distributed would be unjust, and karma removes the randomness. That is why Hinduism's account explains what theodicies do not: not why there is suffering, but why this person. The cost is exactly proportional to the benefit — an explanation of individual suffering is also an attribution of it, and that is the objection every serious critic makes.

Sources of authority

• Hindu teaching — Karma, samsara and moksha; Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita (translated)

  Karma — action and its consequence; samsara — the cycle of rebirth; moksha — release from it.

  Action produces consequence, which shapes future existence within the cycle of rebirth; the goal is release.

  How to use it: Karma is a law rather than a judge: no one is sentencing you, and that is exactly why it answers the problem of suffering differently from Christianity or Islam.

  What it does not settle: Karma is NOT divine judgement and moksha is NOT nirvana. Both confusions appear in the examiner reports and both cost accuracy marks.

• Hindu teaching — Daan and seva; taught across the epics and in modern Hindu practice (translated)

  Daan — giving; seva — selfless service.

  Giving and service as religious duties which purify the giver as well as helping the receiver, and which generate good karma.

  How to use it: Because the act shapes the giver's own future, Hindu giving has a reason that is not simply altruism — and saying so is a development rather than a restatement.

  What it does not settle: Motive matters: giving for merit alone is criticised within the tradition.

• The Bhagavad Gita — Bhagavad Gita 2:22 (with 2:20) (translated)

  As a man casts off worn-out garments and puts on new, so the embodied soul casts off worn-out bodies.

  The atman is not destroyed by death; the body is exchanged. The basis of Hindu teaching on rebirth.

  How to use it: If the self persists and the body does not, death is a transition rather than an ending — which changes what suffering and bereavement mean.

  What it does not settle: It does not describe the mechanism of rebirth, and traditions differ on the state of the liberated soul.

• The Bhagavad Gita (smriti) — Bhagavad Gita 2:47 (translated)

  Let right deeds be your motive, not the fruit which comes from them.

  Nishkama karma — acting according to duty without attachment to the outcome. Krishna's answer to Arjuna's refusal to fight.

  How to use it: It separates the rightness of an act from its results, which is why a Hindu answer on war or on wealth need not be consequentialist.

  What it does not settle: Its context is a battlefield, and using it on war without acknowledging that Arjuna is being told to fight misses the difficulty.

Different interpretations

• Karma read as explaining all suffering and read as one factor among several; the second is held by many Hindu thinkers and it softens the attribution problem.
• Suffering read as deserved and read as consequential without being deserved; the distinction is subtle and it is what allows compassion to remain obligatory.
• Moksha read as escape from suffering and read as realisation that the atman was never touched by it; the Gita supports the second, which is a different kind of answer.

Differences within Hinduism

Karma as the explanation is shared. Whether God is implicated genuinely differs, and it determines whether Hinduism faces the problem of evil in the form the other monotheisms do.

• Advaita Vedanta — The problem dissolves at the level of ultimate reality; karma operates impersonally within maya.
• Vaishnava — A personal God is involved, so the problem is real and grace is part of the response.
• Vishishtadvaita — God is personal and souls are dependent; karma operates under divine governance rather than independently of it.

Application to the issue

It shows in the acceptance with which suffering is often met, which observers describe as fatalism and practitioners as understanding; in daan and seva as required responses regardless of cause; in Hindu hospitals and charitable trusts; and in Gandhi's insistence that karma never justified failing to relieve someone's condition.

Arguments supporting

• Karma explains the distribution of suffering, which no theodicy does. — It answers why this person rather than why suffering exists. (hinduism)
  Answered by: It answers that question by attributing responsibility, which is exactly the objection — a fuller explanation is not automatically a better one.
• An impersonal law avoids the problem of a benevolent omnipotence. — There is nobody to defend, so the classic problem does not arise for Advaita. (advaita)
  Answered by: It arises in full for theistic Hinduism, so the escape is available to only part of the tradition.

