He was in the business of making human beings. Those who have suffered much end up more human.
Another way to look at the whole “problem” is that it was God’s intent to put each of us in a place, for a very short time in comparison to eternity, where we each could experience things that we never could experience in Heaven, things that will help each of us, wherever we are in our understanding, to have a better relationship with God and all His other creatures.
This way of looking at sin, evil, pain, suffering, and also the good things we experience in this life, including love (both giving and receiving), generosity, helping (again, both giving and receiving), beauty, art, music, and much more, is consistent with my understanding of what it means that God created time as one of the dimensions of the universe. If I am going to believe that God exists outside of time, and knew “before” creating the universe everything that ever happened, then I must for consistency believe that God has a reason for placing all of us (every human whom He created and loves more than any of us will ever understand in this world) into the very world in which we find ourselves. That does require a leap of faith, that God really does know what is best for me, that God will make the bad things that happen to me work together with the good things so that the overall result is good for me. And maybe good for me in a way that I can’t even see from my perspective in this world. And all of this in a world where we really do have free will, where any of us humans can choose to do what we think is the right thing, or choose to do something that will hurt others to obtain something for ourselves.
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Ah, the “Joseph perspective”: the Deceiver meant it for evil but God meant it for good.
Western minds generally have great difficulty viewing something as both evil and good at the same time; we tend to be binary thinkers (and linear as well). Yet if we look at intent and result, it’s easy to see that many things are such a blend of evil and good. And so–
This brought to mind the day when I was heading home from my university dwelling to the parents’ house, pedaling along back roads until I finally had to face the highway where four-wheeled traffic would be a concern. As I crested a hill and shifted up from a low gear, both my front axle and my chain popped at the same moment. When I’d examined the damage, I saw it was something I wasn’t going to be able to fix with my limited road toolkit. So to me that moment was evil.
I started walking, and I hadn’t even gone a dozen paces before a guy in a pickup swung over and asked if I could use a ride (he said no one would be walking that nice a bike on the nice a day unless something had gone wrong). I learned he was heading to a spot not even a half mile from mine, so I tossed the bike in back and hopped in.
When he dropped me at the corner nearest the parents’ house, I saw frantic activity, my mom doing a poor job of holding back tears. It didn’t take long to learn two things: first, that the moment my bicycle trouble happened was the same that my younger brother, driving home while I was cycling, had been in a accident and was being life-flight lifted to a hospital; second, that if I’d arrived just two minutes later they all would have been gone to the hospital without me.
So God meant it for good.
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How thankful would we be in eternity if we hadn’t been redeemed, nor having been needing redemption or having known that we needed it, how thankful to our Elder Brother and best Friend and our Father would we be if we had none of those? Then there are those fortunate enough to have seen his providential interventions first hand (second hand isn’t bad either 
).
God’s motivation is really quite understandable, and purpose for our lives, if you belong to him, is also intimately involved in it: joy for himself in our love for him and our pride in him as our Father, and joy in us and joy for us in reciprocated familial love.
It all fits.
Or put things together such that some good came out of a bad thing!
A really important point is that we can “judge” whether something is good or bad on a very localized scale, or think about single events in the context of other events. Or, like you said, maybe a lot of things are both good and evil at the same time (have some consequences that are clearly bad in some direct sense [perhaps the physical sense of a bike breaking down], but other consequences that are good in some other way [like getting a ride in a truck instead of riding a bike all the way home, and getting home just barely in time because the bad thing happened]).
What role do you see the devil has in suffering? Does he work in unison with God to cause suffering or is all suffering from God alone or from the devil alone?
If suffering really is necessary for spiritual growth and the devil is at least partially responsible for that suffering, wouldn’t he be working against himself? I guess the other option is for God alone to cause the suffering, but that begs the question; what does the devil do? Does he just sit back and watch God cause suffering and death in this world?
Are you suggesting that God causes suffering to His children to make them more human (whatever “more human” means)? If so, is that the best way to raise children or would it more akin to child abuse?
This is another set of questions that cannot be resolved by any empirical observation. Any answers that I come up with are driven by unprovable assumptions, starting with the assumptions about the purposes for which God created this universe and put us into it. And next is assumptions about who the devil is, and what his purposes are. And next is what freedom the devil has, full freedom of action, or as limited as is stated in Job (only able to do those specific things that God allows him to do).
To me, all of this is focussing on something that doesn’t matter (in the sense that the situation exists; undertanding how it came to this state is only useful if that will help me avoid this state the next time), and is unknowable (“Why is the man blind?”) rather than on doing what I can about whatever I see (Jesus knew He could heal the man, and He did).
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Hi Rich,
Last night’s middle of the night insight: I have sometimes learned from, or otherwise gained from, pain and suffering; I used to run marathons. I have also learned from helping folks in need, and observing others helping folks in need; a small part of what love really does mean. None of this would be possible if there were no suffering. So I believe that God created this world, with free will for us humans, which of necessity allows us to do things that cause suffering, and God keeps this world running for thousands of years, so that all the billions of His dear children that have lived or will live have the opportunity to experience similar things.
