How to explain the meaning of suffering

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What an excellent topic for discussion. Many thoughts come immediately to mind, especially the usual arguments from agnostics and their ilk. For example, whenever there is a great catastrophe, Larry King of Larry King Live invariably has theologians of different faiths trying to explain why bad things happen. Predictably, Larry King always challenges by asking, “Why, if God is all-powerful, didn’t He stop these events from happening such as the attacks on the World Trade Center, the tsunami, vicious abductions of innocent children, and the list goes on ad nauseum.” Generally, I find the responses from the guest theologians lacking which leaves Larry no better off in his search for God. Of course, the simplest explanation is that we are all endowed with free will, to make a conscious choice between good and evil. Indeed, good and evil stand side-by-side not unlike the cartoon image of a little angel standing on one shoulder and a little devil standing on the other vying for “loyalty.” The child molester’s “loyalty” tipped over to Satan; the child he abused had no choice concerning her fate. This is an oversimplification to be sure, but I would suggest a couple other references that go much deeper into this difficult subject. First, Dr. Scott Hahn has a CD available entitled “Making Sense Out of Suffering” which can be procured from Saint Joseph Communications. Secondly, Jewish convert to Catholicism, Roy H. Schoeman has written a book called “Salvation Is From the Jews” and Chapter Five, in particular, called “Judaism and the Holocaust (The Holocaust and Jewish Theology)” addresses the meaning and understanding of suffering quite extensively. I hope these two additional sources will provide some answers.
 
“How do I explain to someone the meaning of suffering?”

The explanation would certainly revolve around the theological and philosophical aspects of
suffering and its “meaning”. How do we distinguish between merited and unmerited suffering?
Why is there an inordinate amount of innocent suffering in this world?
How do we reconcile seemingly unmerited suffering with a loving God?
Would the sufferer appreciate the fine philosophical and theological nuances?
In the end, what remains is a mystery.
In intimate settings, it might be better to listen to the sufferer rather than explain something
we cannot fully understand. Just being there to listen, hold their hand, hug, weep with them, and remind them that God is also listening and in due time, His will prevails.

-WillyJ
 
Ivan Karamozov [although a fictional character] was described as an atheist who believed in God. However, he took the position that he absolutely rejected God [and so was an atheist in this sense]. The reason he did so was because of the suffering of innocent little children.
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I, for one, think it’s quite futile to try to rationally explain suffering. It’s always a scandal. If I saw someone beloved suffering, and then heard a very wise and smart Christian coming up talking philosophically about the inscrutinity of God’s ways and the deeper meaning of afflictions, I would feel very much like hitting his mouth shut, that’s all.

Anyway, it’s interesting with Kamamozov you mentioned a character of Dostoyevski. Unjust suffering is abhorrent and flies in the face of every kind of belief in God’s existence - thus runs the overall conclusion in Dostoyevski’s opus - but if we deny God’s existence, we also deny the existence of objective moral values, and then it makes no sense anymore to complain about unjust suffering and to fight against it because there would be no unjust suffering. Eradicate God and everything is permitted. There would be no reason anymore why we should be tortured by the sight of innocent people suffering - there would be nothing inherently evil about this.
 
TheWhim said:
Unjust suffering is abhorrent and flies in the face of every kind of belief in God’s existence - thus runs the overall conclusion in Dostoyevski’s opus - but if we deny God’s existence, we also deny the existence of objective moral values, and then it makes no sense anymore to complain about unjust suffering and to fight against it because there would be no unjust suffering. Eradicate God and everything is permitted. There would be no reason anymore why we should be tortured by the sight of innocent people suffering - there would be nothing inherently evil about this.
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There are plenty of atheists who believe in objective moral values. They do not regard them as willed by God but as fundamental aspects of reality. Why couldn’t we exist in an uncreated moral universe?

The problem is that the distinction between good and evil presupposes both the ability to distinguish between good and evil, i.e. rationality, and the ability to choose between good and evil, i.e. transcendence of physical laws. So an uncreated moral universe must be rational and transcendent. This would seem to be a hybrid of theism and pantheism 🙂
 
tonyrey said:
There are plenty of atheists who believe in objective moral values. They do not regard them as willed by God but as fundamental aspects of reality. Why couldn’t we exist in an uncreated moral universe?

