A quick note of apology to those of you who have tried to access the blog over the past few days. No one has been more frustrated than I. I hope we have resolved the technical issues and that the domain is once again accessible without hassle.
Speaking of the problem of evil, there was a fascinating reply to the existence of suffering and evil provided by Cardinal Pell, of Sydney Australia. Many of you may recall that he debated Richard Dawkins back in April of 2012. I call his answer a “reply” since there is really is no simple answer to the problem of evil or to the problem of suffering.
The essential question of the problem of suffering and evil can be stated as, “If God is good, why does he permit such suffering and evil to take place on the earth?” Indeed, why does God leave so many things unresolved? Why do the wicked succeed? Why is there disease? Why is there suffering at all? The anguished and rhetorical form of the question is “If your God is so good and powerful, why does he let children starve? Why did he let an earthquake devastate the poor and largely innocent people of Haiti? What kind of a God do you worship?”
The implied answer to the angry form of the question is, either God does not care, or he is cruel, or he is not all powerful, or he does not exist at all.
The problem of evil and suffering is probably the most serious challenge to the faith there is. Most other objections to the existence of God seem, at least in the view of this priest, to be more rooted in the fact that the existence of God is not convenient to the moral life or worldview of the “non-believer.” But the problem of evil and suffering is a significant and worthy challenge that ought to be seriously engaged.
That said, there is no simple answer. The Scriptures take up the problem especially in the Book of Job, and the answer is a kind of “non-answer” answer. When Job demands some reason for his intense sufferings, God in effect turns the tables on Job and starts asking him questions. The question are all carefully designed to help Job know that he is utterly incapable of knowing whereof he asks. God’s interrogation of Job leads to his silence and repentance. The Book of Job seems to say to us that if God were to give us an answer to the problem of evil and suffering, all we would hear would be thunder.
St. Thomas Aquinas takes a similar approach in reminding us that, since we see so little of God’s canvas, we are not really equipped to assess the whole painting or how any small part relates to the whole. Any painting is a play of shadow and light, the dark streaks making sense only in relation to the light. But we cannot see the whole and hence the purpose of suffering and its evils lie hid to us.
And thus we have a kind of “non-answer” answer for the true and full answer is beyond our sight. But somehow that is an answer, however unsatisfying.
And that leads us to Cardinal Pell’s reply to the posed question of suffering and evil. Again I call it a reply, not so much an answer, for his reply invites us into the mystery of the very questions before us. And while I present the Cardinal’s fuller reply and exact words below, allow me first to summarize a reply based on his insight. The reply is something like this:
You ask me how an all-good and loving God can permit that there be any suffering, evil or injustice in the world. It is a true and very valid concern. But to illustrate the difficulty in answering the question, allow me also to pose something to you. As you ask, “Why is there evil, why is there suffering?” and rightly want an answer, I want to ask you in return, “Why is there beauty? Why is there goodness? Why is there love? Why is there justice, or even any notion of it?”
Yes, these questions are just as valid as the question about evil and suffering. And they are just as much a challenge for a materialist to “answer”, as for a believer to “answer” the problem of evil.
And I do not ask these questions in a kind of triumphalist mode, or as an attempted “gotcha.” Beauty, love, goodness, justice and so forth are deeply mysterious, just as evil and suffering are. I do not really expect and surely do not demand that an atheist or materialist give me an answer rooted in their system and rather doubt they could. I also admit that within my system of belief there is great mystery in terms of evil and suffering and I cannot simply account for it or give it a comprehensive answer. I DO believe and experience that it is redemptive, and has properties that help bring me strength. But that is not a full explanation for suffering’s existence and unequal distribution, it is only an appreciation of its possible effects.
So this is my own summary and reflections on Cardinal Pell’s reply to the problem. It is one of the most interesting replies I have heard to the problem of evil.
Here are his exact words, with some introductory material to supply the context:
RICHARD DAWKINS: There is massive amount of suffering in the natural world, a huge amount of suffering and it seems to me that’s an almost inevitable consequence of Darwinian natural selection…..[but] it’s not the business of an atheist to justify the ways of God to man. It is the business of a Cardinal.
TONY JONES: Okay, let’s go to the Cardinal. The question was: how can there be a compassionate God who is all powerful and has created us and yet we suffer. Why create such a world in the first place?
GEORGE PELL: I think that is probably the hardest question for us to answer.
TONY JONES: Do you struggle with it?
GEORGE PELL: Yes. If I get a chance to say to ask a question when I die I think I will ask the good God why is there so much suffering? That’s a problem for us. I think the greater problem and I will come back to the question because it is a very good one it’s at the heart of what we’re about. I think it’s a much greater problem for the atheist to explain why there is goodness and truth and beauty. Our problem is to cope with suffering. One of the unique I think, well, certainly special features of Christian teaching is the value of redemptive suffering and that is the significance of Christ suffering with us and dying on the cross. That helps people. My first Easter after I was a priest, it was in the hills in Italy. Very sad village. All the men were away in Germany or Switzerland getting big money, home only for three weeks a year and the people were coming in, coming to confession and coming for consolation. I was even wetter behind the ears than I am now. I didn’t know what to say and eventually I said to someone “Well, look, Christ suffered too. Christ had a bad run. Christ died on the cross and we believe that through his suffering good will eventually triumph”. [1].
