How can a good God allow suffering

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Babies had gone "irretrievably bad"?

Come on guys. You have to pretend there is a God if you are going to critique the story. I mean if you reject that premise, it's not possible to discuss how good or evil he might be.

If you are God, creator of the universe and time itself, it would be easy to run the clock forward and see just how they would turn out.

And before you scoff at the idea of time travel, consider that theoretical physicists now say there is no reason time cannot be run either forwards or backwards. They say the math proves it so they would have no problem with a god that could do that.

So, God let the babies be born in the first place while he already knew how they'd turn out and he knew he'd kill them before the fact. What a sadist.

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So, God let the babies be born in the first place while he already knew how they'd turn out and he knew he'd kill them before the fact. What a sadist.

You are assuming the worst case motives and order of events, which I see is often your perspective. You are not starting with the assumption of a good and loving God but rather a malevolent one.

But if we are talking hypotheticals, who knows at what point God grants you your soul. I don't know but it could be at ant point, not necessarily birth. I know full grown adults who I could swear have none. Or perhaps they renounced them.

So maybe God never gave those babies souls. Hell, for all I know, God made all the men and women sterile befor the flood and there were no babies.

There's no apologetic you can come up with that excuses an omnipotent and omniscient being from concluding that genocide is the proper solution to a problem. You're in denial of the obvious.

Genesis 7:22-23 KJV
[22] … , died. [23] And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. …

As you know, l’m quite keen on comic books. Especially the ones about superheroes. I find the whole mythology surrounding superheroes fascinating. Take my favorite superhero, Superman. Not a great comic book, not particularly well-drawn, but the mythology. The mythology is not only great, it’s unique…Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is, there’s the superhero and there’s the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he’s Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn’t become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red “S”, that’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears – the glasses, the business suit – that’s the costume. That’s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He’s weak, he’s unsure of himself, he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race. Sorta like Beatrix Kiddo and Mrs. Tommy Plympton…You would’ve worn the costume of Arlene Plympton. But you were born Beatrix Kiddo. And every morning when you woke up, you’d still be Beatrix Kiddo…I’m calling you a killer. A natural born killer. You always have been, and you always will be. Moving to El Paso, working in a used record store, goin’ to the movies with Tommy, clipping coupons. That’s you, trying to disguise yourself as a worker bee. That’s you tryin’ to blend in with the hive. But you’re not a worker bee. You’re a renegade killer bee. And no matter how much beer you drank or barbecue you ate or how fat your ass got, nothing in the world would ever change that…

News flash! No babies or chrildren were harmed in the making of this flood!

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Genesis 7:22-23 KJV
[22] … , died. [23] And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark. …

If you wanna get literal about the words...

That's just your read.