God is a god of order and principles. He put alot ofthat in place when he made creation. Of course, we changed the game when we did the one thing he asked us not to do. so we are actually bound by some of the curses of the fallen world.
95% of the suffering in the world is created by mankind hurting mankind. (especially when you look at the plight caused to humans by evil rulers). so although i do believe in God’s providence and sovereignty...he would have to do 1000 miracles every day for each person in order to protect us from killing or hurting each other....
i hate to see folks constantly blaming him. even when you look at the other 5%—natural disasters—again, these are systems that were put into place to maintain the planet and our universe. yet we blame god when they affect us—sometimes in spite of knowledge which he has released to humankind that would help us control or avoid these disasters. so why do we constantly blame god for this as well?
[[God is a god of order and principles.]]
That’s true, but I think morei mportantly, concerning death and suffering, is that God is the God of Justice- Justice demands righteousness- Righteousness demands a perfectly righteous sacrifice for all those who are not perfectly righteous (the bible tells us that noone is righteous- even hte ‘innocent’ who suffer)
Before man was created, God knew that in order for free will to exist, there MUST be the choice between good and evil, and because God loved us so wholly, He He allowed free wil ldespite the fact that free will would mean suffering and evil had to coexist. His pure justice meant that He had to judge evil and immorlaity and sin, BUT, He did in His wisdom and love, provide a way to avoid His judgement by accepting His Son’s perfect sacrifice to absolve of us of our sins once for all.
Since free will can not exist without evil present, it is necessary for evil to exist in order for man to show where his devotions lie- whether with God DESPITE the fact that sufferign takes place, or with the world, using sufferign as an excuse to reject God. Those who come to understand that God is NOT a vending machine, or a magic lamp that grants wishes and protection simpyl because we choose to follow Him, show that they love God inspite of circumstances- those hwo falter when trouble coems, reject God, are those who are only interested in a God that gives htem their heart’s desires-
Sufferign seperates the pretenders from the true followers, and actually, this seperation is reflected in marriage vows- for better or for worse’- the vow isn’t ‘I’ll love you ONLY IF you do such and such and such and such’ but rather ‘I’ll love you WHATEVER coems along’- of course a lot of people break their marriage vows, because they weren’t really serious in the first place, showign that they didn’t truly love hte person they were marrying, and proving they were only ‘fair-weather’ lovers.
Suffering sucks for sure, but htose that can love God DESPITE the circumstances, find a much much deeper love/relationship with hteir creator than would those who were basically forced into the relationship without having a choice- suffering brings out our TRUE devotions- and we’ll be hte much stronger for it IF we stay the course, rather than give up and accuse God of ‘being unfair’ for allowing us to suffer the consequences of our OWN choices when we brought sin upon us by eating the apple
We’re fickle human beings, always trying to pass the buck- to blame others for what we bring on ourselves- WE brought sin and sufferign into this world because WE decided we diodn’t want to obey God’s command, and because WE decided WE knew better than He what was good for us, but WE want to blame Him for what WE caused instead of takign hte blame as we should rightfully do.
Sufferign is a tricky subject- and peopel rightfully quesiton why God allows it- but when we examine ourselves, we discover whether or not we serve God because ofg what we think He ‘owes’ us, or because we love Him DESPITE our circumstances- and when we understand that His perfect righteousness and perfect judicial nature demand s justice, we see that WE simpyl reap what we sow- just as we would in society IF we were to break the rules here on earth-