Why God Allows Suffering? (7)

Different levels of decision making

Of all the earth's physical creatures that God has made, man alone can exercise free will. Simpler life-forms, such as microbes and insects, are preprogrammed to react in certain ways to certain stimuli. They behave in accordance with their environment and have virtually no independent decision-making abilities in the sense that man does.

The actions of more-complicated life-forms, such as mammals, are also largely governed by instinct, though they do make rudimentary decisions when reacting to stimuli and adapting to situations.

Human beings alone among earthly creatures have an advanced sense of time.Ecclesiastes:3:11 says that God "has put eternity in [our] hearts." In other words, we can contemplate the future. We make far-reaching decisions and plan our lives months and years in advance.

We also study the past; we have a sense of history. We learn lessons from our experiences and the experiences of others. God gave the capacity for advanced decision-making abilities only to man among His earthly creation.

God designed human beings to make choices. Yet we have never learned how to make consistently wise and properly informed choices. Nor have we learned how to effectively manage our emotions, motives and desires and their influence on our decisions.

The first exercise of man's freedom of choice

Our freedom to decide what we want to do can result in acts of good or evil. God gave us freedom both to reach out and help our fellow man and freedom to act self-servingly and in ways that harm ourselves and others.

We frequently exercise our freedom of choice in wrong ways, and we reap the consequences—which take the form of often-unexpected penalties. This is nothing new; it occurred in the Garden of Eden with the first human beings, Adam and Eve.

God had placed two trees in the garden. One was the tree of life and the other the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis:2:9). God told Adam he could eat of the former, but he was not to partake of the latter: "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" (verses 16-17).

As the book of Revelation explains, the tree of life symbolized obedience to God that would ultimately lead to eternal life (Revelation:2:7; 22:1-2). The other tree—the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—represented rejection of God's direction by determining good and evil for oneself. This choice would eventually lead to death.

Eve, tempted by the serpent, exercised her free will unwisely and was deceived (2 Corinthians:11:3). She rationalized her way around God's instruction. Although the apostle Paul tells us that Adam was not deceived (1 Timothy:2:13-14
), he allowed his wife to persuade him to join her in disobeying God (Genesis:3:17).

Adam's full realization of his actions made him all the more guilty for what happened; God held him responsible even more so than Eve. Nevertheless, acting together they chose to listen to and follow the serpent (Genesis:3:1-6




), identified in Revelation:12:9 as the devil and Satan. (To better understand Satan's influence, be sure to read Is There Really a Devil? )

Adam and Eve reaped the consequences of their sin. God told them they would die—and eventually they did—but the immediate consequence was that God expelled them from the garden and cut them off from the tree of life.

Now they had to make their own way in a difficult world (Genesis:3:22-24

). They were left to their flawed wisdom—their own judgment (verse 6). Life from that point would include sorrow, pain and toil because of their rebellion against God's clear instruction (verses 16-19).

Since that time "all have sinned" (Romans:3:23; 5:12) and reaped the penalties Adam and Eve incurred.

Many people disdain the Bible because it includes many accounts of people's bad behavior. Yet we should understand that Scripture, in part, is a historical account of the sinful way of life man chose when he rejected God's commandments and reaped the resulting consequences.

God inspired the recording of the lessons in the Old Testament so that we might learn from the experiences of others (1 Corinthians:10:6, 11; Romans:15:4). Although the New Testament includes similar lessons for us, its focus is mostly on the message of the Kingdom of God and the good news that God sent His Son to save us from our sins (John:3:16). It also reveals how suffering and sorrow will eventually cease.

To be cont'd.

God bless.