Why Does God Allow Suffering?

I've been reading 'Conversations With God book 1', and I won't paraphrase from it but I'd suggest anyone who asks the question of this thread, or any other question about the Why of God, reads it.

 

Why not just sum up the main argument(s)?

 

Because I'm on my phone at work and I hate extensive thumb typing.

 

Fair enough, I'm intrigued by the question but the extent of my desire is probably not so as to seek, aquire and read a book on it.

 

Conversations with God - Wikipedia

A person would have to resonate with the basic premise of the book or anything from it would fall on deaf ears.
The basic "main argument" is the necessity of free will, and that God is us and we are God, and we are here to experience that. We (God) create all there is, and as of now, we create suffering, and to "not allow" it would defeat the purpose of Everything. We will, eventually, remember who we are and create a world without suffering.

 

Okay.

 

I've heard the free will argument before, however not framed in that exact way but yah... It doesn't make much sense.

I do appreciate you taking the time to provide the summary though.

 

That makes no sense at all. But if it works for you... Walsch is a panentheist (not a typo; believes God is immanent in everything, as well as transcendent) and he offers up a syncretic theology combining several different schools. The "free will" argument doesn't explain why innocent people die in natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes.

 

That there is obviously creation---bespeaks of a creator. Beyond that fact----------pick your truths/hypotheses and there ya' go.
Using the word - allow- seems somewhat presumptuous, IMO.
But, using the words of the silly German guard on the dumb TV show : I know NOTHING!!

 

so you will enjoy pleasure more is corrected solution

 

No it's because we like to suffer

 

When we suffer, we Feel the most - and that's what Life is all about ..... methinks

 

The book does explain that... Whether I believe the explanation is correct, I have not decided. It has to do with the idea that our collective thoughts have real, physical outcomes. I'm not sure about it. By no means do I take everything he has written as incontrovertible truth, but the main ideas fit too perfectly with my experiences over the past couple of years.

The main point, in relation to this thread, is that when most of us think of God, we imagine a parental figure who can step in and alter things, or not, when actually the sense of God I have says that we are no less powerful than him/her/it because we are him/her/it.

If we want to end world hunger, we can. All it would take is for all of us to agree to do it, and we don't. Some of us want to keep doing things that prevent the end of world hunger.

 

If he's saying that our collective thoughts have real physical outcomes, I'd be skeptical. This is the "mind over matter" idea, borrowed from the so-called New Thought Movement of the nineteenth century that gave us Christian Science and the New Age Unity Church. I used to date a woman from the Unity Church, and I remember walking with her one evening and telling her we needed to avoid a certain neighborhood because we might get mugged. She said: Oh no. Don't think that! You'll cause it to happen". There went the relationship. New Agers of today like to dress up the idea in pseudo-scientific garb of "quantum mind". Some believe that the moon would actually go away if no one were looking at it. The late Victor Stenger, a physicist (and atheist) criticized this notion in arguments I find convincing. The Myth of Quantum Consciousness | HuffPost

The issue of how a good omnipotent Deity can allow bad things to happen has been debated for centuries, and even has a name: theodicy. Theologians and philosophers have put forward a variety of solutions, including the ones that your author Donald Walsch puts forward, which sounds like a somewhat solipsistic "we create the universe" explanation. A more common one is the Great Mystery/Ultimate Harmony approach, which seems to be given in the Book of Job: Humans can't understand the ways of God, but God does, and it will all work out in the end. Or the Hindu idea that physical reality is an illusion, suffering is a result of bad karma accumulated in past lives, and we are all part of the divine consciousness (Brahman). (As a matter of fact, this sounds similar to your description of Walsch's theory). Or C.S. Lewis' character-building approach (suffering is good for us). . Or Tielhard de Chardin's extension of the Free Will argument to physical objects. Or the Finite God theory (God is all good but not omnipotent). I tend to hold a version of the latter, based on Charles Hartshorne's Omnipotence and Other Theological Mistakes I agree with theologian Diogenes Allen that the Bible speaks of God as Almighty, not omnipotent, and with Hartshorne that God can voluntarily limit His powers without compromising omnipotence. Christians accept that he does so with Free Will. I think He also does so by authoring the laws of science. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, hurricanes, disease, pestilence, etc,. happen because of the laws of science. When we complain about them, we're essentially saying Why did God make them the way (S)he did , and not some other way? Maybe, as Leibniz thought, this is the "best of all possible worlds". Such metaphysical theories are impossible to prove one way or another.

