Christians, in your faith, apart from God being omnipotent, he is also strongly presented as a benevolent (loving) God who has the interest of humanity at heart. There is even a popular bible verse, "God is love". A popular argument against this is that if God loves us and is love and he created us, then why is there so much suffering in this world. The most common christian retort to this argument is that God gave humans free will to do as they please and that humans cause suffering for other humans. This retort, while being reasonable, doesn't cover the non man made causes of human suffering. There are natural disasters like earth quakes,tsunamis,typhoons and hurricanes; diseases like polio,small pox,measles, several kinds of cancers; parasitic organisms (like some species of worms) whose survival is based on infecting its host and feeding on them.
Most of the things mentioned are naturally occuring. As a christian who believes God created this world, then logically you should believe he is responsible for these things and thus shares responsibility for alot of human suffering.
If you disagree with this, I'd like to hear your thoughts.

I so love reading how God built a house and moved in. I'll share it with you, read below.

"Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

It is for this same reason Jesus [url=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+17%3A20-21&version=KJV]said[/url],

"The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

Kind of makes you, the mud God used to build a house and moved into, responsible for loving one another, won't you think? After all, God would be abundant in a heart God dwells in.

So why bother about the creation of the world if you can't love the 'mud' before your eyes?

Gideon97:
Christians, in your faith, apart from God being omnipotent, he is also strongly presented as a benevolent (loving) God who has the interest of humanity at heart. There is even a popular bible verse, "God is love". A popular argument against this is that if God loves us and is love and he created us, then why is there so much suffering in this world. The most common christian retort to this argument is that God gave humans free will to do as they please and that humans cause suffering for other humans. This retort, while being reasonable, doesn't cover the non man made causes of human suffering. There are natural disasters like earth quakes,tsunamis,typhoons and hurricanes; diseases like polio,small pox,measles, several kinds of cancers; parasitic organisms (like some species of worms) whose survival is based on infecting its host and feeding on them.
Most of the things mentioned are naturally occuring. As a christian who believes God created this world, then logically you should believe he is responsible for these things and thus shares responsibility for alot of human suffering.
If you disagree with this, I'd like to hear your thoughts.

Hi there.

I must beg your pardon first because my post is going to be very brief. My health is not very good at the moment and I am sorely pressed for time. Otherwise, I would have tried to give an exhaustive answer. I would be happy to answer any follow-up questions you have for clarification.

In short, God is the Sovereign Ruler of Creation. As such, He inflicts punishment on lawbreakers. This is why so-called "natural evils," like the ones you listed, exist. See Isaiah 45:7 and compare it to Isaiah 11:6-9.

CAPSLOCKED:
I WON'T SAY GOD IS RESPONSIBLE. I'LL SAY IT'S ALL PART OF HIS DIVINE PLAN... HE SET THE WORLD IN MOTION EVEN BEFORE HE SAID "LET THEIR BE LIGHT", AND HE DOESN'T CHANGE. SO WHAT EVER IS HAPPENING TODAY, AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN 10MILLION YEARS TIME WAS INCLUDED IN HIS UNCHANGEABLE PLANS.
KIDNAPPERS, TRAGEDIES, POVERTY, TERRORISM, PORTHARCOURT SERIAL KILLER.. ALL GOD'S PLAN. YOU ALL SHOULD UNDERSTAND THIS AND STOP TRYING TO MAKE GOD CHANGE HIS UNCHANGEABLE PLANS BY PRAYING AGAINST THESE PROBLEMS. HE KNOWS WHAT'S BEST FOR US BECAUSE HE IS INFINITELY WISE.

"It's all God's plan", the cheap answer Christians give when they don't know and don't want to say they don't know. I do commend you for accepting the logical conclusion that everything being God's plan renders prayers meaningless. But your answer still doesn't absolve god of responsibility of suffering of humans. Since it is his plan, anything that happens as a result of it is his fault. And in this scenario even human caused suffering is his fault because it is HIS plan. That means that he planned for 9/11 to happen and he planned for that rapist to be a rapist and he planned for the murderer to be a murderer. If it is indeed all God's plan then doesn't this render anything we do inconseqential. God having a plan also limits free will since it is his plan which will end up happening no matter what we do. With this, can't we conclude that it is then unfair for him to want to punish people in hell who he created to carry out HIS plan no matter what they do.

budaatum:
I so love reading how God built a house and moved in. I'll share it with you, read below.

"Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

It is for this same reason Jesus [url=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+17%3A20-21&version=KJV]said[/url],

"The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

Kind of makes you, the mud God used to build a house and moved into, responsible for loving one another, won't you think? After all, God would be abundant in a heart God dwells in.

So why bother about the creation of the world if you can't love the 'mud' before your eyes?

I'm sorry, what does this have to do with what i posted?

Ihedinobi3:

Hi there.

I must beg your pardon first because my post is going to be very brief. My health is not very good at the moment and I am sorely pressed for time. Otherwise, I would have tried to give an exhaustive answer. I would be happy to answer any follow-up questions you have for clarification.

In short, God is the Sovereign Ruler of Creation. As such, He inflicts punishment on lawbreakers. This is why so-called "natural evils," like the ones you listed, exist. See Isaiah 45:7 and compare it to Isaiah 11:6-9.

First of all you've just given an answer to this post : that God is responsible for natural occuring things that cause suffering. Now you explain that God does this as punishment? Polio affects and kills little children and there are also children who get cancer,What has the child done to be punished? And what on earth do places have to do to deserve a bloody hurricane as punishment?

CAPSLOCKED:
I WON'T SAY GOD IS RESPONSIBLE. I'LL SAY IT'S ALL PART OF HIS DIVINE PLAN... HE SET THE WORLD IN MOTION EVEN BEFORE HE SAID "LET THEIR BE LIGHT", AND HE DOESN'T CHANGE. SO WHAT EVER IS HAPPENING TODAY, AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN 10MILLION YEARS TIME WAS INCLUDED IN HIS UNCHANGEABLE PLANS.
KIDNAPPERS, TRAGEDIES, POVERTY, TERRORISM, PORTHARCOURT SERIAL KILLER.. ALL GOD'S PLAN. YOU ALL SHOULD UNDERSTAND THIS AND STOP TRYING TO MAKE GOD CHANGE HIS UNCHANGEABLE PLANS BY PRAYING AGAINST THESE PROBLEMS. HE KNOWS WHAT'S BEST FOR US BECAUSE HE IS INFINITELY WISE.

Wisdom indeed!!

Gideon97 post

"It's all God's plan", the cheap answer Christians give when they don't know and don't want to say they don't know. I do commend you for accepting the logical conclusion that everything being God's plan renders prayers meaningless. But your answer still doesn't absolve god of responsibility of suffering of humans. Since it is his plan, anything that happens as a result of it is his fault. And in this scenario even human caused suffering is his fault because it is HIS plan. That means that he planned for 9/11 to happen and he planned for that rapist to be a rapist and he planned for the murderer to be a murderer. If it is indeed all God's plan then doesn't this render anything we do inconseqential. God having a plan also limits free will since it is his plan which will end up happening no matter what we do. With this, can't we conclude that it is then unfair for him to want to punish people in hell who he created to carry out HIS plan no matter what they do.

THAT IS WHY HE'S A PSYCHOPATH. AND YOU CAN'T QUESTION HIS WILL NO MATTER WHAT. HIS DECISIONS ARE FINAL.

Gideon97:


First of all you've just given an answer to this post : that God is responsible for natural occuring things that cause suffering. Now you explain that God does this as punishment? Polio affects and kills little children and there are also children who get cancer,What has the child done to be punished? And what on earth do places have to do to deserve a bloody hurricane as punishment?

There is very much that the Bible does not tell us, although it tells us enough for us to be able to exercise our free will choice to trust God or not to. One of the things the Bible does not tell us is the full list of things that are actually sin. We know from the Bible that sin is any act - whether in thought, word, or deed - of rebellion against God. It does not depend on our knowledge. Whether we know that we are sinning or not, if what we are thinking, saying, or doing violates God's Will, then we are sinning.

