Why Does God Allow Suffering?

This is a very important topic with almost everyone. People reason, if there is a God, why does he allow suffering?
To understand this, we have to understand that a vital issue has been raised.
To find out why God allows suffering, we need to think back to the time when suffering began. When Satan led Adam and Eve into disobeying God Jehovah , an important question was raised. Satan did not call into question Jehovah’s power. Even Satan knows that there is no limit to Jehovah’s power. Rather, Satan questioned Jehovah’s right to rule. By calling God a liar who withholds good from his subjects, Satan charged that Jehovah is a bad ruler. Satan implied that mankind would be better off without God’s rulership. This was an attack on Jehovah’s sovereignty, his right to rule.

 

Adam and Eve rebelled against Jehovah. In effect, they said: ‘We do not need Jehovah as our Ruler. We can decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong.’ How could Jehovah settle that issue? How could he teach all intelligent creatures that the rebels were wrong and that his way truly is best? Someone might say that God should simply have destroyed the rebels and made a fresh start. But Jehovah had stated his purpose to fill the earth with the offspring of Adam and Eve, and he wanted them to live in an earthly paradise. Jehovah always fulfills his purposes. Besides that, getting rid of the rebels in Eden would not have answered the question that had been raised regarding Jehovah's right to rule.

 

as a parent, do you have the right to tell your adult children what to do and expect obedience and compliance without question, or do you accept the fact that they were born into this world children with free will able to make their own decisions?

It's a legitimate question though; if we were created as creatures of free will, wouldnt it be against our nature to submit to the will of another?

Why does god permit suffering? If we were created in the image of God and we are creatures of free will, and if God as a creator made us in his image as creators, then as creators we're responsible for the world that we've created.

If we were created in the image of God, and if God as a perfect being created humans, the same humans that were created with free will and as creators, WE are the creators of our own suffering.

God as an entity has no right to rule a being created with free will or the will of self governance. Even if the creation was his in inception, it was given to a race of people that accepted free will by choice in the garden. The discussion is fruitless because morally, our predicament can't be placed at the feet of a God unless we accept the responsibility as humans in recognizing that our suffering is our own lot and our own creation as creatures of free will.

The only person that can change the world is God, and there are 7 billion Gods on the planet praying to an entity that no one wants to acknowledge. God resides in the heaven of your mind, praying to him is praying to yourself and creating your own self fulfilling prophecy that you manifest into your reality. Faith without works is dead; nothing happens until you make it happen.

If you want to end suffering, do the will of God and change the world. Prayer is only as effective as the effort that follows the Amen.

 

God as a concept is as unknowable or as knowable as you choose to make him, but the first step is getting to know yourself as objectively as possible.

 

consider an illustration. Imagine that a teacher is telling his students how to solve a difficult problem. A clever but rebellious student claims that the teacher’s way of solving the problem is wrong. Implying that the teacher is not capable, this rebel insists that he knows a much better way to solve the problem. Some students think that he is right, and they also become rebellious. What should the teacher do? If he throws the rebels out of the class, what will be the effect on the other students? Will they not believe that their fellow student and those who joined him are right? All the other students in the class might lose respect for the teacher, thinking that he is afraid of being proved wrong. But suppose that the teacher allows the rebel to show the class how he would solve the problem.

 

Jehovah has done something similar to what the teacher does. Remember that the rebels in Eden were not the only ones involved. Millions of angels were watching. How Jehovah handled the rebellion would greatly affect all those angels and eventually all intelligent creation. So, what has Jehovah done? He has allowed Satan to show how he would rule mankind. God has also allowed humans to govern themselves under Satan’s guidance.

 

-_- you obviously just started studying.

here's a tip: you should engage with your audience to make your points more readily and easily discussed. respond to specific points and counterpoints to foster a more open discussion, and pay attention to the questions that you're being asked because quoting from the "knowledge that leads to everlasting life" book got old when i was 8.

To that argument, if you can corroborate an account of human perfection outside of jesus or the garden of eden with historical fact, I'll buy into the concept of human imperfection and divine grace.

It's interesting though, how the Bible mirrors teachings throughout history that predated it.

 

Consider an alternative possibility. Humans suffer because they are finite, fallible creatures of limited constitutions and nervous systems which evolved from lower organisms under the constraints of the laws of physics. As their brains evolved to permit conceptual thought, they posed a question similar to yours, and came up with the Genesis myth, which is best understood as an allegory describing the conflict between individual level natural selection and group-level natural selection.

 

II have considered it.
You say Genesis myth. Moses wrote genesis. Do you believe all of Genesis to be myth and allegory?

