CHAPTER XIII

 

THE ROLE OF SUFFERING,

AN OBSTACLE II?

 

 

The second objection suggested by necessary human suffering is that we can develop a virtuous life in a world without the kind of suffering from disease and disasters to which we are exposed in this world. Hence, such suffering is useless and should not be permitted by a good and omnipotent God. This objection is opposed to John Hick’s idea that the purpose of God’s creation is one of soul-making, that our task is to develop virtue in a very un-paradisal world which challenges us with extreme, potentially crushing, and apparently meaningless evils.1

Hick claims that the powerful but apparently meaningless suffering that we find in the present world functions as a necessary means to the development of virtue in our soul.2 If we knew the reason for any and every suffering that we had to undergo?that it was a punishment for our mistakes or a necessary means to our moral development?then our actions would be of a lesser value. We would be inclined not do something simply because it is right, but because of the reward or punishment. Hick has something here, for, although against Kant, a meritorious act can be one that is pleasant and agreeable to the agent, we must admit that an act done because it is right, even though it demands a sacrifice of the agent’s own immediate interests, is an act of greater value.

In a criticism of Hick, G. Stanley Kane claims that virtue or soul-making can occur in other ways that do not involve such suffering.3 Courage could be developed without physical evil in a freely chosen, difficult and demanding, long-range project such as writing a doctoral dissertation or training for the Olympic games. Such projects would demand steadfastness, perseverance, persistence in the face of difficult obstacles and strength of character. The virtue would be of the same sort as would be required to face up to illness, natural disaster, and similar adversity. The spouse of a doctoral candidate could develop just as much patience, fortitude and strength of character as someone who had to care for a child through a long and serious illness. People on an athletic team could develop cooperation just as much as those who band together to help their neighbors when a tornado or flood strikes. Even if one held that the courage developed in the face of evil was of a higher moral value than that developed in a world without evil, the two types of virtue would have much in common and be similar in character. Kane thinks that the theist would have difficulty, for he would have to hold that this minor difference in value outweighs the disvalue of all the pain that comes from natural evils.4 

As we have seen in Chapter Nine on knowledge, this objection is suspect. The key is the various degrees of courage which suggest more of a major difference in value than Kane’s minor difference. The courage manifested on the athletic field is for a short time; the person who has a terminal illness is in a game that never ends, or ends only with his death. An athlete willingly competes; the sick person does not have the option of playing another season or retiring, but must come to grips with unavoidable pain that does not cease. After a game an athlete can relax with friends and forget a humiliating loss or performance; a man with a progressive debilitating illness takes it with him wherever he goes. The Olympic athlete is rewarded with money; the sick person is well on the way to becoming poor. It is hard to see a minor difference in courage between that called for in an athlete who has failed to make the Olympic team or has come in last in the high jump, and the virtue demanded from a man who has just lost his wife and children in a tragic fire. There is no comparison between the failed doctoral candidate and the person who must live with terminal cancer. Or, . . . little comparison between the wife of a crisis ridden scholar and the single mother who must care for a brain injured or spina bifida child for fifteen years or more. There’s no comparison between the courage asked of the girl whose four children suffocated in a sweltering car parked in a hospital lot while she gave blood, and that of the sprinter who was just forbidden by his government to take part in the Olympic games. The evidence points to a deeper division between these two degrees of courage than Kane would seem to admit. It is very difficult to downgrade the virtue asked of us by truly unfortunate events.

Nor can we say with much confidence that without the need to struggle against disease and natural disasters, we would pursue more humanly rewarding projects.5 It is unlikely that many of us would be like the risktakers who willingly seek out challenges and freely choose to confront evil and death. The more likely scenario would include a marked decrease in the amount of courage and other virtues. Many of us are weak, lazy, irresponsible, and tend to slacken off in our efforts to reach a higher goal when we are not pushed. In a world without the present kinds of evil, it seems more probable that it would take much greater effort to develop the virtues in question. Only a limited number of people are willing to risk their lives to attain distinction, to perform actions beyond the call of duty, to put in long periods of training to achieve a skill. Many are inclined to sit on the sidelines and let others develop virtue. There is good reason to think that in the end it would be harder, not easier, to develop virtue in a world in which we could never be seriously hurt. It is not at all clear that in a world devoid of unavoidable suffering, humans would develop a life with as much virtue as we find in the present world.

