Having suffered and having been very closely involved in helping a whole range of people that suffer, there is not a trite answer to the reason for suffering for me... None of the answers given satisfy if I am completely congruent. For me it is one of those issues that I do not have smart answers for, but can only try and sit alongside people with.
Augustine was in a cult that stated there was a dualistic type theology. Two gods existed and fought against eachother for the fate of the world.
Instead of exegeting Scripture, Augustine emotionally reacted and said evil cannot be. He then resorted to an old Greek pagan tactic by depleting the negation.
He thus said Evil is not, evil is the absense of the Good.
Thus saten is good via his core. However he is evil only as much as his actions.
Throughout Church history, nobody touched this. It festered for 1600 years.
Most people ask this silly problem with freewill. They fail to answer the question and run into logical problems. Since people are so thick headed and cannot escape free will, the put their hands up and say it's a problem.
Just a simple review on this.
We do know that God creates evil (e.g Amos 3:6), however is not the agent of that evil.
The book of *** is absolutely a book on evil.
I will dive in more if I see that the victims of public school have been redeemed.
the book of *** was all about the problem with evil in the world, and why we suffer so.
The person of *** rejects all the common answers that are told to him, and demands an answer from God face to face...
Later in the story the Lord does show up....but the answer *** receives is not really the type of answer he was looking for.
*** wanted a reason...something that added up...some answer that when he heard it he understood the point of evil and all the suffering in the world.
*** did not get that from the lord...
Rather the Lord just told *** that more or less, "You will never understand"
We dont think like God thinks....our logic is not able to account for the Lord's actions.
We dont understand much except for what god tells us, and what the Lord tells us is to "Trust Him"
So it comes down to that....
If you look at the suffering in the world, and that pain you will only see that and how it simply never adds up...
But if you look at the Lord, then regardless of the evil and suffering you see, you will not need to understand the 'why?" question....you simply trust the person of the Lord.
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Originally Posted by ChrisLaRock