 

I thought the story of genesis was passed down orally for centuries before someone other than Moses wrote it down.

 

I don't believe that Moses, if he existed, wrote Genesis or any of the Pentateuch. I'm persuaded by the Documentary Hypothesis, or variations thereof, that Genesis 1 was the work of the authors or schools of scribes referred to as P, J and E, and that the original source of the creation myth was Sumerian, conveyed to the Jewish authors mostly during their Babylonian captivity. Genesis 2, however, includes an earlier version of probably northern Israelite origin. I believe that Genesis is entirely myth and allegory. It was by contemplating that myth and allegory, aka, truth conveyed in a owerful form, that I had the moment of clarity that made me a Christian.

 

Wax & Wane, Ebb & Flow, Birth & Death, Summer & Winter, Good & ... Evil.

God represents forces of love, reasonning, compassion, understanding, and wisdom.

There are other forces at work in the living universe that are ultimately responsible for trials, tribulations, pain and hardship.

 

Maybe it is not so much Good and Evil. But more like order and chaos. God doesn't 'allow suffering' as in He's condoning something evil. Suffering is unpleasant and deadly. It may seem 100% bad for us, but it really is not evil. It is more like shit happens. Why does shit happen? Action reaction. The world and all its good things (subjectively perceived by us creatures in it) are not less good because we perceive suffering to be bad or evil. In fact bad things contrast with the good and so we notice and experience and focus on what is good for us Nothing is everlasting in this universe and that is not bad.

 

Where did anyone get the idea that if something bad happens, God is condoning evil? The universe operates according to the laws of physics. Some folks, like me, believe the universe or multiverse governed by such laws and the integrated complexity resulting is so cool that a Higher Power must be involved. It happens to be a natural consequence of these laws that shit and other bad things happen. Why did God let it rain on my sister's wedding day? Why do people have to die, some of awful things like glioblastoma or melanoma? Because that's the way the universe operates. Why couldn't God make it operate some other way? Some philosophers and scientists (Leibniz; F. Dyson; Smolin and Barbour) think that the basic scheme of the universe is to maximize variety subject to the greatest degree of order. That may not strike all of us as the best idea, but it seems to be the result of the laws of science, and that's the way it is, and I think it's pretty cool. If God wants it that way, it precludes Him from suspending the laws of physics to keep us from stubbing our toes, getting sick or experiencing misfortune. Even God can't do logically contradictory things. I see no indication that God is a micro-manager.

 

I always thought of the situation surrounding the fall of man a little differently than what the futureawaits described, but otherwise his teacher analogy is very good.

so really I think of the conflict between God and Satan as predating man, that is why he was there is the garden of eden working counter intuitively to the creator's purpose. so the conflict between God and satan preceded the creation of man. satan did in fact challenge God's power(Isaiah 12:13).

so then in order for God to righteously condemn Satan he must show that his works are evil. Evil is allowed to persist for a time to show it for what it really is, evil -- it has to run its course. I mean think about the gravity of the consequences that are being purported here -- eternal condemnation. so since satan is still unbound, his influence on creation causes suffering. however, after satan is cast in to the lake of fire, God will wipe away all of the tears of those who enter paradise. All things will be made new, and there will be no more suffering.

well that is the simple answer.

but the truth is, the complexity of the creation is far beyond us. I mean, what is the relationship between suffering and faith? how could the purification of a person's faith through suffering be explained? God's thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and His ways are higher than our ways.

 

From what I understand. Satan was one of the Cherubs standing guard at the Garden of Eden. A wrong desire developed in his heart and he acted on it. Jealousy wanting humans to worship him and not God.

 

I believe Genesis is all myth and allegory. And I don't think Moses, if he existed, wrote a word of it. Where does it say in the Bible that he did?

 

God has to look down on us miserable fucken wretches, he suffers too mark my words.

 

I've said this before, and will say it again!
It's my belief, Jesus was a guy, much like a hippy, that believed in good, and love, he showed a way, we can love each other, and live in peace!
That we can stop famin, if we work together, that war and suffering can be dealt with, if we live as one world! But if you split, you have two paths! Go down the wrong road, you will cause bad, evil and suffering, if you go down the other, you will do good, and work together!
Unfortunately, people started to use his words as a threat! Blackmail, the churches are the result of this..

You are in control of your own destiny, no one else, but there are still, and always will be, two roads, paths..
One of those paths leads to suffering, which man alone causes!

If God actually existed in the form the Bible says, he would have survived,and guided the people to love and peace! He was a man, just like you and I, people didn't like that others listened..

 

If you consider that God created evolution, it all makes more sense.