The problem is that the distinction between good and evil presupposes both the ability to distinguish between good and evil, i.e. rationality, and the ability to choose between good and evil, i.e. transcendence of physical laws. So an uncreated moral universe must be rational and transcendent. This would seem to be a hybrid of theism and pantheism 🙂
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Which law would be objectively moral for an an atheistic. What? Be true to oneself? Well, heck, what if one is extremely arrogant and doesn’t realize when he is hurting people.

What is the Source of these atheist moral values. What? Evolutionary Biology? Yes, that would be something worth understanding and believing to every person.

Which universal objective moral standard would an atheist rely on to not commit theft? What if said atheist, in seeing no repercussions, commits robbery. On what grounds can he or she be judged to have done the wrong thing in an atheist universe. Whose the judge holding him or her accountable morally. Do you mean evolutionary biology has the answer? Somehow, an atheist would state, oh yes, I know from my biological makeup that I am pre-programmed not to do this because creation would suffer.

An atheist feels incredibly depressed. He sees no reason for living anymore. You can’t believe the amount of people who did not pull that trigger to their head because of their religious, not atheist, beliefs. Catholicism holds life as a gift. Even William F. Buckley, in all his suffering near the end of life, worried about suicide, but it was Christianity which stopped him, as his son now records.

Look, God was thrown out of Communist regimes like the Soviet Union and China. Did these countries find some new moral vanguard? No they killed 100 million people combined in the last century. Coincidence?

As Chesterton said, the alternative to belief in God is not belief in nothing, it is much worse, belief in anything! It could be New Age healing crystals, making Darwin God, belief in UFOs. I mean the list goes on. As Jaroslaw Pelikan once rightly noted, we should never discount the Christian Tradition we have inherited through generation upon generation for assistance and guidance. These are not matters to be taken lightly.
 
My take is this:

We as humans tend to easily conclude that the elimination of suffering is the highest good. Therefore the presence of suffering in this world is problematic given the proposition of an omnipotent god.

Here’s the deal: the elimination of suffering is not the highest good. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t strive against suffering, don’t get me wrong. It is simply to say that such is not the highest good.

The highest good in fact demands suffering. Theoretically, God could order a world without suffering. He could shield us all from every instance of it. Is that the best world, however? I know, for example, that my own children suffer a lot with their homework, with their at-bats in Little League, you name it. I could easily step in and do it all for them. Should I? NO! To do so would be to rob them.

If God ordered a world without suffering that world would be one devoid of our free will. We would not be allowed to conduct ourselves in ways inimical towards any good. No ill could ever be permitted from our actions. Confined to the straight and narrow, we’d be.

That world is not ours. Our world is richer, our societies are more various and alive. Our world is superior to the one that dogmatically disallowed all suffering.

Of course, our world is also frought with more peril because suffering and evil are granted a foothold in it.

Luckily, we have Christ, he who bore all suffering and bore death. The world of pure goodness was bridged into this world of suffering by him. In Christ every pain that this world might send your way pales and falls away, robbed of its bite. We can laugh at its nothingness, secure in the recognition that with Christ every horror this world can throw up in our face is howlingly trivial.
 
KyivAndrew said:
Which law would be objectively moral for an an atheistic. What? Be true to oneself? Well, heck, what if one is extremely arrogant and doesn’t realize when he is hurting people.

What is the Source of these atheist moral values. What? Evolutionary Biology? Yes, that would be something worth understanding and believing to every person.

Which universal objective moral standard would an atheist rely on to not commit theft? What if said atheist, in seeing no repercussions, commits robbery. On what grounds can he or she be judged to have done the wrong thing in an atheist universe. Whose the judge holding him or her accountable morally. Do you mean evolutionary biology has the answer? Somehow, an atheist would state, oh yes, I know from my biological makeup that I am pre-programmed not to do this because creation would suffer.

An atheist feels incredibly depressed. He sees no reason for living anymore.
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I agree with you that moral values have no rational basis in an atheist’s universe but not all atheists are depressed. Many of them choose to make the most of what is supposedly their entire existence. Even so their belief that we cease to exist when we die must cast a grim shadow on life, particularly as they get older…
 
I’m just jumping in here, but God could have made the world with no suffering for ANYONE if He wanted to - including no suffering for JESUS. He could’ve done that if He wanted. I wonder why He didn’t? If He did it that way, we wouldn’t know otherwise, so it wouldn’t matter that we didn’t have free-will. Just a thought …
 
Free will is evident from the beginning of life, if Eve and Adam did not have Free Will we would not have had original Sin.
 