 

I think I gave a pretty good answer on page two

 

What does God do but bind everything together? And we humans are so unappreciative. God is omnipotent, so God must do it with such ease that God could do virtually anything. And all I can think is, "Poor God. To find Its only joy in human relationships, living vicariously, because it can't have any real relationships itself." Primarily because no one ever stops and thinks about what it must be like to be God. And YES this is assuming God is a sentient being as so many world religions do. Actually OF COURSE its assuming this, because EVERYONE assumes this. And yet, no one thinks about God's feelings. It seems absurd to even mention "God's feelings." Like God could be so lowly as to have feelings.

I find the truth to be that we aren't so much interested in God as an outside personality. If God gets lonely, we don't care. We never think about what it must be like to be God (because we instinctively know that's rubbish) only how difficult it is to be ourselves. So if God has no personal feelings, what is God? God is just this being that knows everyone is wrong about everything all the time, but never gets personally effected by this omniscience Itself? What a one dimensional creature this God must be.

I've tried putting God first. To be God's friend. Because I think it must be exceedingly lonely to be God. God doesn't have many true friends. Only people thinking about this earthly life, their own personal setbacks and desires. But what about God? Could it be that God is doing the best he can? Or is that all rubbish, in reality?

Do religious folk ever consider that there may be no personal God? And if there is, what about God's feelings then? Why is it always about what God can do for us?

I experience quantum mind. I know how to experience meaningful synchronicity through the generation of randomness. I also know how to influence minds from a remote distance, sometimes so remote that even time itself is not a barrier. I believe in the future this will be a proven facet of reality. My life's goal is to prove it myself, as I know I experience it, but I have misgivings. Because we are talking about a huge paradigm shift, and I don't know that I would want to share responsibility for that. I consider all that we have, and people's livelihoods. I know it seems small, but I mostly consider the lives of human royalty, like celebrities. All of this would be vastly different in a world of quantum mind.

We talk about it so flippantly, but when you're actually in the middle of it there are real repercussions that occur.

Some say "Bring it on." Others...I pity them. Their minds aren't big enough to explore this world it seems, and I fear what will become of them. Pandering for attention and love in a world that has moved on into a place of enlightenment. There is so much vanity in the world. What becomes of it all in a world of quantum mind? That kind of personal fascination is so far removed from the fascination of mere appearances and circumstance.

On the other hand, the social order needs to be overturned. Because it leads to nothing. Already we are becoming bored of each other and more and more self-absorbed. Only there isn't anything about ourselves that warrants this self-absorption. We worship the self-absorbed. Only problem is they have nothing real to offer. They just vilify whoever is available, and we vilify them too. It's SICK. So society degrades. It is degrading. The things I see, the worship of money and power, are degrading to me personally, as I am fully and acutely aware that there is more to this life. Yet I pity those who are self-absorbed. I don't see where their place is in the future. Like Jesus said (I think?) or maybe it was Bob Dylan...the weak shall be mighty, the first shall be last. That HONESTLY and TRULY is the future. That is how it's going to be.

 

Maybe God suffers, and allows us to suffer too so we can experience that suffering with Him, so we are all in it together.

 

Maybe,maybe.

 

You did.

 

I think that suffering has little to do with righteousness. Just because God allows suffering that does not mean that He is not righteous.

When I think of suffering I think of Jesus. Jesus suffered greatly at the hands of the religious leaders of the day, and was even betrayed by one of His closest followers before ultimately being crucified and suffering in death for 3 days for the sins of humanity, after which time He was seated at the right hand of God having all authority on earth and in heaven, waiting until His enemies are made His footstool.

So if you want to know why God allows suffering, then think about Christs suffering. How does this correspond to our lives?

"though He was a son, yet He learned obedience through the things which He suffered." Hebrews 5:8.

Christ suffered because He was righteous. But others suffer because they are unrighteous.

Suffering is unavoidable. It is up to us to decide if we want to suffer for righteousness' sake, or if we want to suffer for unrighteousness.