You are absolutely right in all of your conclusions. The free will theory can't be.
I wrote this a little while back with the help of books -- I'm not claiming the thoughts to be my own at all ....
It also must be said that the Bible says that God is the author of both Evil and Good -- What makes Him good is that the evil he ordains will result in good. It's like if you let your daughter learn to ride a bike. It's bad that she will probably fall off but the greater good is that she will learn to ride the bike.
Why does Suffering and Evil Exist?
Is it possible that God just knows better than us? If God is truly God, isn’t it true that He would know better than we do? A God that doesn’t know more than we do is hardly worth believing in. So is it at least a possibility that God knows the long-term benefits of suffering will be beneficial to us somehow?
The older I get, the more I understand that I don’t know it all. In fact, I’ve discovered that I can’t predict the future very well. Sometimes I can predict the consequences of my actions, but when it comes to pain, I often lack the ability to see how it will ever benefit me. Perhaps it is hard for us to predict good coming from pain because our pain blinds us. We would never choose pain, so maybe God has to choose it for our own good sometimes.
Think about our dealings with our own children. We are much more wise than our children. Wouldn’t God’s intelligence be even greater than the difference between our children and us? Consider this: Sometimes we may decide not to help our children out of a bind for their own good. They may be struggling with their homework but we decide to allow them to struggle on their own so they can learn independence. A friend of mine told me about a great example of this. Her parents kicked her brother out of the house because he was doing drugs in their home after being warned. They did not want to enable him further and decided that making him find his own way was the only way to help. Again, isn’t it possible that God knows more than we do and is allowing us to suffer for the greater good?
We have a superb example of evil being used for good in the death of Christ. I am sure that the devil thought he had won when Jesus was nailed to a cross. Satan began to attempt an attack on God by hurting His people. Satan thought he had persecuted God’s own prophets. Then he orchestrated the persecution and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Instead, a great thing happened. Even the disciples had a hard time understanding how this could be good, but God’s good purposes were accomplished. The way to heaven was opened up to humans by the sacrifice of Jesus.
I read this quote from Lee Strobel’s “Case for Faith”: “Let’s face it: we learn from the mistakes we make and the suffering they bring. The universe is a soul – making machine, and part of the process is learning, maturing, and growing through difficult and challenging and painful experiences. The point of our lives in this world isn’t comfort, but training and preparation for eternity. Scripture tells us that even Jesus ‘learned obedience through suffering’ –and if that was true for him, why wouldn’t it even be more true for us?”
Are children who are given every comfort of life at a moment’s notice better for it? Aren’t most people thankful for a difficult upbringing? My boss often tells me about a certain spoiled young man, “If money can do that to a person, I’m glad I grew up poor.” What would be become if we had every comfort given to us when on earth? Would we be spoiled brats?
Imgaine a world without evil. Every time God would take away evil, he would limit freedom. We would loose the ability to choose God and love. How would we feel when we got to heaven? “Oh I can have everything I want here? I could have that on earth.”
So why doesn’t God stop at least some of the pain? Maybe he is limiting suffering. But even still, that is a problematic question. Where would we draw the line? Is it ok to believe in God if he only allows a man to suffer for 3 years instead of 4? I trust that God in his infinite wisdom is allowing to happen what needs to happen for His good purposes.
Let’s consider some possible benefits to suffering. One is that it leads to repentance. Only after suffering did Isreal turn to God. Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. … I have not called the righteous but the sinners.” So why do we continue in pain even after we have received eternal life? We must remember that we are still not “good” even after accepting Christ. Isaiah says, “all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” Each time my life is going well, I drift away from talking to God. When times are hard, God fills me with His love. When times are hard, I reach out and beg for God’s hand on me. I am thankful for hard times so I can feel God in my life again.
A friend of mine visited a poor small town in Nicaragua. She was amazed at how happy they were. People who work with the handicapped often become so blessed by the spirits of their clients. I feel blessed through my own story of pain; I was a wife to an abusive husband for five years.
Scottish theologian James S. Stewart said, “It is the spectators, the people who are outside, looking at the tragedy, from whose ranks the skeptics come; it is not those who are actually in the arena and who know suffering from the inside. Indeed, the fact is that it is the world’s greatest sufferers who have produced the most shining examples of unconquerable faith.” Some day we will thank God for all the suffering we have endured. Our time on earth will seem but a moment compared to eternity in heaven.
Besides, who says suffering is evil if you don’t believe in God? Who says what is good and what is evil? If there is no God to set a moral standard, your feeling of right and wrong is nothing more than a feeling. It is not written anywhere what constitutes morality. If you don’t believe in God, suffering is subjective. Getting rid of your belief of God doesn’t help you deal with the problem of evil and suffering. I suspect that such philosophy does answer this question satisfactorily to many who have experienced suffering and are in search of answers.
Contrary to the sermons by many famous TV evangelists, God does not promise a life without suffering. He promises a life of suffering. Instead what he promises is to walk with us through it. In Daniel chapter 3 three men are thrown into the fiery furnace as punishment for not bowing to a false god. Then Nebuchadnezzar sees four men in the furnace and the forth looks like a son of God. Who was the forth person? Isaiah gives us a promise: “Fear not, I have redeemed you. When you pass through the waters, I will be there. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned. Neither shall the fire kindle upon you.” WHEN you experience suffering, you will feel Him walking with you. The suffering will give you splendor and faith. That is the promise.
I’ve heard people say before, “God made a perfect world and we are the ones who messed it up.” I reject the idea that God sat back and blamed all the evil on us because we couldn’t love a God who didn’t care. But God didn’t just sit back; he took all the sins of the world on him at the cross. Not until you get into heaven will you know how far God went to be with us in our affliction. Christ bore all of our sins for our behalf.
Christ knows our suffering. The Jews went to concentration camps you say? Jesus has been beaten and hung. Have you lost a child? God lost His only son. Have you felt alone and abandoned? Jesus called out, “Why have you forsaken me?”
It just can’t be that God doesn’t love us. We may not understand the answer of why He allows suffering, but we know He loves us because He suffered for us. That is how you know He is with you through suffering and there is a loving God who cares.