Full Debate here:
Good Article Msgr.
A question I have wondered why this group suffers and that group does not. Then, I think, any thinking which starts to separate us from them or them from us is not likely to take me to a good place.
When someone asks me this question, which happened as recently as last week, I dont know what to say. However, your article gives me an idea for the next time the question comes up.
If you cannot answer it, nor, the Cardinal, I guess I am okay with saying I cannot answer the question either.
One of the problems in discussing the matters of the origin of suffering, the reasons for suffering, etc. is in defining just exactly what people mean by “suffering.” We say we do not want a person with an illness to suffer, but what does that mean? Unbearable, excruciating pain? Assorted aches and pains? To a large extent, suffering is subjective and different for each person.
Another point to consider with respect to suffering, as manifested by physical pain, is that some pain is actually a positive good thing. That you feel pain when you are burned is a good thing. It is a defense mechanism in the body telling you that you are injured, it is a warning signal to you to take your hand out of the flame. Without the sensation of pain, as occurs to some people like diabetics, who lose feeling in their limbs, they can injure themselves quite seriously because they don’t feel the pain.
We could say that we would prefer a less drastic warning system, maybe a flashing light in our forehead or something, but without the pain, without the body screaming at you, “get help now!!” people would likely just ignore the injury.
And were we to eliminate mental and emotional pain and suffering, as Pope Benedict has said many times, we would have to eliminate love as well. To love is to suffer. This is because to fully love we must not only renounce and sacrifice other things we might like, including possibly our own life, but we suffer too when our loved one suffers, we feel their pain. And when they pass on, as they inevitably will, our sense of loss, born of love, is painful. But it is a good pain. Blessed are those who mourn.
Suffering is bad and evil most when it is pointless and unnecessary. But with Christ, our suffering is never meaningless because we can always give our suffering to Him, we can always “offer it up,” and transform that pointless and meaningless suffering into redemptive suffering, a useful suffering and with Him that suffering is transformed further by love into healing and new life.
But if Christ does not exist, if God does not exist, Dawkins can sneer, but is he really better off? Are we really better off? If God disappears, the suffering and evil of the world does not disappear with Him. The suffering and evil remain behind, and they become far worse because then we are left without any hope whatsoever.
I am very interested in this topic, and I have several responses. I think that looking at suffering as redemptive is a good start. I think of it more like a crucible that refines gold and makes it more pure. My mother died when I was 12, and I am still realizing the depth of that lost more than 30 years later. However, I also see while that pain was intense, it turned me towards God. I had no religious upbringing, yet today I am a Catholic who attends mass weekly. If my mother had lived, I fear to speculate about the kind of person I might have become. While her death was painful, in the long run, her sacrifice brought me to God.
My other response is on a more global level. My husband has traveled as a missionary to Haiti to our sister parish. He was actually impressed with how the Haitian people are more dependent on God and thankful for God’s gifts.
Much of our suffering is also self-inflicted. That does not mean that we should ignore or judge those people who suffer, but realizing that we play a great role in how much we suffer and taking responsibility for ourselves will go a long way to alleviate our own suffering.
God has given us the freedom to do good. We can choose to help those who are less fortunate by circumstance or choice. We can choose to live more simply and to make choices based on global consequences instead of our selfish desires.
I really have no response for devastating acts of nature like earthquakes, but I trust that there is a reason, and someday, we will get to understand. For now, I trust God.
I think C.S. Lewis proposed the more interesting question: As there is so much chaos and evil in the world, how do you explain any goodness at all? And why be good? Saying that one needs to be good for surviving in society isn’t really an answer because all that proves is that one need only appear to be good. In the end I have yet to hear a scoffer’s answer to this that wasn’t arbitrary, subjective to the point of absurdity, or reliant on premises that require every bit as much faith as faith in God.
Good point.
I think the mistake when asking about suffering is that we isolate the concept/experience from joy. We take sensations in their isolation, when I’m not sure that we would ever fully understand suffering if we separate it from joy. To understand love if we separate it from selfishness. Etc. it’s like thinking about the front, yet the back is nonexistent. I think intellectually we have fooled ourselves in giving words to define each, then thinking because we did that we can think of each as if in a vacuum.
The Jesuit Father Francois Xavier Schouppe writes: “Temptations or solicitations to evil cannot come from God; but He permits them for just reasons: to prove our virtue, to increase our merit, to humble us, and make us feel our weakness. . . . We ask our Father to deliver us from all real evil; not precisely from what men call evil, but from what is evil in the eyes of God, from what is evil in regard to our salvation and the glory of God. Sin, and sin alone, can close against us the gates of heaven and cast us into hell.”
