why does God allow suffering

Last night I was asked “why does God allow all the suffering in the world” Can’t say that I have THE answer. But it got me thinking and it made me go back and look at one of my favorite books Can God Be Trusted?: Faith and the Challenge of Evil

I find that when I have asked the question of human suffering and the presence and roll of God that have been more interested in the problem and less interested in God. But everytime I have asked the question I have had to face what I believe about God, because the question assumes certain things about God.
1. That God is powerful, even all powerful
2. That God shares our values (or our values are derived from God’s values) and could be construed as moral or good
3. That God is interest in humanity (is personal) even to the point of being willing to intervene
4. That God could and should intervene in human choice (which caused much of the suffering in the first) even to the point of negating the negative outcomes of human choice.

Wow – that is a lot to assume. Certainly not all religious traditions share these assumptions about God. My starting point is Christianity, and Christianity does hold that God is all powerful and good (though we must be careful by what we mean when we use the words powerful and good). So I ask the question “why does God permit suffering” with all of the convictions I list above. I also find that I must ask “why should God intervene in suffering?” I believe God does intervene, sometimes dramatically, but more often God does not intervene. So why should God intervene?

I laughed when I watched Bruce Almighty and Bruce ropes the moon and pulls it closer for the benefit of a romantic moment on the balcony. Meanwhile the newscasts are full of reports of disasters caused by the gravitational changes that the moons dislocation has caused.

I often find that my desire to be relieved of suffering – or the desire that someone else not suffer is akin to a desire to rope the moon. It has immediate benefit on my balcony, but is blind to the bigger picture. I am convinced that a God who is capable of creating the cosmos and is also personal is likely to consider a bigger picture than simply my desire.

I need to face the fact that:
1. suffering may serve some purpose
2. that suffering may be the consequence of human choice and God is not in the business of manipulating circumstances to mitigate the damage and suffering caused by human freedom (if he was it wouldn’t be human freedom would it)
3. that God might intervene for reasons of satisfying God’s agenda, not my agenda

well, its late, I’m going to sleep on this and continue the thought tomorrow’s blog