This is a perennial topic, and I think it can’t be discussed too often. We need answers. Why does God allow such horrible suffering in our world? Check out the video, and share your thoughts here.
I applaud her efforts to understand a deep and confusing topic. I would offer caution as you listen to her. She presents a number of ideas some of are insightful but others which are not fully formed or could even be misinformed.
Suffering is a condition of a broken world. It is an evil that we should not seek out and should take care to address underlying factors causing the pain and attempt heal it. (That’s the good Samaritan story.) Christ’s Passion is the unique and definitive cause of redemption. Christians may participate in the fruits and application of Christ’s saving work through grace, prayer, suffering, witness, and charity. John Paul II describes suffering united to Christ as participation in the salvation achieved through Christ’s Cross. Suffering can teach us to love as Christ loved. Many saints encountered profound suffering, and part of their sanctity was learning, through grace, to place love above it. Self-oblation became a defining feature of their lives. By persevering in Christ, they followed Him to Calvary and, through Calvary, to the Resurrection.
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Wow, great thoughts! Thank you for responding, I loved what you had to say! I totally agree with you. 
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Wow…I think God lead me to this. I think God wanted me to see what Catholics thought about suffering.
So before I say what I think suffering is, just know that I am not Catholic. I used to be Catholic, but I found solace in something that at first didn’t quite make sense, but as I researched and got to know God through a different lense, my entire life has shifted and for the better. That doesn’t mean that the Catholic God is bad, it just didn’t pan out for me.
This is what I think, granted it’s not the best explanation for suffering, but it is an explanation regardless. I kind of go with the idea of dualism (or if you need a better word for it, Taosim). Taoism is basically Yin and Yang. Both can’t exist without the other. You see, I view the world through a lense of learning. That we can take anything in our current existence and learn from it. I think of the world as one big library, basically I think of this Dimension as the Dimension of Learning. We are here to learn how to grow in love and wisdom, and I truly believe that. And, God has revealed to me why evil is even relevant.
You see, you cannot have true good without true evil. And the opposite is true too, you can’t have true evil without true good. Notice I say “true.” Because if I was to say, you can’t have good without evil, that’s like a person thinking that abortion is good because you’re showing “mercy” to the fetus, you are helping a Mother to be able to continue to live her life the way she wants to, and all together it’s a win/win. But, is abortion truly good? Because something could be thought of as good, but not be truly good for someone. Same with evil too.
And we can go deeper. Let’s say God did eliminate the evil in the world, all of it. So no more bullying, no more unnecessary crime or deaths, let’s just say we all live in this eternal paradise. If that was the case, how could you really know what evil is? The answer is, you couldn’t. Cause the only thing you would know is good. And really, how does one learn sometimes? Because sometimes a person has to experience bad to realize how evil something truly is.
One of the reasons why Free Will exists is so you can actually find out if something is truly good or truly evil for someone else. And, I’m not trying to make a case that evil is a good thing, evil is evil. But what I am saying is that, there’s so much you can learn through action. You can learn through words, but words tend to be, depending on who you’re talking to, words tend to be more nuanced than action. Cause action can really make the case for something to be evil. Not saying words can’t be evil, but there are cases where someone will say something that they don’t truly mean. Whereas with actions, that tends to tell you a lot about someone else.
We are here to learn. And everyone has different lessons they are here to learn. Some people are here to learn that you shouldn’t gossip about someone else. Others are here to learn how to truly love a person, versus what society defines as love. But we are here to learn something. It’s important to keep an open mind on any topic. That doesn’t mean that just because you have an open mind, means you just agree on anything and everything. You can have your disagreements on something, but what I AM saying is, even if you disagree with something, you can still learn from whatever it is you disagree with. That’s what I mean when I say to have an open mind, because sometimes you might find something that initially you disagreed with, but you now know more about that topic and quite possibly have changed your mind (or has shown more evidence) that maybe it’s not as wrong as you originally thought, or maybe it just solidifies that your judgement on said issue was correct.
Besides something being against the law (cause people who break the law deserve some sort of punishment) and besides certain “bad laws,” I try to give both sides of an issue credence before making a final judgement on it. When you judge something, you have essentially made up your mind about something. And there’s so many ways to view 1 issue, that I feel it would be disadvantageous to judge something as truly right or truly wrong (with the exception of breaking the law, cause to me breaking the law is wrong period. But like I said there are a few “bad laws” out there too). I just have an open mind at all times, cause, you just never know. Cause sometimes I don’t find out, till years down the road, that something I viewed as wrong isn’t necessarily wrong and is just one way of viewing it (again except for breaking the law).
Take what resonates and leave the rest.
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Thank you for sharing that! I would disagree with the idea that we need to experience evil to know if something is evil. I think God has given us the knowledge of good and evil since Adam ate the forbidden fruit. So it’s not that we don’t know what evil or good is, it’s that we consciously choose to do evil when we already know it’s wrong. That’s sin. We are all suffering on this earth because of humanity’s choice to sin in Adam.
It’s true that we do learn things from suffering, but that wasn’t God’s original plan for our learning. God intended us to be innocent of the knowledge of evil forever. We would simply have a good nature, and everything would be perfect.
I do not believe good and evil need each other. God does not need what Satan has to offer. Goodness on it’s own is perfect, and that is the way God wanted things to be for us from the beginning of the creation. And when Christ returns, we who have chosen to believe in him will be freed from sin.
Thank you so much for responding, I appreciate you sharing your thoughts.
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Of course! I disagree but I’m just going to agree to disagree. I don’t want to get into a debate, although if you want to continue this conversation, you can through private message to me. But, regardless, it is an interesting topic to talk about regardless.
This past Sunday’s Gospel, St. Peter thought something similar.
"Jesus began to show His disciples
that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly
from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.
Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him,
‘God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to You.’
He turned and said to Peter,
‘Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to Me.
You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.’
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Thank you for sharing the link to the Daily Readings! I just signed up for the daily email they send out. Very good point as well, God does not always see things the way we see them, even when we really want him to agree with us.