What role does suffering play in your concept of God and your religion?

Question

I am not, as I always disclose, a believer, but I am interested in how religious people reconcile the idea of suffering with a loving God. I am also curious about whether (and how) suffering strengthens or weakens your idea of God. Thanks.

Answer 1

“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.”--Quote by Woody Allen (American Actor, Author, Screenwriter and Film Director)

“The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt”--Quote by Thomas Merton (American and Trappist Monk t Our Lady of Gethsemani Abbey in Trappist, Kentucky)

“Now it seems to me that love of some kind is the only possible explanation of the extraordinary amount of suffering that there is in the world.”--Quote by Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic)

I Hope This Helps...I'm glad you're back, Think4Yourself...!!!

Answer 2

Well, my parents loved me, but that didn't mean they didn't let me get a few scrapes and bruises along the way. There are lessons to be learned from doing things on your own. They wanted what was best for me, and coddling me and sppon-feeding me would not be in my best interest, now would it?

Sure, the gods could have beamed all of their knowledge into our brains, but seriously, what would be the point of living if we already knew everything? I'm certainly not going to hazard a guess as to a particular plan or purpose they might have had in letting us come into being - I think they work in much grander motions than we can comprehend - but existence would be pretty pointless if this was a universe of god-clones.

As a Wiccan I don't view my gods as experiencing the same emotions as we do. Their plans dont just involve me or humanity, but the entire universe, which moves in these incredible grand motions. Suffering is a part of that cycle. There is no creation without destruction: animals need to eat, plants need to be fertilized with decaying matter, old ideas have to be demolished so new ideas can be embraced, people need to pass on to make room for those being born. Without that cycle, we stagnate. What's the point of existing if nothing ever changes?

Finally, I'm a big fan of "that which does not kill you makes you stronger." Painful and unpleasant experiences prepare us to deal with them better in the future. Take away all that, and we become a world of Paris Hiltons, who clearly cannot function in normal reality - the slightest crack in her pampered reality and she falls into hysterics, completely unable to cope. Imagine if we were all like that. Also, going through pain helps us empathise more with others who are in trouble or pain.

Answer 3

Negatives bring us to contemplate the positives. Sounds meaningless, but it is the truth. God loves us and He will make everything right some day. Suffering is the world we live in at present and even Jesus suffered. Suffering makes us whole in that it teaches us so much. I honestly don't think we would have any idea of Gods existence (the positive) without suffering(the negative).

Answer 4

Hebrews 8:15

Answer 5

I'm sorry, it is my feelings but I can't express them like Ravi Zacharius:

Everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence has been through affliction and not through happiness whether pursued or attained. . . It is the cross, more than anything else, that has called me inexorably to Christ.
I believe it is because in the cross alone, pain and evil meet, and in the cross alone love and justice are found. Upon both love and justice we find our moral and spiritual home. If only one of these two is focused upon, an inevitable extremism and perversion follow. The ideals of liberty, equality, and justice taken alone have led to ideologies with dastardly experiments left in their wake. And love unbounded by any sense of morality is not love but self-centeredness and autocracy. In the cross of Jesus Christ, and the cross alone, the demands of justice were satisfied, and the generosity of love was expressed.

Answer 6

If I never suffered, then God would have nothing to heal. It would be hard for Him to demonstrate that He was concerned about me specificly. When I first really knew that God loved me, and it wasn't just something I had been taught in church, was when a girl broke my heart and I had to forgive. I didn't want to forgive, but God made me extremely miserable while I held on to the grudge, so after four days of fighting with Him, I angrily surrendered and chose to forgive. I prayed every day for that girl for a month, and felt a little better after that month, but I was still pretty upset. The process of forgiving took about six months in total. When I was done, I made up with God and He loved the girl through me (don't know if you can understand that but it really wasn't me loving her by myself; I really do believe that). That suffering brought me closer to God. Without it, I would've never known that God cared about me. Of course I don't fully understand suffering, especially concerning non-believers since the Bible says they will suffer so much after they die, but I do know that it is God's perfect will to use the experiences we have in life, both positive and negative, to bring us closer to Him. The apostle Paul said he wanted to know Christ in the fellowship of His sufferings in order that he might one day share in the joy of reigning with Him. No one has ever suffered as much as Jesus did, so no one can relate to my suffering better than He can. It's amazing how many times in my life God has taken situations that seemed awful, like with that girl, and worked something really good out of those situations, just like He promised He would in Romans 8:28. You can look that up for yourself if you're interested.

Answer 7

The answer can be summed up like this:

Without temptation (suffering and pain) , there is no claim to virtue !

Answer 8

suffering proves only one of 2 things:
1-God doesn't exist
2-god exists but is an evil miserable sadomasochistic bully

Answer 9

GOD does not take pleasure in our suffering. Therefore, why would we consider suffering in our walk in faith?

GOD bless

Answer 10

I have suffering and pain that means I am virtuous