My point exactly! No free-will, no sin. We’d be living Paradise on earth! Wouldn’t that be nice…
 
Hello everyone!

Everything everyone said is as true as I have heard. I just wanted to add one more point.

St Faustina recieved many pains and torments and suffered much. She did this for the conversion of sinners and for the Holy souls in Purgatory. She became an advocate of the dying also. She offered her many sufferings up for souls that needed help. I do this also. It is another form of Jesus’ Commandment- Love thy neighbor as thyself. Jesus told her to do this and she did.

I think this is an awesome way to use suffering, in any form. I also offer suffering up for myself, not often though. The Holy Souls in purgatory and the dying need us so much. The dying need that extra strength to endure their death agonies. The souls in Purgatory cannot pray for themselves, but will remember you when they get to Heaven. It is reciprocated in the long run.

That is indeed a wonderful proposition. By praying for those who cannot pray for themselves at that time and for them to pray for you at your time!

God Bless!
 
Yes we have to accept suffering in this world.If our lord Jesus suffered and died for our Sins we too must suffer due to the selfisness of man and mans inability to love his neighbour.But we will eventually achieve the state where there is no free will and have everlasting happiness when we say "it is consumated"and offer our souls to Almighty God.
 
antonabe said:
Yes we have to accept suffering in this world.If our lord Jesus suffered and died for our Sins we too must suffer due to the selfisness of man and mans inability to love his neighbour.But we will eventually achieve the state where there is no free will and have everlasting happiness when we say "it is consumated"and offer our souls to Almighty God.
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Do we really have to accept suffering? Sure, there will always be suffering, but don’t we always try to reduce suffering with comming up with better social structures and better technology?
 
Leela said:
Do we really have to accept suffering? Sure, there will always be suffering, but don’t we always try to reduce suffering with comming up with better social structures and better technology?
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Yes, absolutely, but there will never be heaven on earth. The thought that there should be is one of the things that drives the move to abortion and euthanasia. If we can’t make things perfect, off you go. Mother Theresa said something like the greatest poverty is lack of love. I think much suffering would be avoided or reduced by this, but our world seems to be pressuring us in the opposite direction, so that we can’t even if we want to.
 
Suffering can mean many things to different people.In some parts of the world poverty is the cause as people do not get one square meal a day.Some may be terminally ill or afflicted by disease.True to a degree changing social structures and modern technology will help but we cannot eliminate sufferering as it is part and parcel of life.More than physical suffering mans’ indifference to his neighbour brings about mental suffering but this is not something new as Our Lord Jesus encountered this despite all the good he did for people.How we bear our suffering is the important factor as we should continue to have faith in Jesus Christ.The Holy Spirit is the best source of succour and relief when one is suffering physically and mentally and he gives us the strength to bear all types of pain.
 
Yesterday the news told of the arrest of a Black punk who had, after an argument with the 17 year old babymama of his three month old son, threw the baby violently to the floor, beat up the mother, took the baby from the house and flung it from his speeding car.

I suppose that baby is purified now.
 
This is an example of extreme brutality it is a great pity that there are several such people in this world.There are cases I know where the Father raped his daughter who is a minor,There are also sevaral other cases of sheer brutality too numerous to mention.Unfortunately there is good and evil in this world and Man has the the Free Will to chose.If one traces history there has been several people who have suffered brutal ends to their lives some for thier religous beliefs,some for their country and still a large number for no reason at all.God in his goodness will give them the eternal reward they deserve.
 
Appleby said:
Yesterday the news told of the arrest of a Black punk who had, after an argument with the 17 year old babymama of his three month old son, threw the baby violently to the floor, beat up the mother, took the baby from the house and flung it from his speeding car.
.
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Does the word ‘Black’ add anything to the point being made?

Re: *Unfortunately there is good and evil in this world and Man has the the Free Will to chose
*
This explains the actions of the perpetrator but does not explain the suffering of the victim who has no Free Will in deciding her/his fate.

Also, it does not explain a newborn child with a perfectly healthy and fit mother, which is born with some terrible, painful condition destined for a life of suffering and misery.
 
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