More quotes from Father Schouppe at http://saintlysages.wordpress.com/
“We ask our Father to deliver us from all real evil; not precisely from what men call evil, but from what is evil in the eyes of God…” I think this is the right explanation: the human perception of good and evil is simply not the same as God’s. Apart from the Book of Job, the most illuminating text on this subject is, curiously, the parable of Moses and Khidr in the Qur’an (sura Kahf, verses 60-82. I find this understanding much more persuasive than the classic answer of the otherwise admirable St. Augustine, i.e., that evil is just the absence of good.
Evil is an even greater problem for an Atheist than for a Christian. We let them off the hook on it, but we must force Atheists to explain how Real Evil (which obviously exists) can do so in their system. Without God, atheists have no ultimate standard of goodness, of perfection, by which things can be judged (which is why relativism goes hand in hand with atheism). With no standard of goodness they can’t explain how anything can be evil, and if nothing can be evil, then evil doesn’t exist – but evil does exist therefore atheism is wrong.
An example might clarify. Imagine someone dying a horrible, painful, disfiguring death by contracting the plague, which would be considered evil. But it certainly isn’t evil to the bacteria that is thriving in the sick person’s body. Without God, with man as just a more complex bacteria, evil becomes relative. It is “evil for me” but that only means “it isn’t something I prefer to exist” and things existing that I don’t prefer is hardly evil. I don’t care for brownies with nuts in them, however it is hardly “evil” for such brownies to exist. If everything is relative, even the Holocaust is nothing more than something I don’t prefer to have existed, not something intrinsically evil – there were even people (Hitler e.g.) that considered it a great good! Of course, we know (via the natural law, which atheists must deny for it requires a natural law giver) the murder of millions of innocents is, in fact, evil. Even the evil of a natural event, consider an earthquake destroying an entire city with millions of inhabitants, can’t be considered evil in a Godless system. We must again ask “evil to whom”? Would it be evil for an earthquake to wipe out a forest populated by animals with no human deaths? Would it be evil for an earthquake to occur in a desert with only plant life destroyed? Would it be evil for an “earthquake” to occur on the moon with nothing but inanimate matter effected? If everything is relative, then these non-evil events are the same as an earthquake in Los Angeles.
We, atheists and Christians alike, know evil exists, but without God we can’t explain how we know this. In the end, evil is only possible IF an all-loving, all-good, all-powerful Creator God exists. Such a God is required because only such a God is one who could create a universe without evil (which he did cf Gen 1:31). Only to such a God are all evil events Objectively evil. Only with such a God will all evil be irradiated (cf Rev 21:4). In the end, the problem of evil PROVES God exists and thereby proves atheism is wrong. In the end, all an atheist can say is that some of the random events of a random universe are not pleasing to the atheist.
An atheist would simply say this is all random and good and evil, in terms of mans actions, not bacterial infections, per we, but man, edges the purpose of the individual acting. I will be good to you if it benefits me. I was nice to her, so she would have sex with me. I was nice to him for a promotion. It’s ALL selfishness. It’s easier to see the selfishness of evil, but good too is selfish. Now if you believe in love, as in love your neighbor and all the good Catholics have done through acts of,love, then one could argue selfishness is the opposite of love. Wich brings me to my loosely held together inductive reasoning, that atheism selfishness, which is the opposite of God, who is,love. And who do we consider the opposite of God…yep, the devil. Therefore atheism is of the devil. I wouldn’t try to argue this, because its an awfully constructed proof, but you get my point.
I haven’t plagiarized Cardinal Pell, but my Sept. 6 column in http://www.thecatholicthing.org, “The Problem of Good,” unintentionally expands a bit upon his answer.
I guess I am missing the point. I thought evil, pain and suffering was the result of the sin of Adam and Eve. I also think of Christ’s words, “Take up you cross and follow Me.” We have not been promised an easy road to Heaven. Heaven is something we have to strive for–and that would include the suffering we go through to get there. Its what we do with these challenges, and it doesn’t mean God does not love us or care about us. I always think of pain and suffering, evil in the world–as God’s test for us. Are we going to be better for it–or will we give up and quit? Only children think they should get what they want–but God sends us what we NEED.
Anyhow, that is the way I look at it, maybe I am off track.
Well, there are certainly aspects of the meaning of suffering that faith can supply. Your reflections work poorly for an atheist however. But even for a believer the explanations your offer cannot answer all the questions and problems. For example why do some suffer so much more than others. Why do some sufferings take place on a massive scale with no intervention from God (e.g. horrifying tsunamis that wipe out hundred of thousands, or genocidal wars with little or no intervention by God). And even for personal sufferings, there are many who have suffered very deep, sudden and personal loss for whom explanations such as you offer seem of little help. Its hard to be philosophical in the face of crushing loss and pain.
