A GENTILE'S MEDITATION ON PAIN AND SUFFERING

Understanding Pain and Suffering as Nature’s Seal That Validates Our Humanity

De: Etim Uso

Narrado por: Virtual Voice

No human being needs a definition of pain and suffering to understand what they entail. The most crucial question about pain and suffering is not “What is pain or suffering?” The most crucial question that demands a cogent and unambiguous answer is, “Why do we have so much pain and suffering in the world?” This is the question that has dogged mankind for ages.

At the center of man’s frustration and anger with pain and suffering is the fundamental premise that God created the world. How could an omniscient and omnipotent God have created a world full of pain and suffering? What is even more frustrating and cruel is that pain and suffering do not discriminate between good and bad people. How could a just and benevolent God, known for His love, have allowed such an unjust situation in His creation?

An attempt by the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341 - 270 BC) to answer the question of why bad things happen to good people resulted in the Paradox of the Problem of Evil, which states: “If God is willing to prevent evil but is unable, then He is not omnipotent. If He is able but not willing, then He is malevolent. If He is both able and willing, then whence cometh evil?”

For Bertrand Russell (the 20th-century agnostic philosopher), the presence of pain and suffering in the world offers empirical proof that the world was not created by an Omniscient and Omnipotent Intelligent Creator, as claimed by many religions. In his book, “WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN,” Russell sarcastically asked whether any human being could not have produced “something better than the Ku-Klux-Klan or the Fascists” of this world if such a person were “granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years to perfect the world.”

The obvious conclusion we can draw from Epicurus’s and Bertrand Russell’s submissions is as follows: If this world of pain and suffering was created by God, then God is unjust and malevolent. This conclusion remains contemporary for many. However, this book seeks to clear every ambivalence that surrounds the issue of pain and suffering and why “bad things happen to good people.”

This book is not about the epistemology or physiology of pain and suffering, and neither is it an exploration of the psychological or scientific perspectives on pain and suffering. Although the book’s underpinning is the Scripture, it is neither a theological exegesis on pain and suffering nor one of those sanctimonious sermons, full of dogmatic platitudes, on pain and suffering.

The book is a synthesis of the interrogation of Scripture to create empirical paradigms on pain and suffering that align with the realities of human existence on earth. The book presents pain and suffering as essential parts of the human experience and highlights their function and roles in shaping and validating us as authentic human beings, meant to exist legally on this earth. It justifies pain and suffering as a mandatory exercise that completes and validates our humanity. More importantly, the book equips us with tools and methods for making the best out of pain and suffering in a way that turns us into better human beings.

But is there any solution to pain and suffering in our world? Yes, there is. However, we must understand that the solution to some types of pain and suffering may not lie in their immediate and total elimination. Sometimes, what we need is the grace to walk through the “valley of the shadow of death.” A pain- or suffering-free world is an unattainable Utopia.

For pain and suffering to go, God’s grace and mercy must go, and if God’s grace and mercy go, His judgment and wrath take over. But God has appointed a Day for judgment and wrath, and He will not change that day. God has no ad-hoc solution for pain and suffering, but a Final Solution. Until the day of that Final Solution, we must accept pain and suffering as part of our human heritage.