THE PROBLEM OF SUFFERING

Peter Vardy and Julie Arliss in The Thinker’s Guide to Evil, maintain that “evil is one of the deepest and most central problems of human existence.” They analyze various sources of evil.

First, the freedom of human beings to choose to be selfish, self-centered and to ignore the demands and interests of others is central to any understanding of evil.

Secondly, the human psyche is a dark and complex place and the source of many individual evil acts lie outside the conscious control in the psyche – these are often caused by events in childhood, repressed sexuality or a failure to come to terms with the difficulties and failure of relationships or of death itself.

Thirdly, institutional evil represents probably the most pervasive, difficult to identify and hard to remedy evil. It dwells in nation states, in companies, in schools, in police forces, in churches and religious groupings, in family and racial groups and can be masked by apparently good people ignoring its reality.

They maintain that these three factors lie at the heart of many of the greatest evils and much of the world’s suffering. They ask whether religion has a distinctive contribution to make to the modern understanding of evil.

“Many today would deny this and would say that knowledge of psychology has displaced talk of God or of the devil and would claim that the lessons of the great world religions are no longer important. This, however, may be part of the problem. It signposts a refusal to engage deeply with different perspectives on the problem of evil – a refusal to acknowledge the possibility of the existence of God. A determination to seek naturalistic explanations for evil in fact rules out the validity of centuries of human experience and the reflections of many great thinkers of the past. If psychology can explain evil and the darkness of the human heart what it does not offer is a way for human beings to resist the temptation of evil, nor does it offer a vision of what it is to live a good life or any objective standards of goodness against which our institutions may be judged. Perhaps the contribution of world religions should not be dismissed lightly.” (p.179)

James Wood, is a popular and highly regarded literary critic. Raised in a devout Christian family, he contends that the problem of evil is for many people the real affront to belief in God.

“This was the hot crux that obsessed and tormented me when I was a child, and that broke open my religious adherence. People do evil things to each other and cause each other pain, equally, we live in a world of natural uncontrollable pain and suffering – earthquakes, cancer, mental and physical handicap. The existence of this pain is an obstacle to belief because it seems either to limit God’s power or to qualify his goodness.” (James Wood, The Broken Estate, p.260)

Charles Darwin did not oppose the existence of God, but did question many of the beliefs that were current in Christian circles in the nineteenth century about creation. The theory of evolution, and its central tenets of natural selection through random mutation and adaptation, the ‘survival of the fittest’, has reinforced an understanding of the world as containing much suffering and pain over hundreds of millions of years. Some philosophers ask how such suffering and waste in the universe can be compatible with the existence of a loving, good and powerful Creator?

Despite new scientific knowledge, this question has been around a long time. It is at least as old as Job. Central to the answer of God to Job’s complaints is the great superiority of God to human beings.

“Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?

Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?

Tell me, if you understand.” (Job 38:2-4)

Stephen Evans notes that “the difference between the ‘vision and wisdom’ of God and that of humans is ‘roughly as an adult human’s is to a one-month-old infant.’ It is obvious that such an infant is unlikely to discern most of the purposes of the child’s mother. In the same way, it is unlikely that a human being could discern the purposes of an omniscient being.” (Faith Beyond Reason, p.133)

Because we cannot discern any purpose in the suffering of the universe as it evolves and life develops, does not mean that there isn’t any. We are presumptuous to claim that we can see anything from God’s point of view unless he reveals it to us. We don’t know enough about God and creation to be able to tell what the place of suffering is in the scheme of things. We can presume that if we were God, we would have created another kind of world in which there were less or no suffering. But who are we to claim that we know better? We do not know enough to pass any judgments, our knowledge is too limited. What do we really know about universe-making? God questions Job’s credentials to question him. The limits of our reason sharply limit our ability. We do not know why God allows evil and suffering in the world. That does not mean that God does not have a good reason. It only means that we don’t know, and that bothers us. We feel that we have the right to know, and that God needs to justify himself to us.

God puts Job straight about his hubris,

“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?

Let him who accuses God answer him.”

Then Job answered the LORD:

‘I am unworthy – how can I reply to you?

I put my hand over my mouth.

I spoke once, but I have no answer – twice, but I will say no more.’

Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm.

‘Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you will answer me.

Would you discredit my justice?

Would you condemn me to justify yourself?’” (Job 40:1-8)

This answer to the problem of suffering, is not the whole answer. The frequency of evil and suffering in the world is still a problem for those who believe in God. Even if we do not know the reasons why God allows evil and suffering, Christian believers have come to know that God is good and loving in Christ, and we trust in him. We can give God the benefit of the doubt. If we have experienced the love and goodness of God, through a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, we trust that God is working out his purposes for good in life. We can do this because we believe that God has revealed himself to us through a story of suffering.

Jesus has come amongst us, not just as a prophet, but the Word made flesh, God incarnate. He comes to live as one of us, to share our suffering, to take upon himself the suffering of the world, to die a cruel death, and to rise again from the dead to give purpose to life. God, who created the universe, who develops life through much suffering and seeming waste, himself suffered with us and for us.

“Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps. ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’ When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:21-24)

Jesus provides us with assurances of God’s love and compassion. It is the assurance of the God who cares enough about his world to share in the suffering of his fallen and limited creatures. It is also a demonstration of how God can bring good out of evil and provide victory over both moral evil and death. Emily Dickinson suggests her resolution of this problem:

I shall know why, when time is over,

And I have ceased to wonder why,

Christ will explain each separate anguish

In the fair school-room of the sky.

 

He will tell me what Peter promised,

And I, for wonder at his woe,

I shall forget the drop of anguish

That scalds me now, that scalds me now.

In eternity the questions will not trouble us as they used to. Each sorrow and every painful instance will be explained and understood within the great scheme of things. When we see the sufferings of Christ our sufferings will be forgotten in comparison. This may give us comfort in the here and now.

A Prayer;

“Father God, I have struggled so with this anguish, and I am weary and heart-sick. I do not understand why you permit this suffering, or how it can enrich either the world or me. So now I cry to you as Jesus cried to you: Father, if it may be so, take this terrible burden from me…

But Father, taught by him, more than anything I want to hold on to you, and be held by you, even through this. So as I struggle I ask above all that you be with me:

–           holding me steady against the tides of anger and despair;

–           giving me courage to bear with fortitude;

–           strengthening my faith in your ultimate victory over all that has power to hurt us, disease and death, bereavement and loss, penury and betrayal, the unkindness of our fellows, and the vast impersonal forces of societies and nations.

And Father, do not let me be so trapped in my own pain that I cannot look outward to those around me, in compassion or thanksgiving. I pray for others who at this moment groan, or grieve, and ask that the comfort for which I ask may be theirs also.

And I thank you for all those who, by words or deeds of goodness and kindness, have come alongside me and shared my load. Be with them, and let my thanksgiving for them be taken up into your blessing of them. And keep us all safe from that which would destroy the soul. Amen.”

(Ruth Etchells, Just As I Am, p.158)

(Excerpted from Ted Schroder, SURVIVING HURRICANES, pp.8-17)