Yes. Good response. Thank you, Father.
I sure was missing the point. I was looking at it from the wrong angle and
I left the atheist out of the equation, thanks. When all my calamities hit me (death of four close family members in a year’s time along with bankruptcy, and so on) I had God to rely on. The poor atheist has it REALLY TOUGH!
Atheists claim that God could have created a world with no suffering. But think what it would be like if no one ever had to suffer. If everything we ever needed was immediately available to us such that we could get whatever we wanted as easily as picking fruit from a tree, then we would be virtually self-sufficient. We would not need God or anyone else for anything. In such a world people would soon come to think of themselves as like God or as equal to God.
Now consider the fact that for there to be many different individuals, each one has to be different in some way from everyone else. Hence, there would have to be different degrees of intelligence, beauty, or strength for there to be different individuals. In such a world, some might think of themselves as better than everyone else. This might lead to them wanting everyone else to honor or even worship them. The most powerful of them might even try to force others to worship them. Some might resist and join with others to fight against those who would try to dominate them. Soon this perfect world with no suffering would become a world of constant conflict or even outright warfare as competing parties sought to impose their will on others.
You might object that God could stop this kind of conflict. But then some would not get what they wanted and they would suffer and blame God.
My conclusion is that a perfect world with no suffering is an illusion that cannot possibly exist in reality. Suffering teaches us the truth about who we are. Suffering teaches us that we need God and we need one another both for our existence and our happiness. Suffering is not a good in itself, but it is necessary for us to learn how to love God and our neighbor. Without suffering love is just a word for an emotion that we may or may not feel. It is suffering that forces to love others in deed and in truth. Suffering forces us to make sacrifices for the good of others with the full knowledge that others have made sacrifices for us. Suffering builds relationships that can last into eternity. Apart from suffering there would only exist isolated individuals who would have no opportunity to fully share in the lives of others.
Different people will respond to suffering in different ways. The wise, the humble and all those who love God will strive to alleviate suffering in the full knowledge that God does not want anyone to suffer endlessly. Those who reject God however, will suffer for all eternity. Their suffering is due to their own choices, so they have no one to blame except themselves.
Amen !!! his summarizes my understanding so well….thanks for sharing LaMont
The experience with evil was necessary to see the result of disobedience. Human race has a first hand experience, but the faithful angels does not experience it, they only see the result here on Earth. Adam and Eve and us would have never experience suffering if they would have obeyed. But all creation had to see the result of disobedience. Once the lesson learned, evil will be eliminated that is to say cease to exist (a.k.a death) The final judgement will come after 1000 years of re-education the Millennial eign of Christ which was alloted to re-educate mankind and bring it back to harmony with God. Right now only the Church/Bride/Levites are chosen from the world to become priests/kings in this mediatorial Millennium. After the Church/Bride/Levites are complete, the rest of mankind will come to full knowledge of God and His laws and will be asked to obey and live forever (on Earth) or disobey and die (cease to exist) and every soul will have to choose all the way back to Adam and Eve as they will be resurected everyone in his generation. Our Lord Jesus and His Bride (the complete Christ=Annointed) will rule from Heaven having perfect spiritual bodies as a reward of choosing now in this time of Gospel and Grace.
Bottom line: The experience with evil was necessary to see the results, and all who will chose to obey God will live forever the Church in the spiritual realm on higher plane, the world on Earth in perfect human bodies after they will pass the test of obedience at end of 1000 years. No one will be tormented.
I seem to recall Augustine had a similar musing. It went something like “If there is a God, why is there evil. If there is no God, why is there good?”
I see suffering as being a multi-sided issue. It is something we’ve brought on ourselves because of sin. None of us are innocent. We all have the stain of sin, either directly through our own actions, or indirectly through original sin. It is there to remind us that this life is but a journey, not the destination. It leaves us wanting for more. And finally it is redemptive. We can offer our sufferings as penance for our sins. I know this will sound odd, but it can be looked upon as one of God’s great gifts. Better to suffer the temporary pains of this life in the proper spirit than to suffer the eternal pains of the next.
Suffering and evil are great mysteries, as the Church acknowledges. We shouldn’t pretend we have an easy answer. For whatever reason, God has chosen not to tell us all the details.
One can see many reasons why God might allow suffering, but that is a topic for another time. One problem, though, is the atheist presumption that there are no good responses out there, because so many people offer pat little answers and pretend that’s enough…we must never do that.
The crucial thing is that we have a Savior who was “a man of sorrows, well-acquainted with suffering,” who suffered from the evil deeds of men, and because of that, BECAUSE OF HIM, suffering has meaning. And He can get you through any suffering without your hope being destroyed. One can even come to peace with suffering, even extreme suffering, when you know Him, and by uniting your suffering to His. This is a precious gift.