If life were a game in which we could never get hurt unless we chose to expose ourselves to evil, it would very well be empty and aimless for more people than it is now. At times we have to be forced against our will to confront reality. The sober realities of death, illness, the need to work and to cooperate with our fellow humans remind us that we are involved in more than a mere game. We realize the possibility that danger can act as a purgative force that makes a person more human. We have seen that the possibility of suffering a real loss of some consequence forces us to live at a deeper level of existence. It is obvious that our present world asks a great deal of us. It is not clear that such a world is not better than one in which too little is asked.

One might express the objection in this way: God should have made a world in which severe suffering was not forced upon us but freely accepted by us if we so desired. For the courage shown in difficult circumstances that were freely chosen would be of greater value than that manifested in the face of what we humans cannot control. Would it not be better if God saw to it that no unwanted evils afflict us? Would it not be better and in accord with the value of freely chosen evils that our world have no disease, no floods, no earthquakes, no famines, no injustice, and the like?

Although at first glance this objection appears to have some strength, further inquiry shows it not to be so powerful. Although it is true that occasions to practice virtue freely chosen make our actions more valuable, it is also highly doubtful that humans would choose to be challenged by such suffering if it were not forced upon them. How many human beings would freely choose to go through the sufferings wrought by natural disasters and disease? Not many, to be sure. On the contrary, our choice would be in the opposite direction. And we feel strongly that we are doing the right thing when we go to great lengths to avoid such evils. If we had our say, most of us would opt for a world without such disasters.

Most of us would want a world without the need to respond to such powerful challenges to be courageous, faithful, and the like. Natural evils and evils that are inflicted on us by others challenge us to develop virtues that we would otherwise neglect. The suffering occasioned by natural disasters gives us an opportunity that we would never choose for ourselves. It forces us to choose or reject virtue, to advance toward perfection or to retreat.

C.S. Lewis gives us another possible reason why it is better that we be exposed to unwanted suffering.6 He claims that without pain man would be wrapped up in himself, and nothing could break through and call him to his proper destiny. The happiness and worldly prosperity that we enjoy might be an obstacle to our true end in life which, for Lewis, is the knowledge of God. We might enjoy a trouble-free life so much that it might take all our attention and leave no time in our lives for God, our true end. We have a tendency to turn to God only as a last resort when all other things in life fail to please us, or when our worldly goods and pleasures are taken away. According to Lewis, we are wrong; we should not use God merely as a parachute.

The suffering that we are forced to undergo because we are part of this natural world, then, shakes us up, reminds us of a greater calling, and prepares us for our only true good. At death, that momentous event that we all must face, we will leave all earthly possessions, friends, and status. The only realities left will be ourselves and our relation to God.7 Pain and suffering can be seen as a challenge to correct our orientation in life, a challenge that could hardly occur in a world of no natural evils. It gives us the opportunity to purify our intentions and to focus our attention on our true goal.

Another reason in defense of a world in which humans must face unavoidable suffering is the questionable possibility of a world without natural disasters and evils. A world without earthquakes, floods, tornadoes and the like, might be conceivable in a kind of science fiction context, but it is impossible, given what we know of the universe. Those who advocate such a world must give us their proposal in comprehensive detail, showing the consequences of eliminating the unwanted evils. This amounts to a re-writing of the laws of nature as we know them, including a re-working of our understanding of what it means to be human?a task in which nobody so far has made significant progress. The mere claim that the omnipotent God should be able to bring about such a world is a piece of unwarranted mysticism.

In the present world suffering is a natural consequence of man’s place in nature, for nature operates on the principle of the building up and breaking down of organic and inorganic elements. We humans, as bodily creatures, are part of nature?we are related to the realm of the physical world, even though by means of our intellectual dimension we go beyond it. There is no reason why we should be immune to the characteristics of such a world. Hence, humans are exposed to suffering and pleasure just as every other sensitive bodily creature. In order to have a world without humans suffering from natural evils, we would have to show in detail how human beings would have bodies that share their anatomy with other animals and their physicality with rocks and trees, but still do not respond like other bodies in the universe. The articulation of such a world is a formidable task which thinkers hesitate to embrace.

