Does God let people hurt us and send sickness and death to us to train us in love and goodness?
If God lets suffering happen and restrains some sinners from doing evil while
allowing others to do worse then he must be trying to train us through suffering
be it from natural causes or done to us by others.
But
That makes you think that the evil that happens is for the best
That is a short step to seeing yourself as doing others a favour by hurting them
It is too big of a thing to get wrong - it is the suffering of real people we
are talking about! - so you need solid testable evidence to say that evil is for
our training
And where is the evidence that it really does train enough people enough?
And one problem with the training is that morality is a necessary evil - no
matter what view you take of what the starting principle of morality is there
will be collateral damage (eg what comes first? Happiness? God? Virtue? Nobody
agrees on what comes first.)
The doctrine declares that it is better to be trained than happy so it only
leads to misery and fear
And what use are the things you will be trained in such as patience and
compassion in Heaven where everybody is saved from sin and death and suffering?
And God as God cannot suffer and compassion involves suffering with those who
suffer so compassion cannot bring you to God anyway!
There is something too risky and vulgar about biased and selfish creatures like
us saying that the suffering of countless others which will never equal ours is
a gift from God to train them! We condone so much evil day by day.
There is something vulgar about people knowing some evils cannot be avoidable
and deciding "I can't avoid this so I may as well see it as training from God."
That is not faith but pragmatism. Faith in God forbids such an approach but it
is the only approach out there!
Faith in God then in that light is intrinsically insulting.
Usually God is thought to let evil happen as opposed to make it happen. But what
difference does it make? If you are suffering terribly does it matter if God is
letting it happen or if you are being tormented directly by him? If God can let
evil happen for a good reason he can do it for a good reason too.
Faith in God then in that light is even more intrinsically insulting!