Suffering

God should be likened to the most compassionate and affectionate of parents who would gladly suffer in the place of their child, but realize that this child must make her own decisions and must deal with the challenges of life as a free human agent. It seems that an unconditionally loving God would suffer with everyone who suffers, and would redeem every scintilla of suffering through His providence for all eternity. It seems that an unconditionally loving God would allow suffering to occur if it could lead to our choice of a more authentic love and life which could last for eternity. The key is that God has an eternal perspective. He also has an unconditionally loving perspective.

If God were to create a creature incapable of not loving, He would also have to create a creature incapable of love, because the very powers of self-consciousness and imagination can lead equally to jealousy or magnanimity, egocentricity or altruism, arrogance or humility, greed or generosity, anger or kindness, hatred or love. To render a being incapable of jealousy is to render it incapable of magnanimity. To render it incapable of egocentricity is to render it incapable of altruism. Ultimately, to render a being incapable of hatred is to render it incapable of love. God does not create the actuality of suffering in the world, but only the possibility of suffering, by creating agents who have the real choice. God must create a free agent with the freedom to love others with a love that is its own.