In such a context one would have to overcome the present status of humans, and change our place in the world of nature. That is, we humans are not the highest being of creation in every respect, and hence we must defer to or suffer when we come into contact with some of the others. A dog can run faster than we, a rock is more lasting, a lion is stronger, certain types of atoms are more powerful. We are not absolutely the highest being in the universe.

A theist view sees all such entities as manifesting somewhat the greatness of God in a more perfect way than does man. They might do so in a more limited way than we who have many perfections and potentialities that stem from our vastly more powerful intellect. And yet, because, for example, a rock manifests stability, and a lion manifests great power, such entities have a kind of right to maintain their existence even when confronted by humans.

Nonhuman beings, then, are justified in existing and acting according to their natures. Characteristics such as the permanence of a rock or the dynamic power of electricity both of which surpass similar respective powers of a human, allow us by way of affirmation, negation, and analogy to arrive at a hitherto unappreciated aspect of the Divinity.8 So, these various creatures that hurt us when we encounter them in the wrong way or at the wrong time have a distinctive role to play in the universe. When we meet them, their superior power or stability must prevail. To the theist who sees God as the rich source of existence and sees that to know him is part of our destiny, the intense complexity of this exciting and dangerous world gives us a point from which we can launch our most important life’s project.

Process philosophers in general agree with how creatures other than humans have a special status in God’s sight. The aim of the creative power of the universe is to promote the intrinsic goodness of experience itself. Some combination of harmony and intensity of experience which is the aesthetic criterion of the good is within the capacity of even nonhuman animals.9 God is concerned about all creatures, many of whom are endowed with a type of freedom that allows them to act according to their nature, even if they cause humans to suffer.

Of course, how we respond to such evils is of the utmost importance. In the last chapter, we have emphasized the possibility that a person need not be destroyed or crushed by evil. Here we will say more about our response to the challenges of the world.

The conquering of evils that are thrust upon us against our will is a tremendous achievement when it occurs. Natural disasters, for example, confront us with the greatest of all challenges. Transcending them or not letting them kill the spirit is an action of great value. Meeting the challenge to sacrifice for and show effective compassion toward our neighbor?to make the world a more loving place?is an important step toward our own soul-making. The person who overcomes tremendous odds to conquer a disease or to pull himself out of poverty deserves our admiration.

Peter Koestenbaum, an existential psychiatrist, puts it this way: the meaning of life is found in the conquest of suffering.10 In times of crisis, man is challenged to go beyond himself, to move to a higher level of existence, a level at which he sees himself as never before. This deeper insight into human existence is all important. The existential way of seeing things is based on the idea that in our deepest pain we can also find our deepest meaning. Death puts us into contact with the real. Koestenbaum says that if he were a good and omnipotent God, he would create a world in which the existence and overcoming of evil would be the fundamental program of nature.11 

As we have seen in the previous chapter, Viktor Frankl’s view is that the attitude we take toward suffering, the attitude in which we take our suffering upon ourselves, this is what truly matters in a person’s life. What we are looking for in life is not pleasure or power, but insight. Frankl claims that our main concern is not to gain pleasure or avoid pain; our primary motivational force is that which leads us to find meaning in our life. One important way to achieve this is to accept the challenge of unavoidable suffering. If one takes on the challenge to endure evil bravely, then life has meaning up to the last moment, and one actualizes the highest value. Suffering ceases to be suffering once man sees that it has a purpose.12 If a person has a reason, then one can endure any kind of evil, while a person with little purpose in life would find even a life of pleasure boring and undesirable. We should accept courageously the suffering that is inevitable.13 A person should shape one’s destiny wherever possible, and endure it where necessary. In this way one balances the pursuit of freedom with the exercise of courage.

This way of looking at things demands that when each day we are questioned by life, our duty is to answer responsibly. No matter how great the suffering that confronts us, we still are free to find a meaning for it or to refuse to see it as a challenge and a chance to grow in virtue. The meaning is there to be found, but we have to be disposed to find it.

