I'm kind of confused about why people are discussing the waffling theists do regarding why God tests us with all this suffering. The question being asked is why a loving God includes the rest of the natural world when the whole point is about OUR sin, OUR free will, and the choices he supposedly hopes WE make. God is after all trying to make a point about sin to us. What does it have to do with the rest of nature? This makes God sadistic, not loving, to include the rest of nature when they lack the supposed free will we have.

I also wonder, even if you accept that there's a reason God includes the rest of nature with all of this suffering, why did God design mechanisms in nature that would presumably have to have been there before sin? It's incredibly difficult to imagine a lion laying with lambs. If you remove the predator and prey attributes of each creature, they no longer are what they are. So before sin, a lion couldn't have existed, which makes the whole premise absurd. Then again, I've brought this up to my family. They don't have an answer because it's "for God to understand" I assume, but they clearly try not to think too hard about it, and forget it was ever brought up the next time the discussion occurs. That's what theists do I've noticed. Critical thinking seems beyond them, at least when it comes to their most cherished beliefs. They believe they will get answers to these questions when they meet their maker in heaven. Right now, we're puny humans who are too stupid to understand.