Why does God allow so much suffering?

AlexDTX

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Are you saying, why doesn't God intervene?
@Markusss
The gifts and the callings of God are without repentance. God gave mankind (through Adam) dominion over the Earth. The responsibility he gives us he does not take back. Lucifer co-opted that dominion when he deceived Adam and Eve, but Jesus paid the price to get it back, and shares that responsibility with us as joint heirs with Christ. We are to submit unto God and the responsibility to resist Satan is given to us. We were given the Great Commission. The responsibility to share the Gospel is given to us. Regrettably, most of mankind does not want the responsibility, so they blindly follow men in their organized religion letting the leaders tell them what to believe about God. They forsake their own responsibility to share the Gospel believing it is the responsibility of the pastoral staff to witness for them. Then when things sour they can blame the leadership instead of themselves for shirking their duties to God.

My response is not directed at Norbert, by the way. I just used his clarifying question to chime in.

[Edited Post Script]

Another consideration is the complexity of living beings. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15 on the topic of what our glorified bodies will be like in the resurrection, says that not all flesh is the same. If the flesh is not the same then it is true that spirits are not the same. Animals are used to compare human behavior. For example, we are not to be like the ostrich that hides its head in the sand and leaves its young open to attack. People come in all kinds of stripes and varieties. We are not to try and conform other people to our ideas of what a person should be like. I think this is why so many marriages fail. Spouses do not accept the differences of their partners and try to conform them to their idea of what their partner should be like instead of accepting their differences as God given and embracing the benefit of those differences. On the job we have the same problem and in the church. Church leadership and congregation members assume that everyone should be like their idea of what a Christian means.

I have stated to others in the past that God is infinite. He can not be fully expressed in one person alone. Jesus is the only one who could, yet even with Jesus he wants a fuller expression of himself which is why we are all members of his body. God needs the ethnic and cultural differences for his life to be expressed. Congregations that are not mixed ethnically fall short of that expression.

My point is that much suffering occurs between people because of their ignorance of others and their trying to conform others to their idea of what people should be like.
 
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lesliedellow

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The "problem of suffering" is only a problem if you presuppose that God's number one, and top, priority, is to make our lives as pain free as possible. What if he has got other priorities, such as the pursuit of his own glory, and to that end he was prepared to inflict suffering even upon his incarnate self?
 
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ravindraneee

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I am really struggling to answer this question. It can't be just be about free will. Natural disasters, accidents and diseases are the cause of many deaths each day. Dying without having a choice sounds like the opposite of free will to me.
The simple reason is sin. What we are going through are consequences of sin. The original sin of Adam and Eve caused separation of us from God. When Adam and Eve sinned, they were cast away from God's rest (Garden of Eden). We are outsiders now in this world. Jesus gave His life on the cross to reconcile us back to God. To give us new life. He does not repair the existing life. It is a totally new life. That's why we are called born again. It would probably still does not answer the question right. Why God would allow pain and suffering if He is able to stop it all. While we know the reason is sin, we cannot answer why God does not stop sin completely.

We need to remember this. We ask these questions on grounds of morality, love, just, etc. These are attributes defined by God. These are precepts given by law. We cannot separate God from morality, love or justice. And we cannot use what God has given to us to question Him. That is, we cannot simply use them to say why God does not act in so an so way. That is why Bible says His ways are higher
 
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JIMINZ

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I am really struggling to answer this question. It can't be just be about free will. Natural disasters, accidents and diseases are the cause of many deaths each day. Dying without having a choice sounds like the opposite of free will to me.
.
Why the obsession with free will in your question?
 
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Rescued One

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there has unfortunately been evil with many people since the day of the Fall - has the true One been fully able to stop evil for these 5-6 millennia or He Himself is evil?!

Blessings

What on earth are you trying to say?
 