Arguments challenging

• Karma makes suffering deserved and can justify indifference. — It has historically been used to explain and accept caste disadvantage. (non-religious)
  Answered by: Hindu teaching requires compassion regardless of cause and Hindu reformers have argued exactly this — but the misuse is real and has been consequential.
• A child born into extreme suffering cannot have deserved it. — They have not acted. (non-religious)
  Answered by: Karma answers by extending the account across lifetimes, which is precisely what makes it explanatorily complete and morally uncomfortable.

Secular / non-religious perspective

Non-religious people hold that suffering requires no explanation beyond causes and that its distribution is genuinely unjust rather than secretly fair. Many regard karma as the most objectionable religious response to suffering because it converts misfortune into desert, and Humanists argue that the honest response is to reduce suffering rather than to account for it.

Examinable throughout Paper 1. Nothing here earns a mark on Paper 2.

Evaluation

The hinge: Whether an explanation that reaches individual suffering is a strength or a liability. Hinduism is the only tradition on this specification that offers one, and it pays for it.

Defensible conclusions

• Karma is the most explanatorily complete account of suffering on this specification, and completeness is exactly what makes it morally dangerous.
• Hindu teaching's requirement of compassion regardless of cause is what prevents the doctrine collapsing into indifference, and it should be stated as part of the doctrine rather than as a mitigation.
• The Advaita and Vaishnava positions face genuinely different problems, so 'the Hindu answer' is not one answer, and saying so is more accurate than summarising.

Not defensible

• Describing karma as God punishing you — the examiners record this error specifically.
• Presenting karma as a reason not to help the suffering, which Hindu teaching itself rejects.

Exam use

• Identify · 3 marks — Three Hindu beliefs about suffering. Short phrases only.
• Outline · 4 marks — Two developed. 'Hindus believe karma explains suffering (1) — circumstances follow from action across lifetimes, so misfortune is consequence rather than accident (1).'
• Explain · 6 marks — Explain Hindu beliefs about suffering: karma, samsara, moksha, and the obligation of compassion regardless of cause.
• Evaluate · 12 marks — 'Suffering is part of the test of life.' Hinduism's answer is not a test but a consequence, which is a genuinely different framing.

Common mistakes

• Describing karma as divine punishment.
• Confusing natural and moral evil, which the examiners record.
• Presenting karma as making help unnecessary, which Hindu teaching denies.

“Karma is God punishing you for what you did wrong.” — Karma is a law of cause and effect, not a verdict. No one weighs the evidence and no one sentences you; the action itself conditions what follows.

Write instead: Karma is the principle that intentional action produces consequences which shape future experience. In Buddhism it turns on intention specifically. Sikh teaching holds karma alongside God's hukam and God's grace. Sikhism is the genuine middle case: karma operates, and liberation comes by God's grace rather than by accumulated merit. Saying so is a strong distinction.

“Natural evil means things like murder and theft.” — Murder and theft are chosen by human beings, which makes them moral evil. Natural evil is suffering caused by the world itself, with no human decision behind it.

Write instead: Moral evil is suffering caused by human choices — murder, theft, war, cruelty. Natural evil is suffering that no one chose — earthquakes, disease, famine, flood. The line blurs in real cases: a famine may be natural in origin and moral in its distribution, and that observation is a top-band point rather than a muddle. (Named in the 2023 examiner report for Paper 1.)

Grade 9 insight

Karma answers a question no theodicy attempts — not why there is suffering, but why THIS person suffers — and the two facts are the same fact. A Level 4 answer states the trade explicitly: an explanation complete enough to reach the individual case is necessarily an attribution of that case, so Hinduism's greater explanatory power and its greater moral risk are not two features but one. That is a far stronger evaluation than either praising the doctrine's coherence or condemning its social use.

Carry on through Hinduism

• Previous unit: 1.6 · Belief, uncertainty and unbelief
• Next unit: 2.1 · Death and life after death
• The problem of evil and suffering in the other religions: Buddhism · Christianity · Islam · Judaism · Sikhism
• All of Hinduism · Incandio Religious Studies · The 4RS1 specification