Faith and the Problem of Pain From the Christian Perspective

Suffering

Tim Murphy

Theology

MA2000D

The existence of human suffering poses a unique theological problem. If God is omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving, then why does suffering exist? Indeed, this difficulty is confronted in scripture itself: perhaps the most important look into the problem of suffering comes in the Old Testament story of Job. Mainstream Christianity continues to have a variety of ways of approaching this theological question, although historically Christians had a much broader spectrum of responses. For example, today's mainstream Christianity is a result of the establishment of orthodoxy in the face of Gnostic Christians, who used the existence of suffering as a way of questioning whether God was indeed omnipotent or all-loving. Gnosticism instead posits a "demiurge" or "alien god" that created this world and its suffering without being omnipotent or good. But the oldest mainstream form of Christian orthodoxy today -- represented by the Roman Catholic faith -- came into existence as a response to these early challenges to basic theology. It is worth acknowledging one particular vocabulary word in addressing this topic: the word is "theodicy." A theodicy is a defense of God's goodness in considering the problem of human suffering, and the term "theodicy" itself dates from the Enlightenment when the idea that an all-loving being could be responsible for so much pain and wickedness came to seem something other than rational. The rationalist character of post-Enlightenment thought, which continues to this day, has necessitated a renewed approach to the most basic issue of theodicy, which is whether God can be apprehended by human understanding. As I shall argue, the theological problem of suffering -- of the extreme sort that is seen scripturally in the Book of Job -- has been fully dealt with not only by the Vatican but also by more mainstream theologians.

I describe the problem of suffering as it is outlined in the Old Testament's Book of Job as being "extreme" because it encapsulates the nature of the theological problem of suffering. Job is presented in scripture as having led a blameless and pious life. If it were the case that God merely rewards good persons for doing good things, then the Book of Job makes no sense whatsoever. But of course, the form of early Christianity which eventually became condemned as the Gnostic heresy can find a fair amount of scriptural support in the opening chapter of Job, which presents the suffering of Job as being part of a wager between God and Satan. Heretical sects like the Gnostics or Manichees simply separated off the evil in the world from part of God's actual creation, and saw it as part of a lesser divine power, usually the devil. The Book of Job, however, does not indicate that the devil causes Job's suffering -- indeed it is explicitly stated that God Himself sends the afflictions to test Job. God is proved correct against Satan that Job will not abandon his faith even under such a severe test. But for those concerned with the application of reason to theology, God's answer to Job does pose a problem:

Then the Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind, and said:

Who is this that wrappeth up sentences in unskillful words?

Gird up thy loins like a man: I will ask thee, and answer thou.

Where wast thou when I laid up the foundations of the earth? Tell me if thou hast understanding.

Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Upon what are its bases grounded? Or who laid the corner-stone thereof,

When the morning stars praised me together, and all the sons of God made a joyful melody? [footnoteRef:1] [1: Job 38:1-7 (ESV Study Bible).]

The problem here is that God does not offer Job a rational answer: instead God attacks Job's right to ask such questions altogether. Regarding philosophical logic, this is known as the "argumentum ad hominem" in which the opposing speaker's arguments are ignored for a personal attack on the speaker's motives or identity in making the case in the first place. As a result, we may wonder if scripture even endorses the possibility of using reason and logic to approach the question of suffering at all.

Pope John Paul II addresses this issue directly in his 1984 apostolic letter dealing with human suffering, Salvifici Doloris, where the Latin means "redemptive suffering" and refers to the suffering of Christ on the cross. Salvifici Doloris must acknowledge the canonical example of Job as a way of addressing God's purpose in permitting human suffering:

While it is true that suffering has a meaning as punishment when connected with a fault, it is not true that all suffering is a consequence of a fault and has the nature of a punishment. The figure of the just man Job is a special proof of this in the Old Testament.[footnoteRef:2] [2: John Paul II, Salvifici Doloris, Apostolic Letter on the Christian meaning of human suffering, 11. Vatican website. http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/apost_letters/1984/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris.html]

John Paul II distinguishes here from the kind of suffering that is intended as a punishment and the kind that may afflict those who are otherwise righteous and virtuous as Job was. The difficulty then becomes in distinguishing between the two, which is done by assuming God is all-righteous and that it is human beings who must be examined instead, to determine if they are wicked and deserved the suffering, or good and did not. Then God's purpose -- which is either punishment or not -- can be discerned. For example, we do not need to consider that John Paul II was wicked to realize that the last years of his Papacy were affected by his tremendous suffering from Parkinson's Disease. Instead, we might see John Paul II's personal suffering as being in some way intended by God for a greater educational purpose: John Paul II's successors as Pope have, unprecedentedly, respectively abdicated office (Benedict XVI) and announced the intention to abdicate office rather than die in it (Francis). But clearly they did not see in John Paul II's medical condition a proof of God's punishment. Otherwise, John Paul II would not have been canonized so rapidly after his death.

