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because man welcomed sin by eating the apple- ALL creation was put under the curse- They were put under the curse because adam was the head of all creation- that is yet another reason the fall was such a serious problem- all of creation groans under the weight of the curse now - The lie of the Evil One was that Adam would ‘surely not die’ and Adam believed the Evil One over God- Bad move- Satan knew that all of creation would suffer- In my previous post you’ll note the ‘group effect’ and i mentioned that it was a very important concept- for this very reason- Man’s fall didn’t just affect mankind, it affected ALL of creation, and man is directly responsible-

Sin is a very very serious issue- God told man that it was- man ignored God- and chose sin- Man alone is guilty for all the suffering in this life- not just among other men and women and children, but all of creation- Man WILL be held accountable for this-

Remember I said that single sins can have far reaching consequences? (When talking about the claim of ‘unfairness of eternity in hell’?)

Biting that apple was a direct deliberate rebellion against God- And those who don’t ask forgiveness and become saved are continuing to commit a direct deliberate rebellion against God, and all of creation groans as a result- they will be held accountable and justly tried for it, and cast into eternity justly

And just for the record- the sinning won’t end when they are cast into eternal punishment- their sin will greatly multiply in eternity-

Ken- not to belabor the question too much hopefully- but your question is a good one and one that is attempted to be used by agnostics and atheists to ‘disprove the existence of a loving God’

Their reasoning goes, as mentioned before, only applied to animals this time:

1: Gratuitous pain inflicted on ‘the innocent animals’ would not exist if there were a loving God

2: If there were gratuitous pain and suffering experienced by ‘the innocent animals’, a loving God would eliminate it immediately

3: Since Gratuitous pain and suffering exist for ‘the innocent animals’, a loving God does not exist

The problem with this though is that we, as finite limited knowledge creations, see the pain as gratuitous when it is not- gratuitous means that there is no sufficient reason for it- We think of say a bluejay off in the deep woods somewhere, never coming into contact with people. our society, or whatever, living with some sort of cancer, or bird flu, or whatever, and dying after a prolonged bout of suffering, and we can see ‘no good reason’ for the animal having to go through such an ordeal

In other words, it would seem that, judging only with our finite knowledge, that the world is full of ‘pointless evil’ and this ‘pointless evil’ points to the notion that a God of love couldn’t possibly exist

The problem of human suffering is a bit easier to decipher- ie pain and suffering are needed in a moral atmosphere to test the responses of a fallen people - ie: Without the possibility of immorality (ie resentment, bitterness- rejection and finally disobedience) one can not choose morality- one is simply bound to morality without a choice (ie: the robot argument- God wanted men with free wills, not robots that blindly obey)

the problem of animals suffering however, is a bit tougher- however, the fact is animal sufferings do not just affect the animal or even just other animals, it affects human agents as well because we are aware that such suffering occurs- and it puts us to the test of whether or not we accept God’s Sovereign right to allow such suffering of ‘innocent animals’ or not-

So the suggestion that ‘innocent animal’ suffering is ‘gratuitous’ (without purpose) is incorrect- there are other reasons for suffering I’m sure, but the above one comes to mind for now-

Is it justifiable to allow animals to suffer just to test the reaction of man? Perhaps not if that were the only reason for the suffering- but there are other reasons as well- I’m sure- A loving God would indeed not allow gratuitous suffering- purposeless suffering- we must keep in mind, that His ways truly are above our way- That is not a cop out to the question, as We can, with some effort I believe, know some of the reasons- one of which was explained above-

(There is also a line of thought that animals do not experience pain and process it the same way that man does- and that they may be spared the emotional pains that make suffering in humans as bad as it is- there is a book called ‘Nature red in tooth and claw’ which tackles this and delves into neurological differences (something about animals lacking a ‘second neural pathway’) as well as other biological differences between man and beast- and how that affects emotional responses to pain and suffering or basic animal responses to the same as the case may be-

My thoughts are getting a bit scattered now- Perhaps there are easier to understand explanations out there- I’ve not looked much into the issue- but i shall later as it’s a good question-