On Suffering

Bart Ehrman's God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question-Why We Suffer takes a look at the ways in which Biblical authors dealt with the problem of suffering. This seems to have evolved from a rather straightforward God blesses the righteous and smites the unrighteous to the apocalyptic notion that God has let evil run amok in the world but will return soon and make things right. Neither of these, or the others in between, is satisfactory to Ehrman or to me. In between are such notions that suffering is the consequence of sin. What then do we make of hurricanes and tsunamis?

Like Ehrman, I am drawn to the proposition that suffering is a mystery. Unlike Ehrman, I am resigned to it and too afraid to stand in any kind of judgment of God. The unsatisfactory account of suffering in the Bible is, I reckon, a failure of imagination and discernment on the part of Biblical authors and scholars, and it is up to us to reinterpret it in a way that makes sense.

These views of suffering continue to resonate. The primitive view of an alternatively approving and wrathful God is alive and well in the megachurches and among televangelists. The apocalyptic view is way too popular considering that the imminent end never comes.

I reckon that suffering is inherent in the human condition. This is what we are and how God has made us. A prerequisite condition to our existence as humans is a world with dangerous meteorological, geological, biological and social phenomena. These are the sine qua non of what we are. This is not to say that we do not condole with those who suffer. On the contrary, the work of the Kingdom is to mitigate suffering, to console the hurting and to transform the world into one where suffering is increasingly bearable. Let us not look to the next life; rather, let us, with joy and gratitude, embrace this life and make it the best life it can be.

We might never have existed at all, you know. We might never have become sentient and capable of experiencing suffering. God is not finished with humanity yet. He is not finished with me.