Question about suffering and evil

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rafarose

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Is suffering an inevitable consequence of sin on earth?

I mean, do bad things happen out of God’s will or is it just an **indirect ** consequence of sin. For instance, if a five year old is afflicted with cancer, is this a result/consequence of someone else’s sin (not necessarily the parents’ sin, but the world’s sin in general)?
 
This makes me think of the man born blind. “Rabbi, who hath sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind?” … “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” Jn. ix

Commenting on this passage, St. John Chrysostom (as quoted by St. Thomas in the Catena Aurea) writes:
He is not to be understood as meaning that others had become blind, in consequence of their parents’ sins: for one man cannot be punished for the sin of another. But had the man therefore suffered unjustly? Rather I should say that that blindness was a benefit to him: for by it he was brought to see with the inward eye. At any rate He who brought him into being out of nothing, had the power to make him in the event no loser by it.

St. Thomas says in the Summa Theologica (P1, Q19, A9):
… The evil of natural defect, or of punishment, He does will, by willing the good to which such evils are attached. Thus in willing justice He wills punishment; and in willing the preservation of the natural order, He wills some things to be naturally corrupted. …

This page by a Thomist goes into more depth on St. Thomas’s approach to the problem of evil.
 
Isn’t Gods will for us to…

(1 Love thy God with all thy heart, mind, and soul

and
  1. Love your neighbor as yourself
So if we are to Love God with all thy heart, mind, and soul…and yet GOD IS LOVE…how is there any room for evil in the will of God? Just because God permits it, doesn’t mean it comes from him.
 
Isn’t Gods will for us to…

(1 Love thy God with all thy heart, mind, and soul

and
  1. Love your neighbor as yourself
So if we are to Love God with all thy heart, mind, and soul…and yet GOD IS LOVE…how is there any room for evil in the will of God? Just because God permits it, doesn’t mean it comes from him.
 
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