We do have some examples of what can be called sin in the Bible. The Mosaic Law was one such example. We know that it was not exhaustive, because when the Lord Jesus came in His First Advent, He expanded it. For example, whereas it was once thought that only the physical action of sleeping with a woman who was not your wife was adultery, the Lord taught that the very desire to do so was already adultery. In fact, the lust we entertain for people we are not married to has always been sinful, but only when the Lord Jesus came was it spelt out clearly for us.

The Bible does not give us a full list of all that is sin, but we know enough to know that no human being can avoid sin. Right from birth, we all sin. The Bible says that. There is and there has never been and there never will be a single human being who never sinned, not even if they died the second after they were born. You can take that to the bank.

Now, of course, those who rebel against God have already pronounced Him a liar, so they will not accept His Right to define what is sin and what is not, and will therefore oppose this truth. Because it is a little baby without even the ability to speak yet, we consider that it must be innocent, but why? There is no reason for this assumption except that that is how we want it to be. From God's Own Perspective, we are all born with a sin nature so that by nature we run after sin right from the first breath we take once we come out of the womb. We may not know how this can be (although crying after one has received the gift of life would be considered really weird at least for a human being who has attained the ability to reason, so that is one thing to consider in this), but we can take for granted that since sin amounts to disobedience or rebellion against God, then He alone can tell what is sin and what is not and therefore who is sinning and who is not.

That is the biblical answer to your question.

There is something more, however. Isaiah 57:1 teaches that sometimes people suffer and die in order to escape a worse fate in the future. So, sometimes, it is not merely punishment. Although, since we are all sinners by nature, we are all deserving of divine punishment, there are times when God subjects people to pain and even death in order to preserve them from something worse. For those who believe, a fate worse than physical death is the Second Death, a.k.a the Lake of Fire. There are often tests in the future that the Lord knows that some of His Children simply cannot handle, so He either puts them in a protracted state of difficulty or takes them out of this life in order to preserve them from it. If He does not, they may end up throwing their Faith away, contrary to their own true preference, and end up in the Lake of Fire for that failure. That is another reason that the situation that you complained about sometimes occurs.

As for what a given city or nation could do to merit a hurricane, as I already said, it is entirely God's Prerogative to define sin. It is also His Prerogative to decide what is appropriate punishment for it. And why not? God by definition is the Ultimate Moral Authority. There is no authority above Him to decide these things. It is His Right. He did this with the Noahic generation and with Sodom and Gomorrha later.

With the first, He responded with a global Flood to wipe out all human and animal life that was not in the Ark because rebel angels were consorting with human women and producing Nephilim who were half-human half-angel hybrids that were incredibly rebellious against God. The angels involved were also imprisoned and chained in the Abyss for their part in the debacle.

With the second, He rained fire and burning sulfur down on the entire wealthy civilization of Sodom and Gomorrha and buried the cities out of sight because of their abominable homosexuality.

These were about as dramatic as a hurricane, I think you'll agree. They are not the only examples, of course. The plagues that Egypt suffered are another example. The destruction and uprooting of whole nations by war are another. In Israel's and Judah's case, just as it was with the ten Canaanite nations that they replaced, it was their vile religious practices including sacrificing their children in the most horrendous ways to their idols that occasioned such a violent response from the Lord.

Suffice to say that the safest way to be is obedient to the Lord. If you're not homosexual or consorting sexually with rebel angels, you could still be courting trouble. During the Tribulation, not too long from now, first, the Lord will warn the world about joining the Antichrist with the Seven Trumpet Judgments, which will be pretty severe; then, He will punish it with the Seven Bowl Judgments in the last 12 months of the Tribulation and with the Seven Thunder Judgments from the Second Advent until a little later for the murder of believers in Jesus Christ around the world and for the violent and resolute choice to rebel against Him in alliance with the Antichrist.

OP,

original "sin"

Man is responsible for all the suffering on Earth.

God is Everything, inclusive of all Sufferings and Enjoyments. Unless you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you can never know Happiness and Enjoyments.

orisa37:
God is Everything, inclusive of all Sufferings and Enjoyments. Unless you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you can never know Happiness and Enjoyments.

