"With a higher perspective, a soul might actually feel cheated if it was denied suffering."
Yeah, I can picture the line at the Complaints Department in Heaven now…miles and miles of people whining about how God never gave them flesh-eating disease or kidney failure or river blindness or… or…

"For the Christian worldview, yes, suffering is a problem."
Did you ever notice how much of apologetics is to try to answer why an interventionalist God isn't? Theodicy is basically asking why a God that could, doesn't.

"There's also the matter of people who die as children or infants."
That's to forge the souls of their parents. Obviously. It's what a loving God would do. You know how, to teach one person a lesson, you inflict misery on someone else entirely? That's why we punished Al Qaeda by invading Iraq. The logic is solid.

"Why was this particular soul deprived of a lifetime of experience and suffering? Was it already advanced enough that it didn't require it? And why did it get an unfair advantage in avoiding Hell, hardly having a chance to sin?"
Keeping in mind, of course, that God made all of them (and for the Calvinists, He made most of us to fail, and suffer an eternity of firey burning for being what He made, which is the equivalent of making a car then setting it on fire because it's not a loaf of bread).
And…
"The suffering doesn't come because the soul is being damaged, but because the person is so convinced by the simulation." & "It's the fire that forges something beautiful and mighty."
So, on the one hand, suffering does not effect the soul, but on the other hand, suffering affects the soul.

"What we consider to be suffering would be a joke to this being."
And that reflects how exactly on the events leading up to JC's death?

"In this worldview, the notion that suffering is at odds with a benevolent deity is somewhat of a non sequitur."
So, knowing God's plan includes (indeed, requires) suffering, should we try to minimize suffering or maximize it? I'm ever so confused! ("Here are your pills, Grandma. No, you can't have them!")

"I'm just not convinced that "there is suffering, therefore there is no benevolent god" works for every conceivable benevolent god. But yes, against the biblical God it works fairly well."
But you're forgetting Satan! And The Fall! You know, for a nontheist you're a terrible theist.

Justin "You also seem to imply that God has a different understanding of suffering and/or morality than we do."
Words have different meanings when they're applied to God instead of Man. See "love", "mercy", "justice", etc.

Polly "You'd be surprised how utterly confidently some people assert that his children were all that and more because...well, I guess because they don't think god could have done that to them otherwise?? Though it's nowhere to be found in the story, itself, they just ascribe various major failings to the kids based on the passage that has Job offering sacrifices on behalf of his kids in case they blasphemed in their hearts. I suppose the same would go for the servants who got slaughtered, too."
Didn't you know that, since God made us, He can do whatever He wants with us? Golly, the fact that He doesn't zealously strike us down right now ('cause we're just such terrible sinners, and He can't stand the sight of sin) means that every moment is a gift from God, showing just how much He loves us! In the same manner, the best way to illustrate how much you love your child is to hold a gun to his/her head all the time and not pull the trigger.

John Nernoff "If I hear "Job" the story I retch. It was invented by priests to inculcate the notion that unswerving loyalty to "God" (actually the priest) in the face of any adversity is the supreme good."
It's "answers" to the PoE aren't even good ones. Job (and those around him) go through all that, he spends a bunch of time trying to figure out why, then God appears and says, essentially, "Sure, I didn't help you…but look at all these other things that I do!" and "How dare you question me!"

My point was, to an immortal, indestructible entity, enduring the simulated experience of being horribly crippled for an infinitesimally small fraction of its existence would be nothing. What we consider to be suffering would be a joke to this being. A game. Just as we adults can only laugh at the notion that being denied a cookie is the worst thing that could ever happen to someone.

Although that is conceivable, PP, the fact is that the vast majority of theists don't believe it themselves. That was the point of this post: even if all this pain and suffering is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, most theists still say they would put a stop to it if they could. A person who really believed that apologetic wouldn't care about ending suffering. And yet, manifestly, most believers do care.

*Okay, I suppose it's _possible_ that all of Job's children were irredeemable psychopaths who went around disrespecting their parents, working on the sabbath, kicking puppies, and eating shrimp. But the story doesn't say much either way.