Suffering is ambiguous; it does not necessarily bring about virtue or a moral collapse. It is rather an opportunity which is accepted by some and rejected by others, an obstacle to increased dignity that can be overcome by some and that effectively stops others. How it functions is really up to us. Our subjective disposition, the way we experience evil, is critical. We can stand tall or break down in the presence of evils thrust upon us.

If we insist on talking about better worlds which God should have made, then a reasonable candidate is a world in which persons have the opportunity to freely choose to rise to the challenge of these greatest of evils, to maintain their spirit, and to bring good out of such evils. This would be a better world than one in which humans are never so challenged.

C.S. Lewis focusses upon the signal character of unavoidable suffering. Suffering can be seen as a sign to us where our true values should lie: somewhere outside the material possessions of this life or somewhere beyond our present life. At death, we will leave all earthly possessions, friends, and status; the only realities left will be ourselves and our relation to God.14 Suffering that is forced upon us is a "little death," in that in both suffering and death we are forced to be separated from something that we truly desire. When we suffer, we experience a loss. At death we will experience the ultimate earthly loss. Suffering is the preparation for the moment of death that all of us must face. Every person must die, but how one looks at death and how one dies is in a very real sense a personal question. Like Frankl, Lewis focusses on the need to be willing to face up to the unpleasant realities challenging us from time to time.

The third objection to the claim that suffering is necessary is that if evils are the occasion of courage, compassion, and the like, which are so important to the spiritual life, then why do we try to protect ourselves from disasters, disease, poverty, and injustice? If suffering is helpful and important, if it leads to the development of virtue and a closeness to God, then we would expect it to be sought after by devout believers who would look for opportunities to experience it. However, that we do not find.

Clearly, most people, even the spiritually minded, ordinarily do not seek out suffering as something that can help them. This is not to reject the value of asceticism and our need to deny and discipline ourselves. We recognize the value achieved by someone who puts herself into danger, aiming to distinguish herself or to come into contact with her deepest being. Most people, however, try to distance themselves from the conditions that call for the exercise of unusual courage, patience, compassion, and the like. We think it proper to try to protect ourselves from disasters, to do away with disease, poverty, and injustice. We do not think that we should sit back and merely respond passively to the world as we find it. We try to reduce the amount of suffering and to make the conditions of life less harsh for ourselves and our neighbors. Either such conditions are evil, and we are right in fighting against them, or they are good?opportunities for exercising virtue?and we err when we try to ameliorate them, for we thereby diminish the number of opportunities for practicing virtue, and thereby lessen the total good of the universe.

We know that some persons in power focus upon the need for the less fortunate to moderate their requests for change and less harsh conditions, to see their situation as an opportunity to practice virtue. Some do not want to share their good fortune with the less advantaged and move decisively to stifle revolutionary tendencies. Their argument is that the "have nots" should see their deprived status as an opportunity to practice self-denial, industry, courage, faith, love of God and country, compassion for their fellow sufferers, and the like. The poor should be resigned to their condition, for that is their destiny and in that they will achieve their fulfillment. The suggestion is clear: the "have nots" would be better off if they submitted to the way things are and did not struggle for changes that would involve the sacrifices of others. The matter is sensitive, for at times patience, harder work, and resignation constitute the better course of action, even for those rightfully committed to change.

It is a mistake to think that, in general, we should not try to lessen the evils in our life. The principle that we should not try to eliminate the evils of the world could be the cornerstone of a heartless society in which persons would be justified in caring little about their neighbor’s pain or poverty. It would strike at the core of human society, the need for cooperation with and help for each other. It would also downgrade the idea that part of a person’s destiny is to free oneself from the influences of the physical world and attain a deeper degree of freedom. We should not advocate or accept a world in which humans should not try to better their condition. It is not that we should avoid suffering at all costs. Even critics such as Madden and Hare agree that some of it is necessary in certain circumstances. Rather, in general, we strive to get rid of conditions that bring about suffering because we think that we should have the option of exposing ourselves to such dangers or of remaining protected from them. This gives us a more meaningful freedom that is consonant with the spark of the infinite in us that leads us toward an expansion of our being.

