Sin and Suffering who is responsible?

 
Recently some of my friends and I were talking about sin and suffering. We were
discussing who is responsible for the sin and suffering in the world?  Why do bad things happen to good people? 
 
While sin may be an abuse of human freedom suffering is part of our very humanity, physical and psychological, and cannot be avoided.  So often we blame God asking why he doesn’t intervene on our behalf.  The argument goes something like this.  “I pray, I go to Mass regularly, I am a good person so why has God allowed this to happen to me?  It is as if we have entered into a contract with God seeing a binding relationship between piety and prosperity, health and happiness.  Subconsciously we believe that if we go to Mass and say our prayers God owes us.  Consequently, when things go wrong we blame God because he, in our opinion, has let us down.  God becomes the scapegoat releasing us from our responsibility to use this time wisely. 
 
Our personal theological framework can turn terrible human tragedy and physical distress into disillusionment with God.  God becomes the victim of misguided learned theology based on needs rather than values.  Our need to blame focuses on God. 
 
In answer to human sinfulness we make God the problem which is misguided to say the least.  We need to remember that, social injustice and the suffering of the poor and the lonely is a human problem created by humans and soluble, if it is soluble at all, by human endeavours.  It is not God’s responsibility. 
I am reminded of the people in the Concentration Camps of Europe during the second world war asking, “Where is God”?  God was definitely there, silently sharing the suffering of his people.  What was lacking was OUR HUMANITY which allowed sin and evil to do their worst and fill the void.   This is always the case where our humanity is lacking, sin thrives. 
 
God does not cause sickness, our lifestyles and nature does.  Nature is amoral and outside our moral imperatives as she does no know right from wrong.  Our physical bodies are prone to sickness and decay as this is nature’s way of recycling and rebirth. 
 
We need to remember that God owes us nothing.  While God may be all powerful he can not interfere with human freedom.  The world and its problems are our responsibility not God’s.  That is why God made us in his image.  Suffering is part of our humanity that can often define us though we may not have the ability to recognise or respond to its potential.  Sin is created by our abuse of freedom not by Satan or any evil spirit and it is our responsibility to transform our sinfulness into goodness once more.  God will help us in this endeavour, but he will not act on our behalf.  In the end we are invited to seek meaning and truth from the difficult aspects of our lives. 
This is prayer in its truest form and it places us in the path of the divine.