Question

When did suffering start?

Answer 1

Human suffering is a prominent example. That a loving, all-powerful God—as described in the Bible—would allow terrible human anguish to go on perplexes many people. Some even use human suffering as justification for denying God’s existence.

Of course, we need to realize that suffering became a possibility when God created beings with free will—able to choose right or wrong. He could have made preprogrammed robots incapable of choosing wrongly; but devoid of free will, such creatures would also have been incapable of a genuine relationship with Him as He desired—just as we desire to have with others.