How Do We Make Sense of Suffering and Evil? Essay Example

When do the problems of society become the concern of the individual?  What, precisely, creates a moral imperative for individuals to engage in protest about causes that do not directly affect them?  In the United States, there is currently a debate over whether or not the military should increase its presence in Iraq, with the ostensible goal of increasing order, or start decreasing its presence and leave the Iraqis to determine their own security.  For many individuals, the course that the government has chosen thus far has been so offensive, that they are actively protesting the war, and the government’s actions.  For many others, the debate is still going on in their minds as to whether or not it would be right to protest; for still others, the war question has not reached sufficient priority to spur them to social action. This is a debate that is as old, and as modern, as society itself.We are living in a world that is propounding marred by suffering and evil. Some of it seems just to happen; people get ill, they suffer, they die. Our anguish is but small teardrop that reflects the reality of the daily rounds and suffering and evil that go on within our world. A sense of worthless to bring everything back the way they used to, and the issues are something far more profound: How do we make sense of suffering and evil?

But then again, much of the evil and suffering that goes on is not natural; it does not have to happen. It exists only because human beings choose that it should exist. Bad things happen to good people because people behave badly. Much of the evil and suffering of the world is of a moral nature and human beings are only responsible for its existence. Such suffering, according to James Earl Gilman (93), is unmerited suffering.

Gilman (93) further suggests that unmerited suffering refuses to be explained simply as punishment that is somehow deserved or as the just retribution for sin. Such suffering is deliberately inflicted on one human being by another. When a company deliberately withholds information from its employees that the substances they are working with are carcinogenic, these people experience unmerited suffering. When a woman is raped as she returns from a shopping trip with her children, she experiences unmerited suffering. When a terrorist explodes a bomb in the midst of a group of innocent strangers, the terrorists are initiating unmerited suffering. When a stranger abused a child, his suffering is unmerited, radical, and evil.

Our immediate response to such suffering is to ask: Why would an all-loving, all-powerful God allow this to happen? Why is everyone sufferingin this world?Why does evil exist? When we start to ask such questions, we are beginning to engage in the intellectual enterprise of theodicy.

If we were to offer the mother of the torture victim a well thought-through theodicy that explained clearly the significance of human sin, the fall of humans, and the significance of human free-will as the reasons for her experience, what good would it be? Even if she does ask why God allowed this to happen, would the answer really help her? Would it draw her closer to God, her only source of hope, or would it push her even further away?

Again, if we offered the idea that suffering is sent into the world to test us or to make us better people to the people of Sudan, who are trapped in the midst of a famine, torture, rape, and genocide, what good would this idea do? Would it draw them closer to God or take them further from God? Indeed, what is the sense of it?

To tell a mother whose baby is dying of starvation that it is really for the good and that she will learn valuable lessons through the experience is to develop a theodicy that may be theoretically interesting, but that in practice is evil. What kind of God are we left with if we manage, through clever intellectual moves, to fit such obscene forms of cruelty and evil into a framework that somehow justifies it and draws it within the boundaries of the love and righteousness of God? When we try, we blame either the victim, for making bad choices (either her choices or the choices of others: free will), or God and in so doing reduce both God’s love and God’s power. Normally, the former, blaming the victim, is the most secured and handy option.

In the light of these initials, intuitive reflections, one can note fundamental ideas: the traditional enterprise of theodicy is meaningless, and practicing traditional theodicy does not bring healing and a deeper love for God but is, in fact, a potential source of evil in and of itself. Given these ideas, then what might be faithful alternative to traditional theodicy, and how can one resist this mode of evil and find a form of deliverance that will enable him/her to develop practices that will lead to resistance and redemption?

