The Problem of Pain

[Elvenwarrior2k1]

I have a friend whose fallen away from the Church because of his difficulty in understanding why or how God can allow evil, particularly suffering, like natural disasters and disease, and still be just and loving. He reasons that if God knew these things would happen when he set things in motion He is therefore responsible for them. As the title suggests I’ve already recommended he read C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, which he read, but did not find sufficiently convincing. He has mentioned he’ll read it again to see if he’s missed something, and he seems open and wanting to find the answer.

So my question is: Does anyone have any good resources, such as books, etc., regarding suffering, pain, disease, natural disasters, etc. and how God can allow them and still be a good, just, loving god.

Thank you in advance.

 

[Jonesboy]

I have a friend whose fallen away from the Church because of his difficulty in understanding why or how God can allow evil, particularly suffering, like natural disasters and disease, and still be just and loving. He reasons that if God knew these things would happen when he set things in motion He is therefore responsible for them. As the title suggests I’ve already recommended he read C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, which he read, but did not find sufficiently convincing. He has mentioned he’ll read it again to see if he’s missed something, and he seems open and wanting to find the answer.

So my question is: Does anyone have any good resources, such as books, etc., regarding suffering, pain, disease, natural disasters, etc. and how God can allow them and still be a good, just, loving god.

Thank you in advance.

Natural events and pain aren’t evil. see my other post. There is no material property of “catastrophe” or “evil”, so there are no evils in the natural world.

Pain is necessary. If there was no pain then you would die.

Only psychology believes that suffering is bad. That is why they medicate grieving people.

 

[Elvenwarrior2k1]

Natural events and pain aren’t moral evils, but being against God’s original design they are designated as “natural evils.”

 

[Spock]

Natural events and pain aren’t evil. see my other post. There is no material property of “catastrophe” or “evil”, so there are no evils in the natural world.

You are right in the sense that “pain, suffering” in a godless universe are not “evil”. The term “natural evil” is not a good terminology. The problem is not the existence of pain and suffering, it is the unnecessary and preventable pain and suffering, and the assumption that God could prevent pain and suffering if God is omnipotent (able to do anything that is not a logical impossibility) and that God should prevent any gratituous (unnecessary) pain and suffering. Now, someone might assert that all pain and suffering is “good”, and “logically necessary”, but that is a very tall order to prove. As an example: how could anyone prove that the pain and suffering of animals perishing in a wildfire or drowning in a tsunami is “good”? Even if their death could somehow be “rationalized” into having a beneficial outcome, the method of their death cannot be.

Pain is necessary. If there was no pain then you would die.

That is not true. You start from the assumption that all pain and suffering has a “useful” aspect to it. No one can prove this assumption.

Only psychology believes that suffering is bad. That is why they medicate grieving people.

The people who need those mediciations also agree that suffering is bad. And rightfully so. No sane person seeks out unnecessary pain and suffering.

I have a friend whose fallen away from the Church because of his difficulty in understanding why or how God can allow evil, particularly suffering, like natural disasters and disease, and still be just and loving. He reasons that if God knew these things would happen when he set things in motion He is therefore responsible for them. As the title suggests I’ve already recommended he read C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, which he read, but did not find sufficiently convincing. He has mentioned he’ll read it again to see if he’s missed something, and he seems open and wanting to find the answer.

So my question is: Does anyone have any good resources, such as books, etc., regarding suffering, pain, disease, natural disasters, etc. and how God can allow them and still be a good, just, loving god.

Thank you in advance.

No one can successfully rationalize this problem into “nonexistence”. There are several attempts, and all of them fail. It is the quintessential thorn in the side of Christianity.

Suggested reading: the different attempts to explain away the problem of pain and suffering.

 

[Jonesboy]

Natural events and pain aren’t moral evils, but being against God’s original design they are designated as “natural evils.”

Nature, as we define it for our purposes here, is material and immune from claims of the existence of an inherent, nature-driven evil.

It comes down to Man and God to define what objects they see in Nature, or to describe what forms they create out of, or draw within, neutral Nature. Nature is the play-ground of free-will.

Make no mistake, the neutral playground we call Nature, and shamefully denigrate, was a formal necessity.

 

[Jonesboy]

That is not true. You start from the assumption that all pain and suffering has a “useful” aspect to it. No one can prove this assumption.

