Christianity - Suffering

Answer 4 has some truth to it, but a Christian interpretation would certainly mention God (without going quite so far as to 'blame'). Answer 2 also contains a valid idea ~ in that, although an omnipotent God is capable (by that definition) of doing anything, He would not (could not?) have created anything else as His own equal, so even the 'highest' of His creation would have to contain at least some form of flaw. Free will is potentially very wonderful: but with such freedom comes the option to make mistakes, deliberately or otherwise.

Christians believe God had already ordained what would happen with Jesus, so that fallible humans would, in the eternal perspective, have a way back to full relationship with Him even as and when they had done things which grieved Him.

The text can be found in Exodus chapter 20, and indeed written up on many church walls and elsewhere. If we are truly right with God, it ought not to occur to us to consider breaking His other rules concerning our 'neighbours' ... but while these are mostly simple to the point of starkness, it can sometimes not be easy to abide by them in principle nor practice.

(We hope you avoided answer 3, which didn't even add up to 10!)

Answer 3 is almost certainly what a 'keen' Christian would offer; answer 4 goes some way in the same direction, but without much sense of personal faith. Answer 2 rings unhelpfully hollow without specifying God's saving grace through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; answer 1 might almost be a pure humanist rationale, with no active religious perspective.

You may wish to look at answers 1-3 in their contexts (Romans 3:23; Matthew 26 / Mark 14 / Luke 22; John 3:16). Answer 4 covers things that the Bible says elsewhere, but rather too selectively: Christians believe there is indeed such hope, as in the earlier answers and their references.

All the false answers here have Christian and/or Biblical echoes, but in this context it is the Amish we were thinking of: they sit interestingly aside from what we may call the 21st-century north-American mainstream, though such necessary contacts as they do have are not without their difficulties on either side (some, even more conservative, subgroups do not hold with any form of electricity, for instance ~ and hence, no computers, phones nor internet). Amish people remain as prone as anyone else to 'sin' but their structured lives and strong sense of community are probably a help towards conformity. If you have ever seen video footage of an Amish barn-raising meet, that is a fine example of community at its best.

In answer 2, of course, He was only quoting the old Jewish 'like-for-like tally' ~ which He had come to supplant with His gospel of forgiveness, as in answers 1 and 3. Answer 4 to some extent reflects sayings of Jesus, but certainly does not encapsulate His complete message.

The whole question of people being locked-away as criminals is a challenging one for Christians. Most (if not all) Christians would be against the death penalty on principle, so taking serious miscreants out of public circulation (after due process of law, and at public expense) is probably the next obvious option. While behind bars, criminals are no longer a menace to others, and may have the time and inclination to take stock of their lives and mend their ways (what Christians refer to as 'repentance'), so they should probably be allowed this opportunity. Christians would regard an appropriate balance of justice with mercy to be a worthy, if sometimes elusive, aim in any case.

There remains, of course, the problem that a concentration of provenly dysfunctional people with time on their hands may well breed resentment and the spreading of criminal knowledge. Punishment, as such, cannot of itself deal with all the problems and maladjustments that may have led someone into committing crimes in the first place. But prisons do have their own Chaplains (not only Christian ones) to help seeking inmates in their quest for faith, and much good work is done by volunteer prison visitors and the Prison Reform Trust in the UK.

The problem of suffering may be tough and widespread, but 'God's people are onto it' in all manner of ways.

Figures are 'only' around 100,000 volunteers, but with an estimated aggregate value of £112 million (and growing). All other facts are given as true. Depending somewhat upon where you happen to live, you may discover that your local paper will quite often specify in its formal death notices that the deceased was in a hospice (along with family thanks to the hospice staff).

Answer 1 was (so far as we know) entirely fictitious and 'respectably far-fetched' ~ although, seemingly, and by accepted definition, 'nothing is impossible with God'. Perhaps in certain cases, only through and beyond such suffering can healing miracles come about.

Many people recognise the soulful depths in such music as 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot', 'Steal Away' and 'Deep River'; but we only have these thanks to the extraordinary conjunction of repressive Afro-Caribbean slavery with the telling of Bible stories at the camp meetings. From the suffering of the slaves, something bittersweet and potent remains to be treasured and honoured across wider cultures. One might not wish suffering on anyone ~ indeed, we shouldn't ~ but it surely cannot be entirely wrong to celebrate the beauty of release and reconciliation.