While ATJeff and Lore have ably covered most everything I might bring to the table, allow me to indulge myself...
I think first you need to establish that each and every instance of suffering is directly caused by God rather than the interaction of natural forces with freely willed beings...
The implication appears to be we can only blame an all-powerful, all-seeeing, all-knowing God for those actions he takes himself. However, we must include not only what he does in "the game", but also tak Him into account for creating "the game". We can liken it to product liability.
The same for letting a baby play with "the shiny thing" that turns out to be a knife - it is a parent's responsibility to child-proof a home, not provide ready access to knives.
Is God a Sadist? One might conclude so.
Some might even maintain that suffering makes pleasure even better, and thus be required for the state of affairs with the most good.
This would make us Masochists to God's Sadism. While an interesting postulation, upon examination it reveals an underpinning that enjoys seeing suffering. As another poster brought up: Heaven, usually described as a place of perfect bliss, has no such dichotomy (unless we include the more recently invented Hell - must we conclude that Angels only appreciate God's presence because they know they can be sent to Hell?).
For those that have faith, suffering is redemptive.
Sounds Masochistic to me. It calls for humans to value being traumatized. It harkens to Stockholm syndrome.
So you are setting God's standards?
No more so than the person who claims God's goodness. Since we are made in His image, and have inherited the condition of knowing right from wrong, then of course we can. The only other alternative is that we cannot relate to Him at all, and therefore ALL discussion about him and his wants are irrelevent.
All things in the end are turned to good.
How is the victim of a rape turned to good? At what point will this occur? Do we not instead see ample evidence that victims of violence are often instead scarred for life? What should be said, "I don't know why God chose to let this happen, why he ignored your prayers, but it's for your own good?"
Like I said before, God punishes the rapist. "The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small"
Oh, we then should tell the victims of rape, "Maybe your rapist will never get punished here on Earth, you may never see or know what God will do to him, but rest assured eventually something somewhere in the afterlife will be done?"
And doesn't that make God out to be an even bigger monster - he'll allow the rapist to have a happy life, raping many throughout his life, and then he will perhaps toss the rapist into Hell for eternity - is that what is being said? This sounds much more like a vindictive human attitude rather than a good God. Is this the best He could come up with?
I don't judge him to be good. I know he is!
I simply don't understand what that means. Faith flying against evidence?
Yet you want me to make no claim at all? Silly rabbit.
If you cannot substantiate a claim, and have already admitted to not having enough information, then of course making no claim at all is the best course of action.
If God does not exist, then all of our existence, including our suffering and pain, has no value, no purpose and no goal.
This has been well answered. If God does not exist, then it becomes our responsibility to make things better. Why would anyone mandate God's existence to make life worth living? If I add God into the equation, in what why does life suddenly get imbued with value, purpose, a goal?
If God is cruel, then to our suffering and despair we must add the spectre of divine sadism.
True. If God exists, he is cruel (historically in the OT and in the present); if God is cruel, we are in a sadistic game.
But what if God does not exist? Or, what if He isn't what the Christian paradigm proposes? What if all the religious had to stop hiding behind the skirts of what they say God demands of them?
Welcome to "the bigs".
There can be no absolute, eternal value such as "good".
True, and further the "good" sense of satisfaction in following all the commandments (per se) is hollow.
"Good" then comes from seeing the consequences of our actions when we alleviate the suffering of others.
well according to a scripture in peter it is because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentence. so the longer he allows the system to continue the more people can become jws and get everlasting life.
The only thing I would add is that it's all been a moot exercise. The all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing God that knows each of our hearts already knew at the start the outcome of any such game. The only need to let it play out would be the sadistic pleasure of punishing the wicked.