The people who need those mediciations also agree that suffering is bad. And rightfully so. No sane person seeks out unnecessary pain and suffering.

]

We may select particular pains and suffering for remedial action but not, like the psychologists and their willing victims, seek the nihilism of eliminating pain and suffering themselves.

 

[Spock]

We may select particular pains and suffering for remedial action but not, like the psychologists and their willing victims, seek the nihilism of eliminating pain and suffering themselves.

Completely irrelevant. The problem is to reconcile the existence of unnecessary pain and suffering with a benevolent diety. If there is just one instance of a pain for which it cannot be shown that it was logically necessary to achieve some greater good, then God is not benevolent (try the suffering of animals in a wildfire as a good exercise ). The usual argument is that we do not have access to all the facts, and “maybe” there is some unspecified “greater good” at the end of the pain, which would be obvious, if only we had all the pertinent information. And that “argument” is simply the fallacy of “argumentum ad ignoratiam”.

 

[supertubos]

I have a friend whose fallen away from the Church because of his difficulty in understanding why or how God can allow evil, particularly suffering, like natural disasters and disease, and still be just and loving. He reasons that if God knew these things would happen when he set things in motion He is therefore responsible for them. As the title suggests I’ve already recommended he read C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, which he read, but did not find sufficiently convincing. He has mentioned he’ll read it again to see if he’s missed something, and he seems open and wanting to find the answer.

So my question is: Does anyone have any good resources, such as books, etc., regarding suffering, pain, disease, natural disasters, etc. and how God can allow them and still be a good, just, loving god.

Thank you in advance.

Well, That is a difficult one. If your friend is looking to find an Answer within the Catholic Church, otherwise he will stay out, I tell you he will find none.

In the Book of Job, a lesson on pain, Job suffers and accepts suffering but he gets no answer to the question: “Why”?

Jesus accepted that horrible suffering like a Lamb, that does not protest, He said, but did not say WHY, only said that it was The Father’s Will. Why the Father wanted that for His Only Sun is beyond my understanding and puzzles me. I suffer a lot because of that.

David Attenborough, the famous BBC British Biologist, once said that he did not believe in God for he saw a child in horrible pain by a worm which grew into his eye.

But I have got 2 choices: either this world and suffering have got NO meaning OR there is a meaning hidden to you but kept by God.

I have got no choice but choose the second. I fall into God’s hands and say: “Thy Will Be Done”, though I do not understand. I prefer that to trust my miserable intelligence. How about other people’s intelligence? I have round the world 2 times and saw Buddha, Maome, marx, Lenine, the Epicurists, the Stoics, The nihilists, existencialists, teh agnostics and atheists, the Hindhus and Sihks, animists andfound nowhere nything that compares to Christ.

So this is my bet and I will stick to Him, no matter what…

 

[hazcompat]

Dives in Misericordia, Encyclical Letter Pope John Paul II on the Mercy of God

November 30, 1980

saint-mike.org/library/papal_library/john_paulii/encyclicals/dives_in_misericordia.html

peace

 

[GEddie]

Pain is necessary. If there was no pain then you would die.

To a point, that is true, as in when you step on a sharp object and the pain warns you to draw back your leg lest you be injured; pain then is good, it protects the human body from disability.

But it’s still a problem, as in many instances there is nothing to be done and yet the pain continues (someone recovering from burns, or dying of cancer.)

Only psychology believes that suffering is bad. That is why they medicate grieving people.

Suffering is generally something to be avoided: It is in our nature as human beings to avoid it. We don’t normally seek out physical trauma or dysfunctional relationships.

But the nature of our entropic world is such that suffering is not always evitable.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[sw85]

I have a friend whose fallen away from the Church because of his difficulty in understanding why or how God can allow evil, particularly suffering, like natural disasters and disease, and still be just and loving. He reasons that if God knew these things would happen when he set things in motion He is therefore responsible for them. As the title suggests I’ve already recommended he read C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, which he read, but did not find sufficiently convincing. He has mentioned he’ll read it again to see if he’s missed something, and he seems open and wanting to find the answer.

So my question is: Does anyone have any good resources, such as books, etc., regarding suffering, pain, disease, natural disasters, etc. and how God can allow them and still be a good, just, loving god.

Thank you in advance.

Personally, I’ve never understood the objection.

