(Isa. 14:26–27; refer in this text to 2 Ne. 19:12, 17)
What we mortals encounter as the unforeseen, God has already seen, such as how the oil deposits of this earth would shape the latter-day conflicts among nations. God’s “is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations” (Isa. 14:26). He likewise foresaw all the awful famines, some resulting from the unwise, unnecessary erosions of precious topsoil. He surely foresaw the terrible persecutions of the Jews. Having created the earth, He had anticipated the impact of continental drifts on the frequency and intensity of latter-day earthquakes. He who analogized that “the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest” (Isa. 57:20) also knows where and when, in latter days, the seas’ tidal waves will heave themselves savagely “beyond their bounds” (D&C 88:90).
Without the revelations, however, the answers as to the why of our existence and the why of human suffering would elude even the best intellectual excursions.
(Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign, Nov. 1987, 37.)