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How is Suffering Identifiable?

In pondering he problem of evil what is seldom noted is that for suffering itself to be identifiable you need to assume a baseline of non-suffering, joy, good, blessedness, peace, comfort, calm, rest, or sufficiently benign normalcy.  When we ask “why is there so much suffering in the universe” was have already conceded that we know non-suffering and consider it the normal, baseline and obviously preferable state of the universe. Why should we consider this to be?

It would seem to me that non-suffering is actually more difficult to account for without some sort of benevolence tightly joined to existence.

Hell and Divorce from Benevolence

Now let’s imagine existence divorced from this benevolence. What if in fact there was no baseline non-suffering but rather baseline suffering and that one existence was achieved in this universe without baseline non-suffering this universe endured. We have a word for this, it is hell.

Hell is basically a universe (unlike our current one where baseline non-suffer accounts for our awareness and protestation against suffering) where the baseline is suffering and no one would possibly ask “why is there suffering here” just like we don’t ask “why is there common and pervasive beauty, goodness, rest, etc. here?”.  Such a universe is not connected to a benevolent, joyful being but rather completely divorced from such a being.

In this way, perhaps annihilation isn’t much different from hell if we assume that God is the cause and perpetuator of assumed, conscious, non-suffering being.