Why Does God Allow Suffering in the World?

If there was no suffering in the world then we would never know what was good, we would never know what it would when a family member dies, and we feel no need to grieve, and we would never feel the need to feel grateful for every thing that God gives us. We would never know how lucky we were to be blessed by God, and by being healthy and how sad we feel for the lives of others who are lost, we would be like robots who would never feel anything, just move around life with no feeling at all never caring that much, living in complete apathy. We would also miss the health services, because no one would suffer from illnesses, this would make the world pretty much perfect, no one would need to work, we would just live with no one being hungry, no body fighting, no one caring. We need pain and suffering because it makes us stronger people, isn’t there a saying “pain makes you stronger”? We need to feel pain because it gives us a challenge to try and stop that pain, and to help others, if there was no pain then there would be no need to help others because they wouldn’t need any help. If there was no suffering then the world would be perfect, which would make it almost like the Garden of Eden. Imagine being able to do infinite amounts of sit ups and crunches every night and not feel any physical strain. Imagine being able to run a marathon with out even being out of breath. It wouldn’t be natural, it would just be weird. There would be no reason to life. No need to protect our children, no need for a job, no aspiration to get money because we already have everything, and some of the strong bonds that make us human would be broken, for example the bond between a mother and daughter that when broken makes us suffer, yet we suffer constructively. There wouldn’t be such a strong bond, and a mother would loose her motherly protectiveness. Nothing could happen to her child, and if it did she wouldn’t suffer at all, she would just go on living life as though nothing had happened at all.

When we suffer it brings us closer to God, we turn to Him when times get hard, it allows us to make a strong bond with him, that we would otherwise not need at all. In suffering we are given the chance to make a choice between good and evil, otherwise our free will would also be dramatically changed. In the bible it is said “For it became him (God), to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” Many people can learn through suffering, and it can make us have a better conscience. Pain is one of the main things that makes us human, it gives us a limit, so we are not turned into God like creatures that can do anything, endure anything and never feel remorse of pain at all.