Christianity takes great interest in using suffering and evil and it is here that one finds a clear statement as to pain and suffering as those notions which are subsumable under broader generic notion of evil. First, as Debashis Guha (229) points out, in the New Testament theology we have clear referential use of suffering in relation to referents like “punishment, agony, misery and death, i.e. to be precise, bodily conditions essentially against a man”. Such suffering (corporal) refers tophysical pains as well, which have definite physical causes and may be due to human follies, demonic activities and will to restore natural balance. Suffering in relation to its referent, Guha (229) continued, the “Jesus as servant” conveys the sense that physical suffering (in the above sense) is only an appearance for a pious or a symbol but not unreal. To clarify further, Guha (229) notes that suffering used in relation to a symbol (crucified Jesus) carries the sense that “leading a good life is essentially valuable because after bodily suffering awaits the prize for the pious”. Hence, Guha points out, “suffering” used in relation to its referent “God” may “suffer” for us, wherein the sense is one of “distress” and not “pain” (229).

But in the context, suffering with God does not mean frustration because God’s nature is never frustrated for his voluntary paradoxical limitation; this is rather strength of God. Further, suffering used in relation with its referent God in Christian theology means “God, a Divine Being, is vicarious or redemptive or embodiment of Love” (Goha 230). There is however a basic controversy, Goha (230) stressed, regarding the proper use of suffering with God as its referent because such  use reduced God as a Divine Being to one “bound in time” whereas God has been conceived as transcendence and timelessness.

Thus use of suffering concerning God has a chronological reference, which is not a proper use in so far the meaning conveyed to us may be quite contrary to Christian theology. But many people do not agree. Goha (230) thinks that they view thatsuch a use is perfectly sensible and goes along with Christian theology which advocates God as both “sympathizer” and “empathizer”. When suffering in relation to God conveys the sense that the Being is one who does not participate in human miseries and His inner nature is undisturbed, suffering is used with God, the sympathizer. While, Goha (230) points out, suffering used with God as “empathizer” conveys the sense that “His inner harmony is disturbed, and He participates in human misery”.

The use of suffering with God as sympathizer carries with the sense of “suffering as something intrinsically evil and, therefore, God cannot participate in evil” (Goha 230). This takes to much deeper level of meaning of suffering in relation to God in Christianity. In one sense suffering has been used in a general sense that is, something affected by evil, whereas suffering in a redemptive sense is something occasioned by evil (Goha 231). In the first sense what Goha (231) gets is that suffering is a “penalty” whilesecondly, it is a “force to overcome all evils”. The referential use of suffering takes a few interesting turns in the Christian context. If one follows the use of suffering with empathizer God, one has to accept that at times suffering may not carry with the sense that it is a sub species of evil or that evil subsumes suffering because it is we who suffer give suffering that name. Hence, Goha (231) concludes, suffering without being marked as anevil may carry with it the sense that it is some state having great instrumental value in either becoming a party to be God’s empathy or given the right attitude we may attain the Godhead.

Developing a rational conclusion that actually manage to justify evil and suffering as a coherent dimension of a God of love may satisfy the rationalist, but it is more likely to inspire hopeless resignation in the sufferer. If God somehow desires or allows evil for a higher purpose, then surely our response should be to do the same. Is not healing suffering, therefore, in principle, an act of unfaithfulness? If good is impossible without evil, then surely we should not battle against evil but should actively encourage it in order that more good might enter the world. If the Holocaust was a good thing because it provided opportunities to be caring, then why would we contemplate social and political actions that might prevent similar occurrences? Why not just let the evil of the world increase in order that God’s goodness can become clearer? Indeed, to do so would be to admit to a lack of trust in the goodness of God. Viewing theodicy in the light of such questions and conclusions, we find it to be at best pastorally lacking and at worst, when taken to its logical conclusion, a rather odd and dangerous enterprise. As long as there are “laws” that enough people will find unjust, this argument will persist.

Works Cited

Gilman, James Earl. Faith, Reason, and Compassion: A Philosophy of the Christian Faith. Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. Print.

Guha, Debashis. An Inquiry into the cases of pain and suffering. Concept Publishing Company, 2007. Print.