How do Christians believe God loves us amidst such suffering?
Mental partitioning
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Conditioned denial
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Your options for this debate probably won't get much response, because people don't like to feel like we're trapped picking the lesser of two evils. In any case, the best Christian answer I've heard comes from CS Lewis in his Problem of Pain book. It's very complicated to boil down, but the main points I remember are: God's love is like a father's love in that while you want to protect your children, they have to experience the world on their own and the suffering makes the good parts even better. Much of the pain in the world comes from free will. If god prevented pain, then there would not be free will and consequences for actions. Suffering in the world is nothing compared to the bliss of paradise. What we experience here is part of His plan and makes us choose Him or sin, so it's a test of free will. Basically, think about things as if you were God. If you cured every illness, only allowed small amounts of pain to enter people's life, would people be more happy? Life would be too easy, people would start to complain about heartache and loneliness and why a benevolent god allows that. Maybe genetic defects are nature's way of exploring new avenues, so in the long run humanity will be better for it. Nature or god puts our future and our present in our hands, and we can make of it whatever we want. I wouldn't have that robbed from me by not allowing bad things to happen. If every choice led to happiness, there really is no choice. 436 days ago
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