The value of a truly free response or a truly free life needs no defense today. The theist tries to eliminate war, disease, starvation, and the like because he is morally bound to exercise love toward his neighbor. True human love strives to leave it up to the person loved as to how much suffering or how many opportunities for the development of virtue he must seek. It’s not that nobody should increase the amount of suffering for himself. As a person pursues virtue, it might be in order for her to seek out situations in which she might suffer. It is possible that some persons should follow Simone Weil’s view extolling the power of suffering to bring us closer to the Divinity.

However, whereas a person might be obligated to herself to search out opportunities for the exercise of courage, industry, hope, and faith, that is her decision to make. The reason: We must respect personal autonomy. Our obligation to have concern for her, to love and help her leads us to relieve her of the burdens she does not see fit to bear. We are obligated to protect and enhance our neighbor’s freedom so that we do not inflict evils upon her, as if we were the ones to decide what was good for her. We leave it up to the individual person as to how much suffering or how many opportunities for the development of virtue she must seek.

What if we succeed in ridding the world of the evils that impact on us and the cruelty, injustice and the like that we inflict on others? Objectors might say that then we will have eliminated the evils that functioned as stimulants to greater virtue, the result being a world of less value than the present world. In reply, one might argue that the immense achievement of ridding the world of human evil would redound to the benefit of all (as cumulative evils have hurt us all) and that we could justly enjoy the better world that would result. Or, a world in which we dissipated many of the evils would be a remarkable place in which we would have undergone such a profound transformation that we would very likely be ready and able to search out opportunities to practice virtue without being goaded by the present occasions of suffering. In such a world a person might be benefited by the perfection achieved by others in the past who attained their remarkable state by transcending unavoidable suffering.

While it is clear that we should not cause others to suffer, and that we alone should determine how ascetic we should be, how much suffering we should expose ourselves to and how we should respond to the suffering that we cannot avoid is an important question.

For most people it is highly unlikely that anyone would choose to subject oneself to the intense suffering that Simone Weil talks about as leading to a mystical experience. Even if she is right that suffering is the key to one’s spiritual life, to follow through on such a conviction is a personal matter. For many people, Viktor Frankl’s view that a man should shape his destiny wherever possible, and endure it where necessary is more attractive.

That the loving God, to some degree, should leave it up to us as to how much suffering we should be exposed to, since true human love leaves that decision to the person loved, is not a serious objection. Above we have noted how humans would most likely respond with little enthusiasm to such an opportunity.

Up to now, we have seen suffering and pain explained in many ways: as a means to appreciate being alive, as a necessity, as a challenge to move to a higher level of existence, as a call to greatness which some will answer and others will ignore, as a means to deep insights into oneself, as a reminder of our true destiny, as a communications contact line to the Divinity. These are powerful functions which tempt us to see such evil as something to be accepted at least, if not to be sought out and pursued.

So far we have not considered the claim that the evils humans must suffer are God’s punishment for Adam’s sin, or what is commonly referred to as the "Fall of Man". In the following chapter we will consider what we call "the punishment problem." There we will see that at times genuine punishment need not be causally rooted in Adam’s sin. We humans are rightly punished when we go against the laws of nature or do not pay close enough attention to important things.

 

NOTES

 

 

1. John Hick, Evil and the God of Love, Ch. 13 and 16.

2. Ibid.

3. G. Stanley Kane, "The Failure of Soul-Making Theodicy."

4. Kane, pp. 3-4.

5. Kane, p. 3.

6. C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, Ch. 6.

7. Ibid., pp. 95-97.

8. Joseph Campbell says that we cannot say that serpents should not be, but we can rightly kill a poisonous snake which is about to bite us. I agree with Campbell here. For God all things are good and right and just. As a metaphysical observer we must recognize the right of the serpent to exist and act according to its nature. One of the great challenges in life is to say yes to that person or act which in your mind is the most abominable. As a metaphysical observer we have to accept a world in which there is brutality, stupidity, vulgarity, and thoughtlessness. By using the negative way we deny such attributes to God and thereby in a small way perfect our knowledge of him. Campbell, The Power of Myth, pp. 66-67.

9. David Ray Griffin, Evil Revisited, p. 168.

10. Peter Koestenbaum, Is There an Answer to Death? (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1976), pp. 54-61.

11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, pp. 178-181.

14. C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, pp. 95-97.