Yes, I pointed this out. I said that while all our suffering is due to wrongdoing, much of it is indirect (i.e., not due to our own wrongdoing).

Anyway, back to my question, since sin is the transgression of the law, and all suffering comes as a result of transgression of the law, it follows that all suffering is the result of sin, right?

These are just titles for Satan. Satan:
1.the prince of evil
2.the author of sin
3.the first transgressor of God's holy law

She's not saying "the prince of evil" means "the author of sin."

I'm sure you know what "author" means. An author is someone who creates a work. It means more than simply being the first one to do something. Furthermore, she writes that Satan is the "author of sin and all its results." Therefore he is responsible for sin and all its results.



You should be careful how you phrase this! *Christ" suffered and died for the sins of the saved, not Satan! Your language has a definite expiatory sense to it, and Satan's suffering and death doesn't have this aspect to it.



Satan suffers for his responsibility for both the saved and the unsaved.



There's nothing arbitrary about this. God does not split Satan's responsibility up into saved and unsaved, and only put one type of responsibility upon him. Indeed, it's not something put upon him at all, as if a burden were being put on him. Satan simply has this responsibility by virtue of what he has done.

More later.

Yes. Job shows this. I just said that!



You're saying God's protection is worthless unless it prevents us from suffering?



Here's something Peter says which may help:





Sounds like Calvin. God determines who is saved and who is lost. This would be consistent with your argument.



Two points. First of all, the second assertion you write is true, but is in no way dependent upon the first. That is, given that there are things which God leaves to choice or chance, it in no way follows that God is not intimately involved in everything that happens and does not happen. Yes, God is involved, but His being involved does not imply causation.

Let's take a closer look at the first assertion:



This is quite false. If you are asserting that nothing happens by chance or choice, this is clearly wrong. Things happen by chance all the time. For example, people roll dice, play cards, and these events follow the laws of probability. They are mathematically demonstrably random, meaning they happen by chance. Another example is quantum mechanics, where the motion of subatomic particles is random.

Regarding God's allowing things happening by choice, how do you think sin came about? If God allowed nothing to happen by choice, sin would not have happened.



MM, this isn't what you said! You said, "Before the Flood, the forces of nature above and below the earth were the same as before A&E sinned." If nature change at all, even a smidgen, your statement is false. For something to not be the same does not imply radical change, but no change. For you to prove your point, you'd need to produce a statement which said "Yet this had in now way changed the face of nature" not "Yet this had not greatly changed the face of nature."



As I pointed out, according to Scripture, the SOP, and science, the waters under the earth were under great pressure. This pressure caused the waters of the great deep to burst forth. That caused the flood.



Right. This proves my point.



You're contradicting yourself. You just pointed out that before sin lions were not carnivorous. That's a difference!



Right! This is why nature changed after sin.



How do you think the water from under the earth's crust got into the atmosphere? "Waters in the bowels of the earth gushed forth" as EGW put it. Why would they gush up if not under pressure?

Here's a scientific explanation:





MM, you make statements like this all the time, misconstruing your not knowing something with truth. Just because *you* don't know that something exists, does not mean the thing does not exist!

Saying something like the following would be more prudent: "I am aware of no explanation for the flood," if I weren't aware of such. However, an explanation does exist, and I provided you a link for it.



Yes, but we disagree as to His purposes. You have described God as being bloodthirsty for vengeance, as purposing to kill billions of women and children, of punishing people by burning them alive for many hours or days, and other such things. I see God's purposes as being that which Jesus Christ revealed:



We see God's purposes differently because we see His character differently.

Some suffering is so far removed from sinning that it is stretching the truth to conclude it is the result of sinning. For example, the Flood. Those who suffered and perished in the Flood were not suffering the results of sinning. That is, their sins did not cause water to fall from above or gush up from beneath. Instead, God employed the forces of nature to punish and destroy them. The suffering they experienced before they died was caused by the flood God caused to punish them. True, it is because they sinned that God punished them with a flood, but their sins did not cause the flood. There was no natural connection between the sins they committed and the reason why the flood happened.

MM, you're not dealing with the quote. Here's the quote:



Please note this says that it is "true" (not false!) that all suffering results from the transgression for God's law. Now given that sin is the transgression of God's law, it follows that all suffering results from sin. It's easy to see this follows from the statement above, right?

