Why does God permit suffering?

Even in lowly human law, "premeditation" is an element of first degree murder. God purposely created a world where humans would suffer and the devil would do his dastardly deeds. How do you conclude that he is a "loving god?"

If, by omniscient, you mean that God is subject to some necessity, then no.

God has no more obligation to know than you or I have to read the last page of the whodunit. He is the one who decides what is necessary for him to know, not you or I.

"Lucifer (the devil) was created perfect in all his ways, but inquity was found in him. It was not put there by God. Lucifer created it." Ezekiel 28:15

The angels were created perfectly but they had free will and Lucifer chose to use it wrongly.

Lucifer is not a name, but a title meaning 'shining one'. Neither is satan a name, but a title meaning 'resister' or 'rebel'.

We have seen fit to capitalize the word Satan to indicate the foremost resister, but in reality, Satan's real name is not known. It does not merit mention; and will henceforth never be mentioned.

I believe Satan is ancient Chaldean for nemesis. Does it matter whether he is called by a name or a title. I still see my old high school baseball coach every once in a while, and I call him "Coach." After almost twelve years you'd think I'd just call him Rob. Does it really matter if we call him Satan or Hank?


The.........

s-t-n (in transliterated Hebrew, that is):
one who opposes, obstructs, or acts as an adversary

Could be anyone, seems to me.

I noticed you capitalized the word 'Coach'.

Quite right

A 'satan,' dispensed under the administration of a truly wise and fair higher Authority, could actually turn out to be something good!

The ninth letter of the Hebrew 'alephbet' is 'tet.'

It means 'serpent' and 'the hidden good in what first appears to be evil/bad.'

hmmmmm.....

It is wise to test authority.

Faith comes after authority has been tested

So Lucifer has the power to create? Interesting. I always thought you guys held one creator responsible for the whole universe and everything in it.

Good one, Neo. You are so sensible.

Besides the logic of your statement, the whole 'faith' idea is garbled anyway.

What we call 'faith' was 'fidelity', 'constancy' and/or 'a trust' in the bible. Now it is the same as 'belief' but that was known as 'hope' back then.

Faith, hope, and charity.

Integrity, optimism, and love.

As I recall, aren't we invited to do what we feel we must do in order to 'prove' God's faith toward us? Not test God, but test divine authority and motive?

And, doesn't it also say that 'we can do nothing against the truth?' Whatever that may be, that is.

I don't see that believing gets us anywhere ahead of another--especially when it is an ability that is said to come from God, not ourselves...

What's done is done. The rescue is 100% complete, it's the light that still isn't shining as brightly as it should be.

Shameless bump

A very coincidental bump, as I was wondering about this very subject myself during the past week or so.

Yesterday I read a story in the newspaper in which a family of six- mom, dad, three boys and their new ten week old sister, had traveled to North Wales to introduce the new baby to the mother's extended family. On the way home to Birmingham, they were stopped behind a line of traffic on the motorway and a lorry driver who was doing something on his laptop while driving, plowed into them at full speed, sandwiching their car between his truck and the one in front of them, killing the entire family instantly.

Last week, another story came to my attention in a community nearby in which a seventeen year old boy hung himself. At first, there was no indication as to why, although his teachers had said that he seemed to have fallen off in his studies lately.
The day after he killed himself, his parents found a letter he'd left on his computer. This boy's father, though only in his forties, had had a series of strokes and this boy had been responsible for caring for him after school while his mother worked for the past five years.
His mother had recently told him that he would not be able to go to university next year to study law as he had hoped and planned, as he would be needed at home to continue to help care for his father. He stated in the letter that he couldn't face this.

Both of these stories just filled me with overwhelming sadness and the question: why? Why is life like this for some people and not for others?
It makes it very difficult for me to accept the cared for feeling that I've always had and continue to have and attribute to God, when I read of such things.
Do you have an answer? Why does God permit such suffering?

God does not "permit" suffering any more than he "permits" happiness.

God created free will. Free will can be evil. Evil hurts people. Since evil is sprung from free will, free will hurts people. Since God created free will and free will causes evil and evil hurts people then God must be evil and wants to hurt people.

This is why people have such a hard time with the God concept. They can't understand how the above statement can be in any way indicative of a loving God. It's more the statement describing a God who doesn't care.

aiden, It's not god; it's the situation that they happen to be in that resulted in what happened. Some people have more control over their lives, and are able to live beyond the current problems. Some people feel that's the end of their life, and take their own life by committing suicide.

Accidents happen through no fault of our own; some live through some of the worst accidents, and some die from what seems to be moderate. It's the same way will disease and sickness. Some seem to outlive what is deemed normal for the type of disease/sickness, and some die instantly without warning.

With the progression in technology, especially in our mode of travel by vehicles, trains, buses and airplanes, there are going to be accidents. Some will survive as if by miracle while others die from the same accident.

Those are mysteries without simple answers, but they are not the influence of god, but nature.

I don't think there was any will involved in either of these stories.
I don't think any of these victims exercised any will or did anything to cause or merit what happened to them.

Not the family, not the boy, not the father who had the strokes, not even the mother who told the boy she needed his help.

It's seems arbitrary and pointless and purposeless to me- and extremely sad.
I don't understand it, and I don't know how to think about it to have it make any sense to me.

It's all part and parcel of being alive and knowing **** happens without it making any sense.

90% of the world population are also starving; there's not much we can do about this kind of tragedy. Some of us who can donate to charities do so to a limited degree in hopes of relieving some of the suffering. It'll never make sense.

But someone, somewhere exercised free will, which may have precipatated what happened to those people. Or made it more difficult for those people. Everything is connected in some way or another. Nothing we do affects only us.

Well, yeah. But for someone like me who has at least a residual belief in God, or who would like to be able to hang onto a belief in God because it has meant something to me in my life, I'd like to find some way to think about it aside from = **** happens and then you die.

I mean, even to someone who doesn't believe in God - don't you think that's just sort of horrible to be able to say to yourself, 'Well, thank goodness I'm not one of those poor sods born in Rwaanda and just go on with your comfortable life while you reckon that they just lost the roll of the dice and that's just the way it is?

I need some other way to think about it myself or life just seems too tragic and empty for too many people.