Pain fits perfectly into natural law (the basic theory underlying Catholic moral teachings; see Edward Feser’s The Last Superstition for a deep and insightful review of it). Pain serves an end: that of getting you to avoid that which is bad for you. It is no surprise that that which is painful is generally that which is capable of harming or killing you. Likewise with fear.

They are, therefore, the custodians of life. Without pain and fear, there would be nothing really stopping you from walking off a cliff without a parachute just to see what it would feel like.

If pain and fear are the custodians of life, and if goodness consists in a thing’s adherence to its end, then it follows logically that it is good to experience pain and fear in response to stimuli and situations that can harm you.

I cannot imagine any form of pain that does not stem from one of three or four things:

1. External stimuli (i.e., putting your hand on a hot stove).
2. Others’ will (i.e., being raped or murdered by another person).
3. Naturally-occurring disorder (i.e., somatoform disorders).
4. Possibly living a disordered life (in the sense that the rake who beds countless women may be deeply unhappy; but then in this case pain is simply part of a feedback loop ordered toward forcing him to adhere to natural law, and so may well be #1).

#1 follows logically from natural law. #2 cannot be prevented without rendering free will meaningless. And #3 is simply a corruption of the natural end of pain, a natural consequence of the biologically deterministic nature of our bodies.

If there is just one instance of a pain for which it cannot be shown that it was logically necessary to achieve some greater good, then God is not benevolent (try the suffering of animals in a wildfire as a good exercise ).

I don’t see this is the case at all. For one thing, God’s omnibenevolence is not taken as a given but follows logically from the rational arguments for His existence. He cannot not be omnibenevolent. If one cannot impose order on the operations of pain, it is because one’s reason is deficient or one’s will is disordered.

Second, natural law defines broad principles, without regard to specific circumstances. If pain exists to alert you that you are going to die or suffer if you persist on a course of action, then it makes no sense that you would not continue to suffer as you persist on that course of action – even if that persistence (in the case of torture or being trapped in a burning building) is entirely involuntary.

 

[Elvenwarrior2k1]

Well the counter argument of course goes something along then lines of why would a benevolent god allow things that cause suffering for no purpose, like diseases, in the first place? Basically the argument goes, that even given free will by individuals to cause direct pain on one another and God not wanting to interfere with free will, why would God allow disease and such since it doesn’t appear to involve people’s free will?

 

[pnewton]

This is something I wrote to a friend a couple of weeks ago, If it helps, fine. If not, then I apologize for the thread interuption. I may have to break it up into a few posts:

I would first like to address the problem of evil, for I think before one understands that God has a plan for us, I think it important to clear him of the accusation we all hurl at Him in the depths of despair, “God, if you are there, then how can you let this happen!” This type of cry, by the way, is not a totally bad thing. It at least engages God. It is always better to talk to God than to talk about Him. There are several ways of resolving the logical dilemma of evil. One is to deny that God is all powerful. We could believe in a ying-yang type of God in which the good God is balance equally by an evil Satan. The only problem with this type of God is that it truly does nothing except push back the First Cause (or Prime Mover) back one level. If we have a good God and bad Satan, then we have to ask who created them, as they would need a cause of creation greater than the effect of their existence.

We can also try denying that God is all good. We can be practical theist and see God as someone who just sets the world a-spinning and does not really desire the good of all. This address where evil comes from and thus has a rather dark problem of setting God up as the creator of evil. For if evil exists, then we still have a creator who designed evil into the world and a God. Thus, instead of having an evil twin to God in Satan, we have evil within God.

A third solution to the problem of evil is to deny the existence of evil. This is an easy out for the moral relativist, but a very hard road for all who watched the fall of the Twin Tower on 9-11. If you remember the mood of the country that day, it was a bad day for moral relativism. The atheist activists choose to say silent will spontaneous religious expression was shown at all public levels. Public officials in turn ignore atheist activists. For a brief moment we as a country became a bit saner. Why? Because we were more in tune with reality, specifically with the reality of good and evil. So denying the reality of evil is something we can only do part of the time. Crises will always serve to destroy our illusion, even if we choose to ignore the lessons that history teach over and over. I can not deny the reality of of evil, but I will take the unique position of denying the existence (or at least the material existence) of evil, while accepting its reality. This is not doublespeak and there are many examples of this that we accept every day. For example, darkness is something that can be absolute, or partial. But darkness can not really be said to exist. Light exists in the form of photons, but there is not corresponding darkness particle. Likewise we have vacuum being the absence of matter, silence the absence of sound, death is the absence of life, and we have evil which is the absence of good. But is this last example correct? I think so. In the creation account, we have God at every point stopping and pronouncing all the he has made “good”. There is nothing in the account that he pronounces as evil. There is a tree that is called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but even that is not called evil.