Here's the context of the quote:

It was generally believed by the Jews that sin is punished in this life. Every affliction was regarded as the penalty of some wrongdoing, either of the sufferer himself or of his parents. It is true that all suffering results from the transgression of God's law, but this truth had become perverted. Satan, the author of sin and all its results, had led men to look upon disease and death as proceeding from God,--as punishment arbitrarily inflicted on account of sin. Hence one upon whom some great affliction or calamity had fallen had the additional burden of being regarded as a great sinner. {DA 471.1}

Thus the way was prepared for the Jews to reject Jesus. He who "hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows" was looked upon by the Jews as "stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted;" and they hid their faces from Him. Isa. 53:4, 3. {DA 471.2}

God had given a lesson designed to prevent this. The history of Job had shown that suffering is inflicted by Satan, and is overruled by God for purposes of mercy. But Israel did not understand the lesson. The same error for which God had reproved the friends of Job was repeated by the Jews in their rejection of Christ. {DA 471.3}

The belief of the Jews in regard to the relation of sin and suffering was held by Christ's disciples. While Jesus corrected their error, He did not explain the cause of the man's affliction, but told them what would be the result. Because of it the works of God would be made manifest. "As long as I am in the world," He said, "I am the light of the world." Then having anointed the eyes of the blind man, He sent him to wash in the pool of Siloam, and the man's sight was restored. Thus Jesus answered the question of the disciples in a practical way, as He usually answered questions put to Him from curiosity. The disciples were not called upon to discuss the question as to who had sinned or had not sinned, but to understand the power and mercy of God in giving sight to the blind. It was evident that there was no healing virtue in the clay, or in the pool wherein the blind man was sent to wash, but that the virtue was in Christ. {DA 471.4}

"It was generally believed by the Jews that sin is punished in this life." You believe this, too, don't you Tom?

"Every affliction was regarded as the penalty of some wrongdoing, either of the sufferer himself or of his parents." Don't you believe this too?

"It is true that all suffering results from the transgression of God's law, but this truth had become perverted." How do you think the truth was perverted?

Again, I do not believe all suffering is the direct result of sinning. In many cases suffering is not the result of natural cause and effect relations like feeling pain when fire is handled. In many cases in the Bible sinners experienced suffering because God inflicted punishment upon them. The punishment was not the result of natural law. That is, their sins did not cause the results. Listen:

Pharaoh, when suffering under the judgments of God, acknowledged his sin in order to escape further punishment, but returned to his defiance of Heaven as soon as the plagues were stayed. {SC 24.1}

No.



No.



People looked upon God as causing the suffering of sinners and punishment or retribution of what they had done.



How about indirect?



This is a good example of the question you asked above ("How do you think the truth was perverted?")

In the Pharaoh quote, the word "suffering" means something different. It's used as a transitive verb here, not intransitive, which is what we've been talking about.


(From Webster's) It's this:



Not this:

You don't? Do you believe sin is never punished in this life?


What causes sinners to suffer the penalty of sinning in this life?


Are you saying God has never done anything that caused, or resulted in, people to suffer because of the sins they committted? What about commanding Moses to stone to death the Sabbath-breaker and the blasphemer?


Yes, there are times when suffering is the indirect result of sinning. But there are also times when suffering is the direct result of God employing His "workmen" to test and try and grow believers. Such suffering results in righteousness and has nothing to do with sinning and its results.


The ten plagues of Egypt were caused by God. He employed the forces of nature to display His power and might to motivate Pharaoh to let the Jews go. But God also hardened Pharaoh's heart. Why? So that God could completely and thoroughly demonstrate His power and might, to establish Himself as a God unsurpassed in power and might.

God hardened Pharaoh's heart in the same way He will "send strong delusion" at the end of time. See 2 Thes 2:10-12 and Rev 17:17. Whoever does not serve God wholeheartedly, whoever is beyond the hope of salvaiton, God will employ to demonstrate the effects of sinning and rebelling. He uses them to accomplish His purposes. He furhter hardens their hearts.

In the sense that the Jews believed, yes. That is, I believe sin is never punished in this life in the sense of that the Jews believed in the context of the DA quotation.



They don't. They suffer it in the judgment.



Ellen White wrote:



Since it is true that all suffering result from the transgression of God's law, I don't see how suffering could be attributed to God, unless God sins.



But all suffering is the result of violation of God's law, right? So does God violate His own law?

I think you're mixing up God's doing things actively and passively. That is, God permits suffering, and this is how He employs His "workmen" to test and try and grow believers. But God does not cause suffering to happen, because all suffering is the result of a violation of God's law, and God does not sin.

Here's another way to see this. The above quote calls Satan the "author of sin and all its results." Is suffering the result of sin? If so, then Satan is its author.

Now God can do things which result indirectly in suffering, but the cause of the suffering is sin. For example, God can reveal things to us about our character which result in suffering for us, but this suffering is caused by our sin, our defects of character. If there were no sin, there would be no suffering. So God does everything He can to eliminate sin. The only way for sin to be eliminated is for the truth about God to be revealed. This was Christ's work -- the revelation of God. This was the whole purpose of His mission, and it should be ours too!