You'd be surprised how utterly confidently some people assert that his children were all that and more because...well, I guess because they don't think god could have done that to them otherwise?? Though it's nowhere to be found in the story, itself, they just ascribe various major failings to the kids based on the passage that has Job offering sacrifices on behalf of his kids in case they blasphemed in their hearts.
I suppose the same would go for the servants who got slaughtered, too.

Andre said (in response to PP):

t'd be nice to be able to say, "yeah, this really sucks, but when I die my soul is gonna be so developed and prepared and kick-ass!"

My question was always: What are you preparing for? What kind of paradise free of temptation requires such moral fiber and perseverence in the face of suffering?

I get the feeling you only quickly skimmed my comment. My point was, to an immortal, indestructible entity, enduring the simulated experience of being horribly crippled for an infinitesimally small fraction of its existence would be nothing. What we consider to be suffering would be a joke to this being. A game. Just as we adults can only laugh at the notion that being denied a cookie is the worst thing that could ever happen to someone.

Even presuming that people get to go to heaven, it doesn't excuse suffering in this life, especially if suffering is avoidable. Suffering is not a game or a joke to more people than I can count, and I feel that you inadvertently trivialize their suffering by calling it such.

As for your blacksmith analogy, an omnipotent blacksmith wouldn't need fire to do his job, if you catch my drift.

I also want to repeat what I said earlier about how being denied cookies is not at all similar to the sorts of suffering that the problem of evil involves (natural disasters, wars, debilitating illness or injury, etc.).

I'm just not convinced that "there is suffering, therefore there is no benevolent god" works for every conceivable benevolent god. But yes, against the biblical God it works fairly well.

The problem of evil does not work for the biblical God. The Old Testament God is portrayed as a tyrant and a sadist.

I typically take "benevolent" to mean "all-loving." All-loving entails, by any meaningful definition, that a being with this trait wants the object of this love to avoid all unnecessary suffering. By this definition, the problem of evil disproves all conceivable benevolent deities.

I get the feeling you only quickly skimmed my comment. My point was, to an immortal, indestructible entity, enduring the simulated experience of being horribly crippled for an infinitesimally small fraction of its existence would be nothing. What we consider to be suffering would be a joke to this being. A game. Just as we adults can only laugh at the notion that being denied a cookie is the worst thing that could ever happen to someone.

To the metal being forged, the fire is a horror. To the blacksmith, the fire is a wonderful, indispensable tool. In the worldview of some theists, we all spend our embodied lives thinking we're the metal when in death we discover that we're actually the blacksmith. For these theists, the question of why there is suffering in the universe is answered with another question: "Why do you assume suffering is a bad thing?" In their view, removing suffering from the universe is like extinguishing the blacksmith's fire for his own good, when it's the fire that gives him everything he has. He'd be right to protest that what you've done for him is the very opposite of a favor. In this worldview, the notion that suffering is at odds with a benevolent deity is somewhat of a non sequitur.

I don't subscribe to this worldview. I'm not a theist. I'm just putting forth a theist argument that tries to explain and embrace suffering rather than to treat it as an inconvenience that it's best to just ignore. I'm just not convinced that "there is suffering, therefore there is no benevolent god" works for every conceivable benevolent god. But yes, against the biblical God it works fairly well.

But yes, an omnipotent being should be able to pre-cook souls without us having to go through illness or hardship or loss or anything else he supposedly puts us through, and saying he can't is both claiming a deep intimate understanding of God's mysterious powers and putting limits on the limitless.

You seem to be implying that suffering is allowed to mold better human beings. However, omnipotence would allow that "molding" to occur without suffering. Using my previous example of crippling illness, I fail to see how that occurring to someone would shape them into a better person, or why it would be necessary to accomplish that goal.

You also seem to imply that God has a different understanding of suffering and/or morality than we do. Since we are talking about human suffering, and God would understand our understanding of the subject(s), God's understanding of the subject is less relevant than ours.

Finally, just because (if) people get to go to Heaven after they die, that does not excuse suffering here on Earth, especially when that suffering is avoidable for an omnipotent being.