Bullshit

1Sharon:

Bullshit

That's from your yansh.

orisa37:




That's from your yansh.

Yours is from ur mouth which is abnormal

Even though God permits crisis and suffering, we can't say He is responsible. Our fallen nature not only affects us, all creation is partaking in the consequences of our rebellion against God.

1Sharon:

Yours is from ur mouth which is abnormal

No. My Mouth is not as big as yours.

I disagree!. Sin brought about both death and suffering to man.

The process of 'making ' a spoilt thing new again is not always comfortable.

Take for example your dirty clothes, when they become dirty, how do you make them clean?. The rubbing, squizzing, ironing etc are all painful, but you are doing it because you want it to be clean, and that's because you love the clothe!.

Now assume the clothe which is now dirty, actually had a choice to be clean or dirty, who would you blame, the owner and now washer, or the clothe itself?.

Man is responsible for what is happening to him now, but God is working out his salvation. Don't buy this lie from the devil that God is remotely or in any wise responsible for any suffering.

Will those babies be sent to hell or heaven? @ d bolded quote.

Ihedinobi3:

There is very much that the Bible does not tell us, although it tells us enough for us to be able to exercise our free will choice to trust God or not to. One of the things the Bible does not tell us is the full list of things that are actually sin. We know from the Bible that sin is any act - whether in thought, word, or deed - of rebellion against God. It does not depend on our knowledge. Whether we know that we are sinning or not, if what we are thinking, saying, or doing violates God's Will, then we are sinning.

We do have some examples of what can be called sin in the Bible. The Mosaic Law was one such example. We know that it was not exhaustive, because when the Lord Jesus came in His First Advent, He expanded it. For example, whereas it was once thought that only the physical action of sleeping with a woman who was not your wife was adultery, the Lord taught that the very desire to do so was already adultery. In fact, the lust we entertain for people we are not married to has always been sinful, but only when the Lord Jesus came was it spelt out clearly for us.

The Bible does not give us a full list of all that is sin, but we know enough to know that no human being can avoid sin. Right from birth, we all sin. The Bible says that. There is and there has never been and there never will be a single human being who never sinned, not even if they died the second after they were born. You can take that to the bank.

Now, of course, those who rebel against God have already pronounced Him a liar, so they will not accept His Right to define what is sin and what is not, and will therefore oppose this truth. Because it is a little baby without even the ability to speak yet, we consider that it must be innocent, but why? There is no reason for this assumption except that that is how we want it to be. From God's Own Perspective, we are all born with a sin nature so that by nature we run after sin right from the first breath we take once we come out of the womb. We may not know how this can be (although crying after one has received the gift of life would be considered really weird at least for a human being who has attained the ability to reason, so that is one thing to consider in this), but we can take for granted that since sin amounts to disobedience or rebellion against God, then He alone can tell what is sin and what is not and therefore who is sinning and who is not.

That is the biblical answer to your question.

There is something more, however. Isaiah 57:1 teaches that sometimes people suffer and die in order to escape a worse fate in the future. So, sometimes, it is not merely punishment. Although, since we are all sinners by nature, we are all deserving of divine punishment, there are times when God subjects people to pain and even death in order to preserve them from something worse. For those who believe, a fate worse than physical death is the Second Death, a.k.a the Lake of Fire. There are often tests in the future that the Lord knows that some of His Children simply cannot handle, so He either puts them in a protracted state of difficulty or takes them out of this life in order to preserve them from it. If He does not, they may end up throwing their Faith away, contrary to their own true preference, and end up in the Lake of Fire for that failure. That is another reason that the situation that you complained about sometimes occurs.

As for what a given city or nation could do to merit a hurricane, as I already said, it is entirely God's Prerogative to define sin. It is also His Prerogative to decide what is appropriate punishment for it. And why not? God by definition is the Ultimate Moral Authority. There is no authority above Him to decide these things. It is His Right. He did this with the Noahic generation and with Sodom and Gomorrha later.