And these are not just ideas to make us feel better. This is a spiritual reality. There is a real, actual difference between suffering with Him and suffering without Him. In other words, we don’t believe it just because it’s helpful, but because it is true.
Clearly our human understanding cannot fathom the depths of the question and this should not surprise us, small as we are. But we can lean on Him, and that makes all the difference in the world.
Meanwhile, there are great examples among the saints, and discussions of real depth in our Catholic intellecutual heritage – we should share these, so atheists realize there is more to our approach to the question than they think, because so much popular talk about these things is not deep enough…
evil~live
Money and the love of money is the root of all evil. It is a false paradigm/a system of control.
Even centuries ago, man knew how to cause floods or lack of water by re-directing the flow of water. (banking)
With current technology (HAARP) earthquakes. floods, droughts, hail and snowstorms can be made to happen in a pre-chosen area, and hurricanes and tornados can be directed and/or intensified. Thus, “natural disasters” are often not-so-natural anymore. Wars are almost never “moral”. They are forced upon populations for reasons that are never told to those involved.
Man has always had the ability to choose to act immorally. The question is; how long will God’s people permit it to go on unhindered, unchallenged, and unimpeded?
evil=live
Who is truly alive?
Thank You. I have been reading whatever I can get my hands on about this issue for some years now & it still perplexes me. I am mostly disturbed by the suffering of innocent children; babies who are abused, tortured or molested by unspeakably cruel parents. Surely these babies are not being corrected or tested by fire. There has to be another explanation for how God could allow such horrendous acts. After all the reading I’ve done i.e. The Book of Job; ‘The Problem of Pain’ & ‘A Grief Observed’ by C.S. Lewis; ‘Making Sense Out of Suffering’ by Peter Kreeft; & others I found the book ‘Why Does God Permit Evil?’ by Dom Bruno Webb (Sophia Press) to come the closest to an answer I can understand.
There is another good book, Kiss from the Cross, by Rhoda de Sola Chervin, I think.
Could it be that the question is not why God permits evil but why God permits free will. Evil is the consequence of free will. Horrendous acts on children, including abortion, is free will exercised in defiance of God.
Could it also be that it is hard for us humans to understand God’s ways, which are not our ways. We can only judge things based on our limited perceptions and experiences. A young female teenager who observes a pregnant woman in labor may cringe and question why such suffering is necessary and vow to never have children. Why would a husband allow his wife to be pregnant knowing the hours of suffering she would have to go through? Then the child comes and all faces are lit and the memories of labor diminish in the sight of the fruits of that labor.
Likewise, perhaps the children who have suffered enjoy a special place in heaven where their happiness erases the memory of their pain and suffering in the world. We do know that there is eventually justice in this world and can surmise that there is justice in the next.
Many Christian philosophers such as William Lane Craig have provided pretty definitive solutions to the problem of evil as it is used to deny God’s goodness/existence. First, the conclusion that God doesn’t exist based on the existence of evil doesn’t necessarily follow from the premises. This argument takes for granted the unspoken premise that a good God and evil can’t coexist, so it’s really an a priori fallacy.
Second, the atheist argument relies upon scandalizing the believer with the supposed contradiction between belief in an all-good God and the existence of evil. However, this argument is self-contradictory because it presupposes the existence of an all-good God to give scandal in the first place. If there were no God, there would be no source for objective good or human rights, and we would have no basis for taking umbrage at human suffering. Ironically, the only intellectually honest atheist response to the problem of evil is to admit that the sufferings cited in the argument are not in fact evil, but morally neutral.
Finally, note how the problem of evil is always invoked from an anthropocentric viewpoint. Tying in to the cardinal’s reply, few atheists or theists engaging this argument consider how human moral evil offends God. The Christian need only point to the unimaginable sufferings visited upon Jesus by His own creatures. One could rightly say that the greater contradiction is how an all-good God suffers the existence of wicked humans who wound Him daily with our sins. The answer to both questions is God’s infinite mercy.
Well said
Suffering only makes sense in the light of the Cross of Jesus Christ. Sad Mr Dawkins did not soak in the simplicity of the Gospel…Out of the mouth of babes, I will perfect wisdom. Nothing is impossible for God
The greatest suffering is death and the loss of your soul into Hell. Whatever else suffering and evil that happens in this life is a walk in the park compared to that misery. Cancer, AIDS, or some other disease? Earthquakes, floods, starvation, or some other disaster? Pish posh. People are afraid of suffering those things because they are afraid of ultimately dying. But we don’t need to fall into despair. God gave us the remedy: He sent His only Son to suffer and die for us. Through His Resurrection, the gates of Heaven are now open, and we have the opportunity to enjoy everlasting happiness in the next life.
Bad things happening to good people? Good things happening to bad people? This world is temporary. God will sort out everything in the end, and justice will be served.
