On
Human Suffering and the Existence of God
By Benjamin White, 11th grade
Throughout history, many philosophers have reflected on the existence of suffering and its implications. Some have said that the existence of evil and suffering disprove the existence of God, while others disagree. I believe that suffering is compatible with God’s existence, and that sometimes suffering leads to greater good, and I will attempt to prove that in this article.
The atheists’ argument is this: “A perfect designer would create a perfect design. This world is obviously not perfect (suffering exists); therefore, it does not have a perfect designer.” There are several ways of countering this, some of which are beyond the scope of this article. However, I will be discussing the Fall of our first parents and an explanation of suffering formulated by St. Irenaeus.
One way of explaining human pain and
suffering is as a consequence of the first sin of Adam and Eve.[1] However,
I must make it clear that suffering and pain are not always punishments. The
book of Job illustrates this; Job was afflicted with much suffering, yet he was
an upright and just man. Rather, Adam
and Eve’s sin affected their relationship with God, and suffering is the
natural consequence of disunion from Him.
The Handbook of Christian
Apologetics says,”…if the soul becomes alienated from God by sin, the body
will become alienated, too, and experience pain and death as sin’s inevitable
consequences.”[2]
This is because we humans are both body and soul, “psycho-somatic”
unities. We inherited from Adam and Eve
the tendency to sin and give in to temptation, and thus, share in the
results. (While some might state that
God shouldn’t have allowed our parents to sin, free will is necessary for the
greater good. This is part of
God could also use suffering for the betterment of the sufferer. For instance, dealing with emotional pain may be difficult, but after you recover, you are more mature and less likely to succumb to future problems. This is part of the “soul-making” or “soul-building” theodicy that St. Irenaeus formulated. He said that humans become more complete with suffering. “When temptation is resisted it is infinitely more valuable a lesson learnt than if it had been an inherent part of the being.”[4] Pain helps us overcome our selfishness and increase our virtues, such as wisdom or piety. Some philosophers argue that a handful of virtues, such as fortitude or longsuffering, are superfluous and wouldn’t need to exist without suffering. While this is a good point, those virtues in themselves strengthen the most important virtue, charity (or love). It is much easier to love God and your fellow humans with those “superfluous” virtues’ aid than without it.
In conclusion, it appears that
suffering is not incompatible with God. It is shown that God can use it in many
ways for the greater good. The debate is
not over, however. Extreme examples (such as the recent Southeast Asian
tsunamis) and the suffering of seemingly innocent people are hard to ignore. Nevertheless,
some benefit can come out of these; common people helped out the tsunami
victims in any way they could, and countries that were formerly at odds with
each other joined together to supply aid. While suffering can be hard to bear,
we can take hope in the fact that God can turn suffering to good.
Bibliography
Kreeft,
Peter, and Tacelli, Ronald K. Handbook of
Christian Apologetics.
Lewis,
C.S. The Problem of Pain.
http://www.angelfire.com/mn2/tisthammerw/rlgnphil/poe.html
http://www.religiousstudies.co.uk/tripod/iretheo.htm