If John Paul II provides us with an example of how we can understand the good that might come from suffering, however, we must ask what it does for those of us who are not Popes or Saints. Here, the discussion by Timothy Keller in Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering is most helpful. Keller observes the Christian approach to suffering by contrasting it with those of other belief-systems:

Christianity teaches that contra fatalism, suffering is overwhelming; contra Buddhism, suffering is real; contra karma, suffering is often unfair; but contra secularism, suffering is meaningful. There is a purpose to it, and if faced rightly, it can drive us as a nail deep into the love of God and into more stability and spiritual power than you can imagine.[footnoteRef:3] [3: Timothy Keller, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering. (New York: Riverhead Books, 2015), 30.]

We can see here that the most important thing is to understand that suffering has a meaning behind it, even if that meaning is ultimately known only unto God -- that is why Keller acknowledges that it is, as with Job or John Paul II, often unfair. For Keller, however, the purpose of suffering is to strengthen faith -- in his words, to "drive us like a nail deep into the love of God."

Thus, the dynamic of suffering as understood in these texts appears to be that human beings -- who are already minuscule in power and understanding compared to the majesty of God -- really have no purpose except to worship God. When suffering seems like a punishment, then humans should acknowledge God's justice. When suffering seems unfair, then humans should acknowledge God's omnipotence. In either case, when reason fails to provide meaning for the suffering, then renewing faith becomes the meaning.

The question remains, however, what role does suffering play in God's plan for us? That question is answered to some extent by the Christian novelist Flannery O'Connor, whose unorthodox stories set in the regional South in the 20th century depict characters who are filled with pride and self-love, to such an extent that God cannot get through to them. It takes some sort of violent action, ordained by God, for His love and grace to finally find a way to penetrate their wall of self-love. For instance, in the story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," the character of the Grandmother is constantly asserting her own will on all the members of the family. Instead of following the Christian example to lay down one's life for others (that is, to put others first rather than your own self), the Grandmother insists that everyone do what she wants: "The Grandmother did not want to go to Florida," is how the story begins -- and it ends with the family being murdered by an escaped band of convicts.[footnoteRef:4] O'Connor's moral is that the Grandmother would not have been saved by grace in any other way. The Misfit who kills her senses as much when he says, "She would've been a good woman if it had been someone to hold a gun to her whole life." In order for her to become selfless, God sends the Misfit to her. Only when faced with the prospect of death and the vision of another person's real suffering and torment, does she finally respond appropriately to the will of God (which is to reach out to others and love one's neighbor). In the story, she reaches out to the Misfit, as though he is one of her own children: in this way she takes responsibility for him, just as the Good Samaritan takes responsibility for the man assaulted by robbers and left for dead on the side of the road. It is her moment of grace. [4: Flannery O'Connor, "A Good Man is Hard to Find." xRoads.Virginia.edu. Web. 4 Dec 2015.]

In O'Connor's stories, everyone has a "moment of grace" -- a decisive moment when God's light shines through the grime of the human soul and the individual person has the ability to respond to it and convert or reject it and be damned. The suffering aspect of the moment is what allows the moment to actually happen: it is what allows the soul to open up and see that it cannot satisfy the hunger or the hole in itself that demands more -- that it needs, namely, God.

This perspective of O'Connor, however, only satisfies one aspect of suffering -- the suffering of the sinner. Yet, Job is a righteous man and he still suffers. Why is this? As John Paul II observes in Salvifici Dolores, God allows him to be tested to show to Satan that he will remain faithful and true in spite of all obstacles, and Job does exactly this. Is it fair to say, then, that suffering can simply be a test of our faithfulness? -- a trial given us by God in order to see whether we should merit Heaven? After all, God does not simply test Job and then leave him: no, God rewards Job for his fidelity with more fullness and happiness on earth than he had ever known before. The question may find extension in the question of why did God test Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise by forbidding them to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge? The answer is bound up in the mystery of free will, God's love, God's law, and the Redemption. In short, there is no clear, simple satisfying answer -- only a sense of the grandness of they mystery and depth and richness of the story, which begins with Creation and extends all the way down to us. It is not just a story that we read about, but a story that we are part of. We continue the story and in some way add to it or take away from it, depending upon how willing we are to enter into the mystery of suffering, grace, freedom, submission and Redemption. If we look, we see that it is not only we who suffer, but also God (Christ, after all, dies on the cross). In fact, Job is a prefiguring of Christ, and shows how, indeed, the most Righteous of all, will suffer in the supreme act of love for mankind -- He will pay man's debt to God in order to allow man to have the opportunity to enjoy the beatific vision.