Many years ago, I clipped a section out of The Wander which dealt with this very issue. I think it might be helpful to many of this blog’s readers; it has certainly been helpful to me (so helpful, in fact, that I taped a copy to the inside of a scriptural rosary book which I frequently take to Eucharistic Adoration). This is a theme which can be taken up whilst praying the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary, or the little rosary of the seven dolors of Mary.
“It seems to me the first thing we have to realize is that we are in the realm of mystery, where completely satisfying answers are impossible. We know God is love, and we must trust in that love. But some answer can be attempted. Suffering and death go back to the original sin of our first parents. They had been placed in a paradisiscal state, where all nature operated in their behalf. Then, they rejected God’s governance over them.”
“We will never realize how heinous that rejection was, until we see God face-to-face and understand the awesomeness of His goodness and love. This sin [original sin] was so great as to affect man’s very nature, causing a conflict between the natural fulfillment of his nature in God, and his self-created tendency to find [seek] fulfillment in himself. These two conflicted individuals [Adamand Eve] had to leave Paradise, where all was harmony, and live in a state of nature where the ground was cursed because of them, and the thorns and thistles it would bring forth for them. (Gen. 3:17-18). Man refused to serve God, and nature no longer served man . . .
“The harms of nature did not originate with God, but with man, and our freedom demands that the consequences of our actions must play themselves out. We have destroyed the harmopny of nature and our own inner harmony, but through {Our Lord Jesus] Christ, the suffering and death we have brought upon ourselves have [themselves] become the very instruments of our healing. We are no longer God’s original creation; we are beings in conflict with God and with ourselves, and we must now become a new creation, radically new.”
“It is through our acceptance of suffering and death (and God’s grace) that we die to the destructive self-orientation which separates us from God. The whole point of our existence is union with God, and the whole point of suffering now, is to bring about that union (“Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me.”) Given our current sinful state, we can be save ONLY through the cross.”
In other words, God did not create sin, evil, disease, old age, and death, etc., WE did!! As human beings endowed with the faculty of free will, and not being robots or ventriloquists’ dummies with wind-up keys in our backs, it is God’s will that we use that free will to accept His grace, to accept Our Lord Jesus Christ; to deny our very selves and our psychotic selfishness so as to live out the Gospel. The very dignity of human nature, being created only a little below that of the angels’, demands that God honor our choices, made out of our free will, and that those choices be permitted to play themselves out in real time.
If you look at the history of God’s activity in the world, both of salvation history and of the countless miracles which have occurred over the ages, I think you will agree that when God intervenes in our world, or works a miracle, it is always to the better, not to the worse.
I believe that the Atheists are guilty, generally speaking, of a profound intellectual dishonesty. They in no way want to be deprived of the exercise of their faculty of free will so as to be as selfish as they possibly can, esp. in matters involving exercise of sexuality and abortion. However, when it comes to being on the receiving end, whether of their own choices freely made or those of others, they cry foul.
For believing Christians, the only solution is to keep returning to the basics (the gospel), and to keep working at living the gospel, of self-abnegation (denying our very selves) and of charity.
Balancing the problem of evil with the existence of goodness and truth and beauty is a fleshing out of C. S. Lewis’, “Is the cup half empty or the cup half full?” analogy, imo.
Most of Western Europe had abandoned active Christianity (attending services at least weekly) before WW II, but any visit to Dackau, Auschwitz, Buchenwald etc. or contemplation of the eleven million deaths in those camps ordered by the Nazis may explain why church attendance in W. Europe is currently so low.
Similarly, the A-bomb experiences in Japan in 1945 have left many Japanese feeling that Nihilism is real. One can take care of or love one’s family; but God is (probably) not there. I don’t share that belief, but I understand how people with those experiences can get there.
Grace makes a difference, and one can pray for the grace of conversion for others.
TeaPot562
It would appear that it is through evil and suffering that man develops the compassion and character of God’s love. God came into the world as Christ to demonstrate why man suffers. It is from world suffering and the evil sins of man mankind that Christ shows the way to salvation from this earthly creation where time is but a period before we are judged to join the fallen angels or the glory of life with God in heaven. Christ is the teacher and example of why and how we as humans should use our time on earth and the purpose thereof.
It is a good post, helpful. I have to deal with aggressive secularist atheists, and this question about suffering is frequent. Helpful: The answer from God would sound like thunder, men looking like trees.
Helpful: The cardinal’s reply makes it an even bigger, more mysterious question, why do we see beauty, why expect justice?
And to that I would add, especially for the discombobulation of the nitwit Dawkins, why do we expect that laws of nature should exist?
My response would be that if God did not exist, evil would still exist. But in that case we would no longer be consoled by the assurance that God would accomplish a greater good neither for us nor for the world. This puts the ball in the non-believers court.
That doesn’t make sense. If God doesn’t exist, nothing would, neither good nor evil. Just nothing.