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lastofall

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Choices? we have the choice to repent and own our sins or not; we have the choice to deny our own will or not; we have the choice to submit to and rely upon the Word of God or not: these are the only things that matter concerning choice. As for suffering, it is so that we may know the good, what is good, what is blessed; suffering is how we learn obedience, and is what purifies us, and what keeps us trusting God; and by the way we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God; but our light affliction which is but for a moment, works for us a far more weight and glory.
(Matthew 4:17)
(Matthew 16:24)
(Romans 10:17)
(Hebrews 5:8)
(1 Corinthians 10:13)
(Acts 14:22)
(2 Corinthians 4:17)
 
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toLiJC

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What on earth are you trying to say?

someone has to work for hastening of salvation - in fact, there is a need for many such workers

Luke 10:2 (NHEB) "he said to them, "The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore to the Lord of the harvest, that he may send out laborers into his harvest"

Blessings
 
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Rescued One

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someone has to work for hastening of salvation - in fact, there is a need for many such workers

Luke 10:2 (NHEB) "he said to them, "The harvest is indeed plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray therefore to the Lord of the harvest, that he may send out laborers into his harvest"

Blessings

You asked, "- has the true One been fully able to stop evil for these 5-6 millennia or He Himself is evil?!"

Can God stop evil? Of course, He can! Why do you ask?
 
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Rescued One

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The "problem of suffering" is only a problem if you presuppose that God's number one, and top, priority, is to make our lives as pain free as possible. What if he has got other priorities, such as the pursuit of his own glory, and to that end he was prepared to inflict suffering even upon his incarnate self?

C'mon! You know Arminians don't want God to make all the decisions unless those decisions agree with theirs!
 
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WonderingStranger

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We live in a fallen world, but with hope that is Jesus Christ. We can open heaven in places of brokenness, and bring restoration just as Jesus did when he walked on the earth. Jesus said these things would happen, and they will continue to happen, it shouldn't be a surprise to us when it does. This is not the world God created it is a corrupted version, where as God created a world that was eternal without decay, sin has crept into the world through Adam and brought decay, destruction, devastation. He allows the things of this world to happen but does not leave us like orphans. We have hope in Christ and are empowered to comfort those who are suffering.
 
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JIMINZ

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I am really struggling to answer this question. It can't be just be about free will. Natural disasters, accidents and diseases are the cause of many deaths each day. Dying without having a choice sounds like the opposite of free will to me.
.

You ask your question in such a way, that it sounds like your saying, that if God allows so much suffering, then He must have caused it, or condones it.

Have you never read where God gave to man Dominion over the whole earth to subdue it?

Gen. 1:28
And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

God gave His Creation to the Created and took His hands off of it, how could we truly have Dominion if, God kept correcting what we have done in it?

Whatever suffering you see in the world, mankind has caused.

Jesus came to reconcile us to God, but things still happen even though we have come to Christ, that is the fallen condition of the world which Adam left to us.

If you must blame anyone, blame Adam.
 
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toLiJC

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You asked, "- has the true One been fully able to stop evil for these 5-6 millennia or He Himself is evil?!"

Can God stop evil? Of course, He can! Why do you ask?

the matter at hand was whether He has been unable to save humankind or evil to cause harm to humans, i.e. which of these two?!, and of course the true God has not been evil, but then He must have been hampered...

Blessings
 
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Rescued One

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the matter at hand was whether He has been unable to save humankind or evil to cause harm to humans, i.e. which of these two?!, and of course the true God has not been evil, but then He must have been hampered...

Blessings

God is omnipotent.
 
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toLiJC

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God is omnipotent.

"omnipotent" is not a biblical word, however, the true God is powerful for all good things, yet within the eternity - after all, due to the impact of the indefinitely existing "darkness" there is an end followed by a beginning, which makes the eternity (be) periodic/cyclic - and nevertheless (despite His excellent might) there has been a need for as many true spiritual servants as possible to work for overall salvation...

Blessings
 
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lesliedellow

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"omnipotent" is not a biblical word,

Jeremiah 32:27 “I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?"

Even if not in those exact words, God poses that rhetorical question more than once in the course of scripture, and he is clearly expecting the answer "no".
 
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JIMINZ

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Including earthquakes and hurricanes, presumably.

Oh the power I have!!
.
You know full well what I meant.

Do you believe God sends Hurricanes, and Tornadoes, Earthquakes?
If so why don't they happen in the Godless Countries like the UK,
 
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lesliedellow

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Do you believe God send Hurricanes, and Tornadoes, Earthquakes?
If so why don't they happen in the Godless Countries like the UK,

I do not pretend to know the mind of God, beyond what is revealed in the Bible. How about you?
 
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lesliedellow

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You only believe the parts of the Bible you agree with.

Not true. There is quite a bit in the Bible I don't like, including eternal damnation, but it says what it says, and attempts to explain it away are less than convincing.
 
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