OK, no one seems to want to touch this one.
IF total depravity prevents any from choosing to receive Jesus and be reborn . . . If that is true, then what place has suffering?
It becomes yet more meaningless torment for the afflicted.
In the case of the person who will be born again, God declared that their lives have been predestined to be saved. So why make them suffer? If the salvation is a foregone conclusion, then why not simply tap their shoulders, and they are saved? And if the storyline is all written by God, why is it written with suffering? God can do anything He wants, and that's what He wants?
So God makes people to torture in this age, and in the ages to come. He made them that way, to do those things, and to suffer torment forever.
This is of course not what I believe.
I believe that suffering in us is to convince us of certain realities. That we need to be convinced. That God will go to amazing lengths to convince us of His love and faithfulness, or to do whatever needs to be done.
Let's dive foolishly into the hypothetical.
A man who, left to his own devices, would have been so self-absorbed, so successful, a self-made man, independant, no interest or will towards God.
But the same man, subjected to suffering, never achieves that life path, instead, becomes damaged, needy, unsuccessful, and ripe for salvation. And it is the time of his trouble, but he shall be saved through it, to borrow from Jeremiah.
Suffering has a reason, and that is to purge sin and perfect obedience. But that only applies if we are also making choices. Otherwise, the suffering is abritrary in an arbitrary life.
It could happen any way at all, if God chooses everything, and He's then chosen to make it hurt - bad - and for some, forever. And why? He could simply make those He wanted to live with Him, living with Him.
Of course I don't try to explain why God does what He does. But this is the God this doctrine paints, a God who delights in pain and suffering and death as the perfect performing of the full measure of His will.
A God who wants His creation to suffer, needlessly, in this life, and in death, and for eternity to come.
That is not the God of the Bible, who came into the world to free us from suffering and death.
I may suffer in the flesh, but because God has used all of these in my life to bring me to Himself, it's not without reason.
Much love!
mark