It is this problem of suffering that made me lose my faith when I was 12 … so the cardinal’s counter-question is a great starting point for discussing this with children who are beginning to question why.
Wonderful article, Msgr. We often read your reflections aloud so our whole family can benefit. Thank you.
After prayer, fasting, meditation and contemplation – not necessarily in that order – here’s a few thoughts.
Without good, can evil exist? Without polarity a polarizied thing is just a thing. Remove one pole or the other from a magnet and the one not selected will disappear. Much search has been pursued to find a “monopole” but I don’t hear of any discoveries. Is this because a monopole would be a thing and the pole of a magnet is a result of the magnet’s existance?
The underlying thread in the resonses seems to be that; without good; evil is just a viewpoint. What the loser calls evil – the winner calls good. Even in natural disasters, relief contractors keep their employees busy as they make lots of money. A selfishness that illustrates just how selfish atheism can be. But only selfish if they seek to block a concluding solution. Do atheists only push their agenda to prevent solutions so that they can keep making money off solving problems piecemeal, instead of from a resolution at the source? Stuck in the present time, as opposed to looking toward a positive future?
What about natural disasters. Winter, in the far south or the far north, could well be considered to be a natural disaster. Especially by those who’ve lived where one never needs a coat. Yet many people go through these winters in high morale, because they’ve learned how to deal with them. Could it be that we’ve never learned how to deal with other natural disasters because we’re too busy stuck in the short term comfort of egotism and other self worship? A short term comfort that piles up the woes which will come back and bite us all at once later.
Perhaps evil is tied in with God’s perfect teaching. In the Old Testament He often came to the aid of the Children of Israel but, usually made them do as much as they could while He did the rest.
We often learn from our mistakes however, what if we keep repeating the same mistake instead of trying something different? This is what Einstein called insanity. What if a human father suggests trying something different and we don’t? Do we follow His teaching, instead of constantly returning to old habits that caused us problems such as idolatry that caused His withdrawl? Do we submit only when our suffering is great and return to the old mistakes when the going is good again?
Pick up our cross and follow Him. Christ just did it (seems to me to be without a learning experience on His part) but, that fact can inspire us to go through the learning process somewhat as we are inspired by watching a skilled person so that we go through a learning process to gain those skills.
The skilled person had to go through a learning proces but, Christ did not. Yet, both inspire by their subjective deeds and by such, possibly objective things as His call to pick up our cross.
How much does evil tie in with rejecting God’s lessons in order to grasp a temporary solution and, His willingness to wait until our resultant suffering leads us to decide to use our free will to accept growth, instead of a sorta kinda learning experience.
Was the Cross a means of leading by example, taking our punishment or something else? This is a finite, and truly human, viewpoint. God, and His ways, are infinite. Couldn’t The Passion could have been all of these and more? As we stubbornly stick to a worldly perspective. As we fight over which piece of the truth is the one and only do our megalomaniac demands keep us from the beneficial (and temporary) discomfort of accepting God’s Infinite? Or, would we rather live in numbed, and increasing, discomfort and seek comfort within a growing pathology?
What about teachers (and I’m not singling out the school system here) who insist we believe the facts and never guide. Don’t they set the stage for repition and progess of evil?
Perhaps those who wish to truly overcome the results of their evil, which causes them to suffer, will accept the suffering of being humble enough to return to God’s teaching and guidance. Ecclesiastes keeps mentioning a chasing after the wind. God’s Spirit is, at times, called a Wind. Should we stop the futility of chasing He Who cannot be caught and start accepting. The name “Ruach” and the term “ghost” come from root words for moving air or wind.
In conclusion, what about charitable acts mentioned in the last response that I read? Does the subjectivity help us to see that the needy are not so much morally deficient but, are they victims of a fallen world which has such a limited viewpoint that, people who hold a viewpoint outside what has been deemed “acceptable” by self appointed patriarchs and matriarchs, are pressured to conform or be pushed completely out of society?
Does it help us to love our fellow people as worthy through their worthiness of potential which has been crushed by such things as being raised in severely dysfunctional families?
Is this why so many fathers are being excluded from families? To teach the parents that they are unworthy of a healthy interactions of the gifts which male and female have to contribute to a healthy family and, through that teach the children? Is this why the same gender “marriages” which push a lopsided agenda on the next generation? No balance of nurturing and guiding but, rather calling those who guide through tough lessons “harsh” or “brutal” while the other calls the one who nurtures and teaches acceptance of feelings a “molly coddler” which seeks to transform the populace from human into hive creatures that are easy to manipulate? These concepts of harsh teaching and molly coddling may exist but, not in a healthy family.
Not like the sheep which originated in the wild with rams who willingly died to protect the flock.
Once, two bureaucrats (one male one female) discussed, in my hearing, how much harsher single fathers were than single mothers were. Why does this need to be overheard instead of found in available conclusions? Is it because it’s a phoney agenda to persecute children by depriving them of a fathers challenging lessons?
