Your note leans more in the direction of 2 than 1 and I largely agree, but my only issue is the idea that He “allows suffering”. My view is that a lot of the suffering that takes place is not because God allowed it but because Christians allowed it. The earth is man’s domain and God gave it to man to dominate and thus He can’t unilaterally move without man’s invitation, not because He doesn’t have the power to do so, but because that’s how He chose to do things. Matthew 18:18 also supports this idea as well as Philippians 2:7-9 and Matthew 28:18-19. Christians haven’t been using their authority in Christ to bind the works of darkness in prayer and in casting out devils, not just out of people but of regions and territories on the earth; hence evil is prevailing when it shouldn’t be. (Matthew 16:18-19, Mark 16:17-18)