From the perspective of the pre-Christian philosophers, such as Plato, it can be said that pain leads one to sanctity or holiness, by allowing the individual to unite with his own soul to contemplate the higher transcendental virtues -- the universal principles of the world that God has given it that it might draw nearer to Him. This is the essence of Plato's Allegory of the Cave, in which the inhabitants of the earth are like prisoners in a cave; they see only shadows on a wall, produced by the sunlight outside. They think the shadows are reality -- they do not know they are in a cave. One looks behind and sees that light is coming from outside. He breaks his chains and moves toward the light for the first time. The light is so bright, it hurts his eyes, but he does not turn back -- because in the cave is darknes and ignorance. In spite of the pain, he continues on, out and into the day, then climbing a mountain toward the sun so he can get closer to it. The higher he gets, the more of the world he sees and the more he understands. The climbing is hard work, but he must do it in order to overcome his ignorance. Climbing the mountain towards the sun (a symbol for God, the source of all truth) gives him sanctity, or holiness, and puts him in a position to teach others.[footnoteRef:5] It is essentially as C. S. Lewis states, "From the moment a creature becomes aware of God as God and of itself as self, the terrible alternative of choosing God or self for the center is opened to it" (Lewis 70). This is the either-or that is put to Job. Job, of course, chooses God and rejects the love of self that Satan is sure will win the day. The question of why would God do this to Job stems from the individual self-love that Job resists. It is not Job who questions God's motives, but rather his friends, who view Job's sufferings as an indication that he must have displeased God in some manner. [5: Plato, The Allegory of the Cave. MIT. Web. 4 Dec 2015.]

To settle the matter, God answers their questions with a question, "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations ... and all the angels shouted for joy?" (Job 38:4-7). Implied in the question is the suggestion that humans are God's creation, not vice versa, and that God is not answerable to His creation, but (because God gave men free will to love or reject their Creator) man is answerable to God. Implicit in it is the notion that God is eternal and has always existed while man is finite; God sees all and understands all; man is puny in comparisable and understands very little. Thus, God points out the audacity of man to question Him -- and yet God understands the weakness of the human will and mind, as corrupted by Original Sin, and even if God leaves the "test" motive as something of a mystery related to they mystery of iniquity, God does not leave man without Hope -- or without the example of perservering through suffering that He Himself will give through the 2nd Person of the Holy Trinity, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Filmmaker Terrence Malick, in fact, quotes Job 38:4-7 at the beginning of his 2012 film The Tree of Life. The film centers on an American family in the 20th century -- a mother, father and three sons. At the beginning of the film, the mother prays to God and vows that she "will be true" to Him, i.e., always be faithful. A Job-like test comes her way when she receives a telegram announcing that her son is dead. It is a moment of great grief and trial. She asks God, "Who are we to you?" It is a very human question, spoken out of the misery of having lost a child. The filmmaker wants to explore this question because he feels it is a fair one, so he takes the audience on a journey through time, going back to when God "laid the foundations of the earth" -- we see the creation of the universe, the stars, the galaxies, the earth, the waters, the animals, all of life as it grows -- and then we land in the 1950s, back with the family at the center of the film. We see how suffering is united to the act of creation. Indeed, as the world is being created, a choir sings, "Lacrimosa!" which is Latin for tears. Tied to this image, is the theological sense that God Himself will sacrice Himself (His Son) on the cross -- and God must have known this when he created the world and man in it -- and yet He did it nonetheless. Thus, it is true what the filmmaker shows in this scene: creation is a glorious and beautiful thing -- but tears are united to it, and sorrow and pain. The film grows around this sense, showing how the children at young ages come to have a sense of God and their relation to God through their various trials. The mother comes to understand that her son, who dies, is not hers to keep, but rather God's -- and like Mary, the Mother of God, she is willing to give her son back to God at the end of the film, making for a triumphant, truly joyous ending. Indeed, the film closes with a depiction of the final resurrection of the dead, showing that God is true to His promise and that while we may suffer for a time, if we are faithful, He will give us eternal life.