I don’t think we have to make assumptions about what the Bible says any more that we have to make assumptions about what the New York Times says. All we have to do is read them. Of course the Bible, being an ancient document written to a people with a radically different culture than our own, does add a layer of effort on our part, but it can be done and with the same certainty as what we read in the Times.
The Orthodox Church would like people to be dependent on what they say, even to the point of telling the common person that they are incapable of understanding the Bible on their own. It’s a great method of control and income. I don’t see it anywhere in the actual scriptures though.
All we have to answer your questions is the Bible. Is it a reliable source?
Ps 12:6,
The words of the LORD are flawless , like silver refined in a furnace, like gold purified sevenfold.
Of course the scriptures must be rightly divided (2 Tim 2:15) to come up with the answers, but since God told us to do that it must be available. Maybe start with what the Bereans did when Paul spoke to them.
Acts 17:11,
Now the Bereans were more noble-minded than the - Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures - every day to see if these teachings were true.
The Bereans didn’t even believe the great Apostle Paul without their own independent study of the scriptures.
My first thought was “Which ‘Devil’?”
The “ha Satan” in the Old Testament is plainly a member of God’s heavenly court; that much is obvious in Job. If we cast that back to Genesis 3, then the “Shining One (serpent)” in the Garden is still a member of God’s heavenly court, so the question becomes just how loyal a member he is! By tempting Eve, is the Shining One, a.k.a. Lucifer, doing what God had planned, or is he trying to thwart the plan? Logically, if this is the one who declared “I will be like God!” then he is trying to thwart the plan, to take this one of the pair of God’s viceroys in Earth out of God’s realm and into his own. But then we also have to ask, does the Joseph principle kick in – does Lucifer mean it for evil (his personal grab for power) while God means it for good?
Presuming that “ha Satan” and “the Shining One” and “Lucifer” are the same entity, he definitely doesn’t mean anything he does as good for humans; he is only interested in humans because they are God’s viceroys, God’s ‘image’ in Earth, and Earth is apparently the jewel in God’s Creation, and he wants to subvert those viceroys and make God’s jewel into his own.
To move into later times, whatever Lucifer is up to will cause suffering whether that’s the point (doubtful) or just a side effect. But there are two kinds of suffering, “calamity”-driven (i.e. ‘natural’ events’) and those sin-driven. God flat out claims responsibility for the first, and the scriptures say He is not the author of the second, so while Lucifer may be able to claim some ‘credit’ for the second, the first is not in his purview.
Lucifer working against himself wouldn’t be surprising, but I’m not convinced he sets out to cause suffering, his aim is to get humans to deviate from God’s intentions and thus remain apart from God’s kingdom. If that happens to involve suffering that would just be a by-product. And in fact a good argument can be made that making humans happy is a better avenue for tugging us away from God!
I’d say it’s more akin to a sports coach putting athletes through practice.
Every time I trained for a marathon I managed to get myself sufficiently injured that running the actual race just wasn’t happening. Several times I ran the full distance for training but never got to a race.
The only lesson I ever figured out was, “Don’t run marathons”. I suppose a more general lesson would be, “There are things beyond my reach”.
In their defense, what I put in bold is actually true in the deep sense: no serious theology can be built on translations. It can be expounded once established, but not built.
Besides that, we’re told that no scripture is to be interpreted solo.
They also had an immense advantage over most: as first-century Jews they were familiar with the scriptures on a level not matched by many but grad students in biblical literature in modern times. Reading, hearing, and discussing the scriptures was in effect every Jew’s first hobby back then.
Also they weren’t operating solo; they were examining the scriptures as a group, not as a bunch of individuals.
There is some truth to what you say. But although, I’ve not been to seminary I have been able to study ANE culture on my own (thanks to the material published by the grad students you mentioned). Even the most basic study of ANE culture will open up the scriptures to a large degree. It’s not rocket science.
How do you know that? Besides, truth is not determined by committee.
I wonder what the devil (and his spirit minions) does while God causes His children to suffer?
People die in this world. Even the most stern coach has the compassion to avoid that. To think said coach has more care for his charges than God! Really?
John 10:10,
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have [it] more abundantly.
I can understand that easy enough. In light of such a plain declaration, why would you doubt who does what?
Perhaps overthinking the matter?
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Very true. We should not be deterred. After all. we are more than conquerors (Rom 8:37).
But the discussion is about who causes suffering, God or the devil? It would seem strange indeed that God would torture us just because He made us able to overcome only to torture us again so we could overcome again and on and on until we die.
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I think something God created in His own image dying is about as bad as it gets.
But we are talking about suffering of all kinds which would include whatever you think is worse than death. Specifically, who causes said suffering, God or the devil?
BTW, I’m talking about this life. I know that the second death is worse than the first death, but that’s another thing altogether.