Why So Much Pain?
Why So Much Pain?
If a relationship with God as a basis of pleasure forms the first component, the explanation of pain forms the next. The illogic of pain forms a thorny question on which volumes have been written. Why do the innocent suffer? Why do we face all these diseases? Why the suffering of millions because of natural disasters or the tyranny of demagogues? A loving God cannot exist in a wicked world. Among others, I have written much on this in previous books. But let me just underscore a few ideas that we can come to terms with:
The first thought is this: Why do we even ask these questions about suffering within the context of morality? Why have we blended the fact of physical pain with the demand for a moral explanation? Who decided that pain is immoral? Almost every atheist or skeptic you read names this as the main reason for his or her denial of God’s existence. It is said that virtue in distress and vice in triumph have made atheists of mankind. New Testament scholar turned skeptic Bart Ehrman is one who states that this unanswered question precipitated his departure from faith in Christ. Charles Darwin said it was “the damnable doctrine of eternal damnation” that ended his faith in God. Many who survived the Holocaust state that when it was over, they found they had left their faith in God behind.
We know that in the Judeo-Christian framework, pain is connected to the reality of evil and to the choices made by mankind at the beginning of time. The problem of pain and the problem of evil are inextricably bound. However:
Why does assuming a moral law necessitate a moral lawgiver? Because every time the question of evil is raised, it is either by a person or about a person. And that implicitly assumes that the question is a worthy one. But it is a worthy question only if people have intrinsic worth, and the only reason people have intrinsic worth is that they are the creations of One who is of ultimate worth. That person is God. So the question self-destructs for the naturalist or the pantheist. The question of the morality of evil or pain is valid only for a theist.
Only in Christian theism is love preexistent within the Trinity, which means that love precedes human life and becomes the absolute value for us. This absolute is ultimately found only in God, and in knowing and loving him we work our way through the struggles of pain, knowing of its ultimate connection to evil and its ultimate destruction by the One who is all-good and all-loving; who in fact has given us the very basis for the words good and love both in concept and in language.
Not far from my home lives a young woman who was born with a very rare disease called CIPA… congenital insensitivity to pain with anhydrosis. Imagine having a body that looks normal and acts normally, except for one thing: You cannot feel physical pain. That sounds as if it would be a blessing. But the reason it’s a problem is that she lives under the constant threat of injuring herself without knowing it. If she steps on a rusty nail that could infect her bloodstream, she wouldn’t even realize it by sensation. If she placed her hand on a burning stove, she would not know she had just burned her hand except by looking at it. She needs constant vigilance because she could sustain an injury that could take her life or cause serious debilitation. When her family was interviewed some years ago, the line I most remember is the closing statement by her mother. She said, “I pray every night for my daughter, that God would give her a sense of pain.”
If that statement were read in a vacuum, we would wonder what sort of mother she is. But because more than anyone else she understands the risks of this strange disease, there is no greater prayer she can pray than that her daughter feel pain and be able to recognize what it portends.
I ask you this simple question: If, in our finitude, we can appreciate the value of pain in even one single life, is it that difficult to grant the possibility that an infinite God can use pain to point us to a greater malady? We see through a glass darkly because all we want is to be comfortable. We cannot understand the great plan of an all-knowing God who brings us to himself through the value of pain or of disappointment with pleasure.
James Stewart of Scotland wrote a brilliant passage in one of his books to describe how, in Christ, we are able to conquer through the mystery of evil:
It is a glorious phrase—“He led captivity captive.” The very triumphs of his foes, it means, he used for their defeat. He compelled their dark achievements to subserve his ends not theirs. They nailed him to a tree, not knowing that by that very act they were bringing the world to his feet. They gave him a cross, not guessing that he would make it a throne. They flung him outside the city gates to die, not knowing that in that very moment they were lifting up the gates of the universe, to let the king come in. They thought to root out his doctrines, not understanding that they were implanting imperishably in the hearts of men the very name they intended to destroy. They thought they had God with his back to the wall, pinned helpless and defeated: they did not know that it was God himself who had tracked them down. He did not conquer in spite of the dark mystery of evil. He conquered through it.3
The very thing that enslaves and traps us becomes the indicator of our need for God and the means to draw us to the recognition of our own finitude and to the rescuing grace of God. The pain of pain clasps the lifesaving hand of God and draws us into his arms.
In the New Spirituality, “pleasure” and “pain” become self-reflecting terms from a mirror that deceives and distorts. In the person of God, our Creator, revealed in Jesus Christ, we see what legitimate pleasure is and why evil inflicts pain. These real feelings/experiences point us to our essential worth and to our calling into an intimate relationship with God. That relationship has a reach that goes beyond us to others and enjoins a life of stewardship of all creation, culminating in worship.
We’ll come back to the issue of pain before the end of the book.