The
Problem of Pain
Why
do bad things happen to good people? This
is the question which Rabbi
Harold
Kushner, in his highly-acclaimed 1981 book [Kushner 1981] called "the
only
question
which really matters" to his congregation.
It is a question which
has
been asked by philosophers and ordinary human beings throughout the ages;
if
not the most-asked question, certainly the most passionately-asked. It was
certainly
the first question that occurred to me in 1987 when I was told that
my
beloved wife, 34 years old and the mother of our two small children, had
cancer
of the nose and sinuses, and in 1990 when we discovered that the
cancer
had recurred, and that the surgeries and many months of chemotherapy
and
radiation treatments she had endured had only prolonged her life a little.
I
think most people who claim not to believe in God, say this not because of
any
shortage of evidence for design in Nature, but because it is sometimes
so
hard to see evidence that God cares about us, and they prefer not to
believe
in God at all, than to believe in a God who doesn't care.
Christians
point to the life and death of Jesus as ultimate proof that--despite
any
evidence to the contrary--God does care about us, because He came to
Earth
to suffer with us. That God sent
His "son" to die for us is the
best
evidence we have that "God so loved the world", and we want so
much
to believe this, that John 3:16 is everyone's favorite Bible verse.
And
while it is certainly reassuring to know that God does care enough
to
share in our suffering, that still does not explain why the world God
created
is sometimes so cruel.
A
wonderful little article in UpReach [Nov-Dec 1984] by Batsell Barrett
Baxter,
entitled "Is God Really Good?", contains some insights into the
"problem
of pain", as C.S. Lewis calls it [Lewis 1962], which I have found very
useful.
I will follow Baxter's outline in presenting my own thoughts on this
question,
and I would like to begin with his conclusion: "As I have faced the
tragedy
of evil in our world and have tried to analyze its origin, I have come
to
the conclusion that it was an inevitable accompaniment of our greatest
blessings
and
benefits." In his outline, Baxter lists some examples of blessings which
have,
as inevitable consequences, unhappy side effects.
None of these
points
is likely to make suffering in its severest forms any easier to accept,
and
we may be left wondering whether these blessings are worth the high cost.
But
I believe they do point us in the right direction, and at least explain why
our
world is not perfect.
The
Regularity of Natural Law
The
laws of Nature which God has made work together to create a magnificent
world,
of oceans and forests, mountains and rivers, planets and stars, animals
and
plants. The basic laws of physics
are cleverly designed to create
conditions
on Earth suitable for human life and human development.
Gravity
prevents
us and our belongings from floating off into space; water makes our
crops
grow; the fact that certain materials are combustible makes it possible
to
cook our food and stay warm in winter. Yet
gravity, water and fire are
responsible
for many tragedies, such as airplane crashes, drownings and
chemical
plant explosions. Tragedies such
as floods and automobile accidents
are
the results of laws of physics which, viewed as a whole, are magnificently
designed
and normally work for our benefit. Nearly
everything in Nature
which
is harmful to man has also a benevolent side, or is the result of a
good
thing gone bad. Even pain and
fear themselves have useful purposes:
pain
warns us that something in our body needs attention, and without fear,
we
would all die young doing foolish and dangerous things.
But
why won't God protect us from the bad side effects of Nature?
Why doesn't
He
overrule the laws of Nature when they work against us?
Why is He so
"silent"
during our most difficult and heart-breaking moments?
First of all,
if
we assume He has complete control over Nature, we are assuming much more
than
we have a right to assume. It
does not necessarily follow that, because
something
is designed, it can never break down. We
design computers, and
yet
they don't always function as designed. When
a computer breaks down, we
don't
conclude that the designer planned for it to break down, nor do we
conclude
that it had no designer; when the
human body breaks down, we should
not
jump to the conclusion that God planned the illness, nor should we conclude
that
the body had no designer.
That
we were designed by a fantastically intelligent superintellect is a
conclusion
which is easily drawn from the evidence all around us.
To jump
from
this to the conclusion that this creator can control everything
is
quite quite a leap. And even if
we assume He has complete control over
Nature
it is hard to see how He could satisfy everyone.
Your crops are dry
so
you pray for rain--but I am planning a picnic.
It seems more fair to let
Nature
take its course and hope we learn to adapt.
In
any case, what would life be like if the laws of Nature were not reliable?
What
if God could and did stand by to intervene on our behalf every time we
needed
Him? We would then be spared all
of life's disappointments and failures,
and
life would certainly be less dangerous, but let us think about what life
would
be like in a world where nothing could ever go wrong.
I
enjoy climbing mountains--small ones. I
recently climbed an 8,000 foot peak
in
the Guadalupe Mountains National Park and was hot and exhausted, but elated
when
I finished the climb. Later I
heard a rumor that the Park Service was
considering
building a cable car line to the top, and I was horrified.