A lot of question marks in my response but, this response is about seeking data for research and not to push my agenda while struggling to get through without using the word “I”
Oops, did it again but, not until boasting about the alleged purity of my research. I thank God for the help which he gave me here, even though I’ve listened imperfectly.
“I do not really expect and surely do not demand that an atheist or materialist give me an answer rooted in their system and rather doubt they could.”
I agree that they could not answer you, But why would you not challenge them? Atheism is certainly a deeply faith-based world view. Their faith lies in the belief that the random interactions of atoms and molecules have produced all of the rich complexity and beauty that we see in the universe. They ignore the fact that the universe is exquisitely fine tuned. In their view, randomness has as much power as God does, but it gets them off the hook for having any moral obligations. And yet, they make moral judgments (using the morality placed in them by God and which they cannot otherwise explain) about evil in the world.
Atheism is deeply faith based and yet it is a deeply inconsistent world view. Christianity is also deeply faith base, but it is a complete consistent world view. This is a very important point to challenge atheists on, if for no other reason than for charity.
If you really want to see the extent to which atheism is a faith-based (and inconsistent) world view, read “I Don’t Have Enough Faith to be an Athiest.” This book is mandatory reading for my kids.
If suffering gives the atheist proof of the non-existence of God then goodness gives the atheist proof of the existence of God: so of which is there more in the world suffering or goodness?
Some thoughts. Unsatisfying due to lack of faith in an atheist, is the supernatural reason for suffering. Starting from the premise that God is Love it follows that what happens is permitted by love to save us from greater suffering. The suffering of war, famine or pestilance are a call to man who only faced with suffering or death repents and turns back to God which is better than the eternal suffering of Hell where one is bereft of all love and compassion absolutely by definition and is far worse than any suffering that lasts only for a duration of time. In Mercy, due to man’s free will, God only permits suffering due to wanting to give man every excuse possible for his sin in some instances, and, in the case of the innocent children who suffer, God chooses them as Victim Souls in union with His own suffering to shorten the physical chastiement used to bring the rest of man back to repentence and eternal joys. These sufferings only occur nationwide where God is not worshipped and the ten commandments are not kept. Our present western society breaks at least half of them by law so it is inevitable and is only a matter of time when war, famine or pestilence will over-run the countries that do this – so when it happens that is why – God wants to save us from far worse sufferings for eternity that befall those who die rejecting Him in a state of disobedience to those 10 commandments by giving them cause to recognise their need of Him and to repent. Atheists who by definitin do not believe in Hell could mayabe google search and read the account of what happened at the deathbed of Voltaire written by one who was there during those few hours up to the moment of Voltaire’s death.
Love, which we all agree is good, is always proved as to its depth by its ability to endure all suffering for the beloved or for others – Greater love has no man but he who lays down his life for his friends: as Jesus did for us. Love without suffering is never proved and love is superficial and only lust when divorce is threatened at the first serious argument.
When we suffer we proportionately grow in compassion to help all those who suffer likewise. Having suffered in life and now am helping people who also suffer and find in me that we meet at a depth others cannot reach because they hgave not suffered. Consequently God is thanked in my life for the suffering that has so enabled me to help others in showing them the compassionate heart of the Wounded God we Catholics love, worship and adore: our crucifixes are not an ornament in our houses but a reminder of that divine love for us so we can go and do likewise.
I have never had a problem with the question of evil or why bad things happen to good people.You have to approach this from the proper paradigm. Consider that our ultimate destiny should be eternal happiness with God. Anything which effects this is beneficial. Our existence on this Earth is not a flicker compared to eternity. Eighty years is not even a moment of eternity. When life is going well many people are wrapped up in their lives
with little thought for God. When tragedy strikes that comfortable life is interrupted and people ask why. They seek answers. Some turn to God. Some turn away. If you were to suffer terribly for fifty years that would be only a moment of eternity. It would be a blessing for you if you united that suffering to Christ’s. Even more so, if your suffering caused only one soul to question, and ultimately come to Christ and receive eternal salvation, how wonderful that would be. Your suffering would be as nothing compared to that great blessing for both you and that other soul that was saved. We don’t know who was saved because of our suffering and our perspective often doesn’t allow us to see how insignificant our suffering actually is in the eternal picture. Much more valuable is one person saved than a lifetime of awful suffering. The suffering is of very short duration in the eternal plan. What is truly a mystery is why God favors some with more grace than others. All are given sufficient grace for salvation but only some are given the extra grace to be counted among the elect. That is truly a mystery.
But why do we not merely permit but often inflict suffering? Would you have God ‘zap’ someone before an abortion, adultery? What about things our military does like torture or killing a lot of innocent civilians? If God were not to permit evil, or at least the admixture, the person inquiring would not exist to ask.
When you, yourself no longer permit evil – and are wise enough to know it is mainly omission and excusing allies and those we like – then ask.