So we have the initial condition of the universe as good, from one end to the other. So how did evil enter, or more to the point, how did the perfect good of God diminish? We do not know. This actually had already happened before the creation. There was another type of being we know as angels. These were created as spiritual beings ( as opposed to a physical/spiritual hybrid like us). Since a perfect God demanded a perfect worship, he made the beings capable of worshipping him freely. Unfortunately, being free to worship and conform to God’s design also allows for the possibility of not conforming to God’s design. Thus, we have the first true fall (before Eden) where Satan refused to serve the plan of God (good). In his decision to void himself of all service to God for all eternity, he became a total vacuum of goodness, darkness devoid of light and death devoid of life. He became filled with pure evil. It did not “exist” in him as some thing, but became his reality. Then in Eden, we have this reality show up and continue to fight the divine plan of God by corruption of creation.

 

[pnewton]

(cont., see I told you it was long)

Adam and Eve did not need to eat of any fruit to have knowledge of good. They *knew *good. All of creation was good and they walked in the garden with Goodness Himself. What they lacked was the knowledge of evil, knowing what it was to reject God’s plan and pursue their own desires. This is knowledge that could only be obtained by actually rejecting the perfect goodness of God and act on that which was desirable to the eye. As you can tell, I am a big believer in free will. It is the only thing that solves the problem of evil. I also understand that God could only be freely loved by beings that had the will to freely love him. That being said, I am no fan of free will. My own stubborn will frustrates God’s perfection in my life. The free will of others has caused me uncounted heartache. You see, it is not only our sin that hurts, but all sin. From the first bite of the fruit which brought sin into the world our actions ripple out to wash over the lives of each other.

In the Garden, we start with perfect goodness, no evil and no suffering. God is indeed the Master Designer. However, from the moment of Eve’s desire, sin marred the design of God and “created” suffering by the diminishing the goodness of God’s creation. Adam sinned by following Eve in the eating of the fruit. I have often wondered if he did this out of desire of the fruit, or to please his wife. Perhaps I am putting my own personality on this too much, but I can see Adam following Eve in sin because in his heart he had already begun to make her more important than God. Often the sin of the heart precedes the action.

So now Adam has to toil for his food and Eve has to bear children in pain. As soon as sin entered in the world, God’s plan for redemption had begun. It was a painful, bloody plan that would span millennia. The world became more marred by sin and the goodness of God continued to diminish. Thus suffering became the norm of life. God did not create suffering, nor did he want it, but by golly, he did use it for our redemption. We suffer for our sin. We suffer as a result of the sins of others, especially those dear to us. But we also suffer because our world is broken. The sin of all contributes to the suffering of all. Hitler is considered a by-word for evil, yet the greatest evil he committed, The Holocaust, was not his alone. It was made possible by a society that for centuries had marginalized the Jewish people. Germany was not alone in this. All of Europe bears part of the blame. The Catholic Church bears part of the blame. The Protestant Christians bear part of the blame.

It was from the Holocaust, that the greatest work of suffering since the book of Job was penned, Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. (a great book, btw) Frankl notes that those who survive the suffering of Auschwitz do so because they find meaning in their suffering. For many, that meaning was related to their family, to one day see a loved one, or to carry on their family line. But where can a Christian go to find this meaning in their suffering? The very nature of this question reflects that I do not believe that we can name and claim our way clear of pain.

I have two suggestions. The first is the answer of Job. It is the answer of Jesus. He told us to come to Him for His burden is light. He does not deny the burden (sorry Joel Osteen), but he does say that it will be light. Our greatest resource, as is always the case, is prayer. Talk to Jesus. Ah, be we don’t want to, or can’t sometimes, when we are in deep anguish. Then we look to Job. God called him a good servant even all he could do is just rant and rave at God. At least Job knew where to turn in his anguish and did not stay silent. In the end, God could only tell Job that he can not possible understand. It is truly a Father’s message to a child in pain. “You can not understand, my son, not yet. Just know that I love you am hear with you.” That is what Jesus can do for us. After all, when a child goes crying to Daddy, he doesn’t want an answer. He wants love. Daddy holds him and loves him. Perhaps when he is older he can understand some things better. Perhaps when we graduate from this world to the next, we will too. For now, let us just trust in a Father’s love, a love so deep that He “sent His only begotten Son” to suffer with us, and to suffer for us.