Why was
I
horrified?--that would make it much easier for me to reach the top.
Because,
of
course, the pleasure I derived from climbing that peak did not come simply
from
reaching the top--it came from knowing that I had faced a challenge and
overcome
it. Since riding in a cable car
requires no effort, it is impossible
to
fail to reach the top, and thus taking a cable car to the peak brings no
sense
of accomplishment. Even if I went
up the hard way again, just knowing
that
I could have ridden the cable car would cheapen my accomplishment.
When
we think about it, we see in other situations that achieving a goal brings
satisfaction
only if effort is required, and only if the danger of failure is
real.
And if the danger of failure is real, sometimes we will fail.
When
we prepare for an athletic contest, we know what the rules are and we
plan
our strategy accordingly. We work
hard, physically and mentally, to get
ready
for the game. If we win, we are happy knowing that we played fairly,
followed
the rules, and achieved our goal. Of
course we may lose, but what
satisfaction
would we derive from winning a game whose rules are constantly
being
modified to make sure we win? It
is impossible to experience the thrill
of
victory without risking the agony of defeat.
How many fans would attend a
football
game whose participants are just actors, acting out a script which
calls
for the home team to win? We
would all rather go to a real game and risk
defeat.
Life
is a real game, not a rigged one. We
know what the rules are, and we plan
accordingly.
We know that the laws of Nature and of life do not bend at our
every
wish, and it is precisely this knowledge which makes our achievements
meaningful.
If the rules of Nature were constantly modified to make sure we
achieved
our goals--whether they involve proving Fermat's Last Theorem,
getting
a book published, finding a cure for Alzheimer's disease, earning
a
college degree, or making a small business work--we would derive no
satisfaction
from reaching those goals. If the rules were even occasionally
bent,
we would soon realize that the game was rigged, and just knowing that
the
rules were flexible would cheapen all our accomplishments.
Perhaps I
should
say, "if we were aware that the rules were being bent", because I do
believe
that God has at times intervened in human and natural history, and I
believe
He still does so on occasions, but we are at least left with the
strong
impression that the rules are inflexible.
If
great works of art, music, literature, or science could be realized without
great
effort, and if success in such endeavors were guaranteed, the works of
Michelangelo,
Mozart, Shakespeare and Newton would not earn much admiration.
If
it were possible to realize great engineering projects without careful
study,
clever planning and hard work, or without running any risk of failure,
mankind
would feel no satisfaction in having built the Panama Canal or
having
sent a man to the moon. And if
the dangers Columbus faced in sailing
into
uncharted waters were not real, we would not honor him as a brave explorer.
Scientific
and technological progress are only made through great effort and
careful
study, and not every scientist or inventor is fortunate enough to leave
his
mark, but anyone who thinks God would be doing us a favor by dropping a
book
from the sky with all the answers in it does not understand human nature
very
well--that would take all the fun out of discovery. If the laws of Nature
were
more easily circumvented, life would certainly be less frustrating and
less
dangerous, but also less challenging and less interesting.
Many
of the tragedies, failures and disappointments which afflict mankind are
inevitable
consequences of laws of Nature and of life which, viewed as a whole,
are
magnificently designed and normally work for our benefit.
And it is
because
we know these laws are reliable, and do not bend to satisfy our needs,
that
our greatest achievements have meaning.
I
believe, however, that the unhappiness in this world attributable to
"acts
of
God" (more properly called "acts of Nature") is small compared
to the
unhappiness
which we inflict on each other. Reform
the human spirit and you
have
solved the problems of drug addiction, drunk driving, war, broken
marriages,
child abuse, neglect of the elderly, crime, corruption and racial
hatred.
I suspect that many (not all, of course) of the problems which we
generally
blame on circumstances beyond our control are really caused by, or
aggravated
by, man--or at least could be prevented if we spent as much time
trying
to solve the world's problems as we spend in hedonistic pursuits.
God
has given us, on this earth, the tools and resources necessary to
construct,
not a paradise, but something not too far from it.
I am convinced
that
the majority of the things which make us most unhappy are the direct or
indirect
result of the sins and errors of people.
Often, unfortunately, it is
not
the guilty person who suffers.
But
sin, too, is the inevitable result of one of our highest blessings--our
free
will. C.S.Lewis, in "Mere
Christianity" [Lewis 1943], says, "Free will,
though
it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any
love
or goodness or joy worth having...Someone once asked me, 'Why did God make
a
creature of such rotten stuff that it went wrong?'
The better stuff a
creature
is made of--the cleverer and stronger and freer it is--then the better
it
will be if it goes right, but also the worse it will be if it goes
wrong."
According
to the Biblical creation story, our troubles began when Adam
("mankind"
in the original Hebrew) ate of the "tree of knowledge of good and
evil."