With the first, He responded with a global Flood to wipe out all human and animal life that was not in the Ark because rebel angels were consorting with human women and producing Nephilim who were half-human half-angel hybrids that were incredibly rebellious against God. The angels involved were also imprisoned and chained in the Abyss for their part in the debacle.

With the second, He rained fire and burning sulfur down on the entire wealthy civilization of Sodom and Gomorrha and buried the cities out of sight because of their abominable homosexuality.

These were about as dramatic as a hurricane, I think you'll agree. They are not the only examples, of course. The plagues that Egypt suffered are another example. The destruction and uprooting of whole nations by war are another. In Israel's and Judah's case, just as it was with the ten Canaanite nations that they replaced, it was their vile religious practices including sacrificing their children in the most horrendous ways to their idols that occasioned such a violent response from the Lord.

Suffice to say that the safest way to be is obedient to the Lord. If you're not homosexual or consorting sexually with rebel angels, you could still be courting trouble. During the Tribulation, not too long from now, first, the Lord will warn the world about joining the Antichrist with the Seven Trumpet Judgments, which will be pretty severe; then, He will punish it with the Seven Bowl Judgments in the last 12 months of the Tribulation and with the Seven Thunder Judgments from the Second Advent until a little later for the murder of believers in Jesus Christ around the world and for the violent and resolute choice to rebel against Him in alliance with the Antichrist.

Napolito:
Will those babies be sent to hell or heaven? @ d bolded quote.

The Lord Jesus died for every sin that every human being has ever committed, is committing, or will ever committed. So, everyone is saved, unless they reject the Sacrifice of the Lord Jesus or fail to accept it. Babies have done neither, so they are automatically saved if they die in infancy. The same applies to those who are born with mental disabilities that prevent them from ever being able to make a choice about the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

"The Lord is righteous in all His ways, Gracious in all His works." - Psalm 145:17

"He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He." - Deuteronomy 32:4

Ihedinobi3:

The Lord Jesus died for every sin that every human being has ever committed, is committing, or will ever committed. So, everyone is saved, unless they reject the Sacrifice of the Lord Jesus or fail to accept it. Babies have done neither, so they are automatically saved if they die in infancy. The same applies to those who are born with mental disabilities that prevent them from ever being able to make a choice about the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Wat of Muslims and other religions that don't believe in Christ, will they all go to hell?

Napolito:


Wat of Muslims and other religions that don't believe in Christ, will they all go to hell?

Yes, in fact, they will, if they never seek the Gospel, listen to it, and believe it.

Ihedinobi3:

Yes, in fact, they will, if they never seek the Gospel, listen to it, and believe it.

Who created other religions?

Satan is responsible to God for all Sufferings. It's so that you may know Jesus, The Master Healer of all Sufferings.

orisa37:
Satan is responsible to God for all Sufferings. It's so that you may know Jesus, The Master Healer of all Sufferings.

is this not part of God’s divine plan?

Napolito:


Who created other religions?

Human beings did, obviously. Why do you ask?

Ihedinobi3:

Human beings did, obviously. Why do you ask?

who created the human beings that created other religions?

Is that part of the divine plan?

nwabekeyi:
is this not part of God’s divine plan?

Jesus is The Way, The Truth and be The Life and God is Everything.


Yes.

orisa37:





Jesus is The Way, The Truth and be The Life and God is Everything.


Yes.

God’s divine plan is for kids to have cancer and genetic disorder?

What a great plan.

nwabekeyi:
who created the human beings that created other religions?

Is that part of the divine plan?

God did.

Are you asking if creating other religions is part of God's Plan? If you are, then it is as much a part of His Plan as it is part of any general's plan that his enemies will do such-and-such, whatever that may be.

God is omniscient, so He accounts perfectly for what people will do when He gives them a free will. Human beings are far from omniscient, but we tend to not be complete failures at predicting what others will do when we engage on the battlefield. So, when we plan, we take such possibilities into consideration. In God's Case, what human beings will do with a free will is not a mere possibility in His Eyes. He knows for sure what we will do, so His Plan includes it, so that He will perfectly counter it to achieve His Own Ends.