 

[pnewton]

This brings me to the second answer to suffering, and the one in which we can find really meaning to our pain. It is the answer of St. Paul, who told us, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church.” (Col. 1:24). We know from other writings of Paul that the Church is the mystical body of Christ. But does the Church really need to still suffer, or to put it another way, is it necessary that Christ still allow His body to suffer?” Strictly speaking, it is not. Then Jesus did not strictly need to suffer all He did on the cross. He is infinite goodness. He could have redeemed us with one drop of His Sacred blood and suffered on tear down His divine cheek. Infinity multiplied by anything is still infinite. Yet he chose to suffer and die like no one for any other reason than he could. He gave all just because He had all to give. He shed every drop of blood He could until His heart could not be sustained. And while Jesus has risen body and spirit, while He sits at the right hand of the Father, He also remains. His body remains on Earth in the form of His disciples. Paul saw that his own suffering was suffering on the behalf of this body. He was a “little Christ”, as we all are to be. As he said to the Church in Corinth: (2 Cor. 2-6) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and God of all encouragement, who encourages us in our every affliction, so that we may be able to encourage those who are in any affliction with the encouragement with which we ourselves are encouraged by God. For as Christ’s sufferings overflow to us, so through Christ, does our encouragement also overflow. If we are afflicted, it is for your encouragement and salvation; if we are encouraged, it is for your encouragement, which enables you to endure the same sufferings that we suffer.

(fin)

This is a strange idea at first, but shouldn’t if follow logically that if we follow a suffering Christ, we will also suffer? If we damage each other in our sin, is there not also redemption in our suffering? Christians, after all, are connected in a much more intimate way that the rest of humanity. We are one body and share one Divine I AM that actually, really, dwells in us. The Catholic Church calls this redemptive suffering, btw, and while this is not how Catholic theologians might explain or look at this, it is the way a Baptist turned Catholic understands it. Remember what I said at first, this is my insight and is no more than one piece of a puzzle that God could not explain to Job, other than to say that he could not explain it. Yet I see a real way of finding a true meaning to all we endure. We unite ourselves with our Beloved who hung on the cross and pray that all our pain serve His Body today, our brothers and sisters.

(whew) FYI - This is the first time I have ever posted past the limit, so I guess this qualifies as my longest effort in seven years here.

 

[Spirithound]

If there is just one instance of a pain for which it cannot be shown that it was logically necessary to achieve some greater good, then God is not benevolent (try the suffering of animals in a wildfire as a good exercise ). The usual argument is that we do not have access to all the facts, and “maybe” there is some unspecified “greater good” at the end of the pain, which would be obvious, if only we had all the pertinent information. And that “argument” is simply the fallacy of “argumentum ad ignoratiam”.

(emphasis mine).

You want evidence for the motivations of a being for whose existence you believe there is no evidence, is that correct? One does not need to prove a statement to be true for it to actually be true. God’s existence is taken on faith, along with his motives and results. If one believes in an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God, and one believes that pain exists, then the only logical reconciliation between these two premises is that pain is a function of God’s omnibenevolence.

 

[sw85]

Well the counter argument of course goes something along then lines of why would a benevolent god allow things that cause suffering for no purpose, like diseases, in the first place? Basically the argument goes, that even given free will by individuals to cause direct pain on one another and God not wanting to interfere with free will, why would God allow disease and such since it doesn’t appear to involve people’s free will?

Diseases (like tornados and floods and volcanic eruptions) are the natural and unavoidable consequence of the habitability of the world. Does anyone really imagine that we ought to have been dumped alone on this earth?

 

[Spock]

You want evidence for the motivations of a being for whose existence you believe there is no evidence, is that correct?

Yes, it is correct.

One does not need to prove a statement to be true for it to actually be true.

True, but what is the point? To accept a statement, for which there is no evidence is blind faith. To accept a statement, that is contradicted by the available evidence is much worse.

God’s existence is taken on faith, along with his motives and results. If one believes in an omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent God, and one believes that pain exists, then the only logical reconciliation between these two premises is that pain is a function of God’s omnibenevolence.