As long as "mankind" was like the other animals, he did not
know sorrow
or
heartbreak, anger or hatred. He
experienced none of the sorrows resulting
from
sin, but he also was just another animal.
When he ate of the fruit of the
tree
of knowledge of good and evil, he became, as the serpent predicted, "like
God,
knowing good and evil". His
actions were no longer entirely controlled by
God
or Nature; he was now a creature with his own free will.
This is when he
had
to leave "paradise"--this is when sin originated. Once we could see the
difference
between good and evil and were free to choose, we became capable of
the
most horrible deeds, and mankind has suffered terribly ever since.
At the
same
time, however, we became capable of the most wonderful actions and
emotions--of
love, of sharing and of courage in the face of evil and pain.
Why
do a husband and wife decide to have a child?
A toy doll requires much
less
work, and does not throw a temper tantrum every time you make him take a
bath
or go to bed. A stuffed animal
would be much less likely to mark on the
walls
with a crayon, or gripe about a meal which took hours to prepare. But
most
parents feel that the bad experiences in raising a real child are a price
worth
paying for the rewards--the hand-made valentine he brings home from
school,
and the "I love you" she whispers as she gives her mother and daddy
a
good
night kiss. They recognize that
the same free will which makes a child
more
difficult to take care of than a stuffed animal also makes him more
interesting.
This must be the way our Creator feels about us.
The freedom
which
God has given to us results, as an inevitable consequence, in many
headaches
for Him and for ourselves, but it is precisely this freedom which
makes
us more interesting than the other animals.
God must feel that the
headaches
are a price worth paying: He has not taken back our free will,
despite
all the evil we have done. Why
are there concentration camps in the
world
that God created? How could the
Christian church sponser the
Crusades
and the Inquisition? These
terribly hard questions are easy to
answer:
because God gave us all a free will.
In
his parable of the wheat and tares, I believe Jesus was saying that the weeds
of
sin and sorrow cannot be eliminated from the earth without destroying the
soil
of human freedom from which the wheat of joy and goodness also springs.
It
is impossible to rid the world of the sorrow caused by pride, selfishness and
hatred
without eliminating the free will which is
also the source of all the
unselfishness
and love that there is in the world. Thought
itself is an
expression
of our free will, and to say that God ought to get rid of sin in the
world
is to request that our ability to think be withdrawn.
If we ask God to
take
back the free will which forced us out of paradise, we might as well ask
Him
to turn us into rocks.
If
we base our view of mankind on what we see on the television news, we may
feel
that good and evil are greatly out of balance today; that there is much
more
pain than joy in the world, and much more evil than goodness.
It is true
that
the amount of pain which exists in our world is overwhelming, but so is
the
amount of happiness. And if we
look more closely at the lives of those
around
us, we will see that the soil of human freedom still produces wheat as
well
as weeds. The dark night of Nazi
Germany gave birth to the heroism of
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Corrie ten Boom and many others.
The well-known play
"The
Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds" is about two sisters
raised
by a bitter mother who suffocates ambition and discourages education.
One
sister ends up following the path to destruction taken by her mother; the
other
refuses to be trapped by her environment, and rises above it.
It may
seem
at times that our world is choking on the weeds of pain and evil, but if
we
look closely we will see that wheat is still growing here.
In
fact, Jesus told a related parable to encourage his disciples, who had begun
to
wonder if anyone was listening to their message of love and hope.
In the
parable
of the sower, he reassured them that although the seed of God's word
sometimes
falls on the deaf ears of those who prefer the darkness, and
sometimes
it begins to grow but is choked out by the thorns of trouble and
persecution,
or the "deceitfulness of wealth", the soil of human freedom is a
fertile
ground, where God's word will always produce an abundant crop of
wheat
as well.
Again
we conclude that evil and unhappiness are the inevitable by-products of
one
of our most priceless blessings--our human free will.
The
Interdependence of Human Lives
While
this is closely related to the previous point, Baxter considers it to be
so
important as to merit separate consideration.
Much
of an individual's suffering is the direct or indirect result of the
actions
or misfortunes of others. Much of
our deepest pain is the result of
loneliness
caused by the loss of the love or the life of a loved one, or of the
strain
of a bad relationship. How much suffering could be avoided if only we
were
"islands, apart to ourselves."
Then at least we would suffer only for our
own
actions, and feel only our own misfortunes.
The interdependence of human
life
is certainly the cause of much unhappiness.
Yet
here again, this sorrow is the inevitable result of one of our greatest
blessings.
The pain which comes from separation is in proportion to the joy
which
the relationship provided. Friction
between neighbors is a source of
grief,
but friendship is the source of much joy.
Bad marriages and strained
parent-child
relationships are responsible for much of the unhappiness in the
modern
world, but none of the other joys of life compare to those which can be
experienced
in a happy home. Although real
love is terribly hard to find,
anyone
who has experienced it--as I did for a few short years--will agree that
the
male-female relationship is truly a masterpiece of design, when it works
as
it was intended to work.
