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I remember a passage in the NT where someone implied that a man who was blind from birth was born that way as a punishment for his parents' transgression and Christ refutes that theory.

So, if everything we have is what God gave us, as the Protestants interpret, what about afflictions, poverty, sickness, etc?

It seems to me that in the Gospel of John there's a story of a blind man and Jesus said he was that way so that God's glory could be shown in the man through Jesus' miraculous ministry. Therefore, one would think that Jesus was objecting to the notion that the man was blind because of his parents' sin.

John 9 1 As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. 2 His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" 3 "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.

There is no doubt that Jesus is saying that God brought this about in order to achieve a purpose. BUT...the blindness did not happen because the man or his parents sinned.

Of course afflictions, poverty, and sickness come to us from God. The bible is fairly clear on that.

Jesus, is, of course, the prime example of afflictions and holy poverty.

The holy prophets and martyrs are all evidence of the same.

Regarding sickness, it is clear that God struck Gehazi and also Naaman with sickness....directly and with purpose.

Then, of course, there is the issue again of God's foreknowledge about this world that God created. He KNEW ahead of the final act of creation about every person who would ever die, become impoverished, have a broken heart, become brutalized in any way, yet He created anyway.

He considered the accomplishment of His end purpose to outweigh all that anguish. Some might disagree with Him, but, neither are they God.

Of course afflictions, poverty, and sickness come to us from God. The bible is fairly clear on that

The God as perceived by the Jews in the OT does. In the NT, God heals the sick. What a difference! In fact, healing involves driving out evil spirits. And Christ says that He couldn't possibly be the devil because, by healing the sick, that would make Satan divided. Obviously, God and Satan are not both the cause of illness in the NT. In the OT, that's a different story: Satan works for God, and angles do all the killing in the name of God. It's like night and day.