Indeed, IF one accepts the preconditions on BLIND faith. But is anything is accepted on BLIND faith then no rational argument is needed. The OP started from the premise that somehow the existence of pain and suffering can be LOGICALLY and RATIONALLY reconciled with a benevolent God.

 

[Spock]

I don’t see this is the case at all. For one thing, God’s omnibenevolence is not taken as a given but follows logically from the rational arguments for His existence.

I sure would like to see that chain of fully secular and totally rational arguments. First for the existence of God, and second for the benevolence of God, which allows the unnecessary suffering of animals. Bring it on, my friend.

 

[JDaniel]

I have a friend whose fallen away from the Church because of his difficulty in understanding why or how God can allow evil, particularly suffering, like natural disasters and disease, and still be just and loving. He reasons that if God knew these things would happen when he set things in motion He is therefore responsible for them. As the title suggests I’ve already recommended he read C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, which he read, but did not find sufficiently convincing. He has mentioned he’ll read it again to see if he’s missed something, and he seems open and wanting to find the answer.

So my question is: Does anyone have any good resources, such as books, etc., regarding suffering, pain, disease, natural disasters, etc. and how God can allow them and still be a good, just, loving god.

Thank you in advance.

Elvenwarrior:

Welcome to CAF!

Even though this subject has been covered quite extensively in earlier parts of CAF, it is worth going over again. Firstly, ‘pain’ is not ‘evil’. And, ‘evil’ is not ‘pain’. ‘Pain’ is a necessary component of finite, physico-material existence, i.e., it is appropriate to being existential rational animals under the circumstances. If I have a heart that is undergoing a problem, I want there to be ‘pain’. If my appendix bursts, I want there to be ‘pain’. If I put my hand too close, or into the fire, I want there to be ‘pain’. (And the list goes on and on.) How, then, can it be ‘evil’?

It is called ‘evil’ only analogously. We make the analogy of pain with evil, and evil with pain, for whatever purpose that suits us. And, by the way, it’s a poor analogy at that. Real ‘evil’ is the partial to utter absence of “good,” i.e., “God.” (Which is the etymology of the word, “good.” It is from the “Old English gōd, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch goed and German gut.” - The Oxford Dictionaries.)

Furthermore, no one (or, almost no one) desires excessive ‘pain’. Excessive pain may be caused by someone with malicious intent, or, it may be caused by someone with good intent. That which it is is to be found out. Still, it is not ‘evil’. “Disease” is not evil. It is a correlate of matter, of being physical beings. Likewise, “natural disasters” are only analogously ‘evil’. When people are affected by natural disasters that is due to “chance.” Yet “chance” also makes some people millionaires. All of the above can be said to be authored by God. God is said to cause “evil” in the sense that He creates things which are good in themselves yet incidentally capable of causing harm to others. If a man erects a scaffold in such a way that he knowingly weakens the structure so that it collapses and harms or kills another; he is said to cause an ‘evil’. If another man builds a scaffold that unintentionally is weak, and that falls and harms or kills another, he may be said to be stupid. or at least, to have merely been the cause of an accident.

After a few minutes reflection, most people get it. It is impossible for God to directly cause evil. At that point their attention is turned to “prevention.” It is then said that a benevolent God should prevent, or stop, evil from occurring. Really, the better statement would be: “a benevolent God would prevent or stop that which is natural from occurring.” Or, one could say, “prevent nature from occurring.” That idea of “prevention” is the childish idea of a parent stepping in to help out a toddler. But, St. Paul says, in his letter to the Romans, Ch. viii, v 18, “The sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared to the glory to come.”

Do we pretend to know God’s Providence? We often do. Do we really know God’s Providence? How can we? The person who is angry with God for pain and suffering is angry at the wrong culprit. God is not the culprit. Another person or thing is the culprit with only a distant cooperation from God, in a certain sense. God’s concurrence with man’s deliberate acts does not diminish man’s culpability. Men are free to do this or that according to their personal exquisite whim which is one of their closest personal possessions. We are to suffer if asked to: for the ultimate benefit of mankind, to assist in absolving us of our complicity in the Fall.

I realize that the foregoing will not be too popular with some on the 'life" side of of the demarcation line separating “life” from “death.” In my opinion, that’s too bad. Theirs are sins of pride and envy, which only means that they might not get what they wished for, on the other side.

God bless,
jd