As
Baxter writes, "I am convinced that our greatest blessings come from the
love
which we give to others and the love which we receive from others.
Without
this interconnectedness, life would be barren and largely meaningless.
The
avoidance of all contact with other human beings might save us some
suffering,
but it would cost us the greatest joys and pleasures of life."
The
Value of Imperfect Conditions
We
have thus far looked at suffering as a by-product of our blessings and not
a
blessing in itself. And certainly it is difficult to see anything good in
suffering
in its severest forms.
Nevertheless,
we cannot help but notice that some suffering is necessary to
enable
us to experience life in its fullest, and to bring us to a closer
relationship
with God. Often it is through
suffering that we experience the
love
of God, and discover the love of family and friends, in deepest measure.
The
man who has never experienced any setbacks or disappointments invariably
is
a shallow person, while one who has suffered is usually better able to
empathize
with others. Some of the closest
and most beautiful relationships
occur
between people who have suffered similar sorrows.
It
has been argued that most of the great works of literature, art and music
were
the products of suffering. One
whose life has led him to expect continued
comfort
and ease is not likely to make the sacrifices necessary to produce
anything
of great and lasting value.
Of
course, beyond a certain point pain and suffering lose their positive
value.
Even so, the human spirit is amazing for its resilience, and many
people
have found cause to thank God even in seemingly unbearable situations.
While
serving time in a Nazi concentration camp for giving sanctuary to Jews,
Betsie
ten Boom [ten Boom 1971] told her sister, "We must tell people what we
have
learned
here. We must tell them that
there is no pit so deep that God
is
not deeper still. They will
listen to us, Corrie, because we have been
here."
C.S. Lewis concludes his essay on "The Problem of Pain"
[Lewis 1962] by
saying
"Pain provides an opportunity for heroism; the opportunity is seized with
surprising
frequency." We might add
that not only the person who suffers,
but
also those who minister to his needs, are provided with opportunities
for
growth and development.
As
Baxter put it: "The problems, imperfections and challenges which our
world
contains
give us opportunities for growth and development which would otherwise
be
impossible."
In
"Brave New World" [Huxley 1932], Aldous Huxley paints a picture of a
futuristic
Utopian
society which has succeeded, through totalitarian controls on human
behavior
and drugs designed to stimulate pleasant emotions and to repress
undesirable
ones, in banishing all traces of pain and unpleasantness. There
remains
one "savage" who has not adapted to the new civilization, however,
and
his refusal to take his pills results in the following interchange
between
"Savage" and his "civilized" interrogators:
"We prefer to do things comfortably," said the
Controller.
"But I don't want comfort, I want God, I want poetry, I
want real
danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin."
"In fact," said Mustophe Mond, "you're
claiming the right to be
unhappy."
"Allright then," said the Savage defiantly,
"I'm claiming the
right to be unhappy."
If
God designed this world as a "tourist resort" where man could rest
in
comfort
and ease, it is certainly a dismal failure.
But I believe, with
Savage,
that man was created for greater things.
That is why, I believe, this
world
presents us with such an inexhaustible array of puzzles in mathematics,
physics,
astronomy, biology and philosophy to challenge and entertain us,
and
provides us with so many opportunities for creativity and achievement in
music,
literature, art, athletics, business, technology and other pursuits; and
why
there are always new worlds to discover, from the mountains and jungles of
South
America and the flora and fauna of Africa, to the era of dinosaurs and
the
surface of Mars.
Why
does God remain backstage, hidden from view, working behind the scenes
while
we act out our parts in the human drama?
This question
has
lurked just below the surface throughout much of this book, and
now
perhaps we finally have an answer. If
He were to walk out onto
the
stage, and take on a more direct and visible role, I suppose He could clean
up
our act, and rid the world of pain and evil--and doubt.
But our human drama
would
be turned into a divine puppet show, and it would cost us some of our
greatest
blessings: the regularity of natural law which makes our achievements
meaningful;
the free will which makes us more interesting than robots; the love
which
we can receive from and give to others; and even the opportunity to grow
and
develop through suffering. I must
confess that I often wonder if the
blessings
are worth the terrible price, but God has chosen to create a world
where
both good and evil can flourish, rather than one where neither can exist.
He
has chosen to create a world of greatness and infamy, of love and hatred,
and
of joy and pain, rather than one of mindless robots or unfeeling puppets.
Batsell
Barrett Baxter, who was dying of cancer as he wrote these words,
concludes:
"When one sees all of life and understands the reasons behind
life's
suffering, I believe he will agree with the judgment which God Himself
declared
in the Genesis story of creation: 'And God saw everything that He had
made,
and behold it was very good.'"