When suffering comes, as it will to all of us, we usually wonder why we have been singled out for such experiences. The classic work on human suffering and religious faith still remains the Book of Job. The characters in this ancient drama provide several perplexing answers to the question: why me, God? The protagonist in the book (Job) is extolled by God as the quintessential "righteous man" (Job 1:8), but in the prose prologue (1:1-2:13) Job is afflicted with unimaginable suffering, caused by Satan with the expressed permission of God. Satan wants to test Job's faith: "Take away Job's blessings," Satan urges God, "and Job will curse you" (Job 1:9-11). Job is completely unaware of this dialogue between God and Satan.
Job's three friends in the central poetic section, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, tell Job that his suffering is due to his sins. Such is the general view of antiquity: sin causes suffering; Job is suffering; therefore, Job is a sinner (Job 4:7; 8:1-6; 11:4-6). Job rejects their views as "windy words," and calls them "miserable comforters" (Job 16:2-3). Job admits he may have sinned, but continues to insist that his suffering is out of proportion to whatever his guilt may be (Job 6:24-30; 9:20-21; 10:5-7; 12:4; 13:2-5; 16;2-3; 19:4; 23:3-7; 27:2-6). The chapters by Elihu (32:6-37:24) are a later addition to the book, but Elihu adds a further reason for human suffering: God refines or disciplines the human being through suffering (Job 36:8-12).
In God's response (Job 38:1-43:6) he does not answer Job's questions (Job 23:3-7; 6:24-25), but simply intimidates Job with his awesome power and superior knowledge (chapters 38-41), but the reader of the book, having read the prologue, knows that Job is suffering because of the capricious backroom bargain struck between God and Satan (Job 2:1-6), which is not something God is apparently willing to admit. In the end Job simply capitulates (Job 40:1-5), accepting that he will never know why he is suffering (Job 42:1-6). The book as a whole affirms that "no theoretical solution to the problem of suffering is possible" (Eissfeldt, Old Testament Introduction, 457).
It is perplexing to me that sufferers persist in thinking that they have been singled out to suffer by an invisible power for some particular reason. As we are taught in public school curricula (perhaps not in faith-based schools), the universe for all its regularity is still full of randomness. For example, a desiccated brown leaf falls in front of you as you walk into the back yard. It is not an unusual event—in a sense it is a non-event, meaningless, unless you assign some significance to it. Another example: even though your car is the only one in the lot to suffer the indignity of bird droppings, few of us would ask "why me, God?" but would shrug it off as the random act it is. In spite of the regularity of the universe (meaning: things usually work that way) deviations from regularity in the physical world do not have religious significance, unless we decide that they do.
Many think, however, that God micromanages the universe, and is therefore responsible for every-day tiny details, such as thinning your hair and clogging your shower drain (cf. Matt 10:30). They will imbue with religious significance even the most banal events in the most insignificant pedestrian day. Hair loss, however, is a perfectly natural occurrence—your thinning hair is likely due to genetics or perhaps a diet deficiency. The truth is we live in a dangerous universe and are subject to any number of debilitating diseases. The state of our health depends on our genetics, our physical condition, our diet, the quality of our medical care, and, unfortunately, on our ability to pay for medical services. "Mother Nature" is the more likely cause of your suffering—another is the lack of progressive health and human welfare programs in your community, for which our political leaders share the heaviest load of blame.
People who suffer do not turn to God for help with their physical pain. Physicians do the better job of helping us manage our physical pain. God, on the other hand, perhaps does better with helping us manage our mental and emotional suffering—although some illnesses in this area require medication and God is reduced to playing a supportive role. Many testify that faith in God brings spiritual comfort and emotional peace in their suffering. Such faith in many ways is a spiritual elixir bringing palliative psychological and emotional comfort to the sufferer. Such "spiritual therapy" cannot be measured in a test tube, but for believers what it produces is just as real as aspirin for a headache.
The "why me?" question, however, completely stumps true believers, even though they may find spiritual strength to bear the indignities of severe disease. The answer of the author of Job is surprising: people suffer and there is no theoretical explanation. In the prose epilogue God chides Job's three friends for not telling the truth about God with their orthodox answers (Job 42:7-9), but God commended Job for "speaking of me what is right" (Job 42:7). Job never learned why he was suffering, but he refused to accept the easy orthodox counsel of his friends. The only thing of which he seemed sure was that God was not punishing him because of his sins.
What should be said about other reasons given by religious people for their suffering—testing, discipline, personal growth toward spiritual maturity etc.? These answers raise the question: what kind of God, do you suppose, would do such unconscionable things to people in the name of improving them? As Job said to Zophar: "Your maxims are proverbs of ashes" (Job 13:12)—or as we might say: "your truths are bywords of baloney."
Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University
Good comment, Charlie. Job is the ultimate classic. Certainly it deals with suffering, as you say, and the why of it; particularly as it applies to the “righteous.” My take on Job, as the quintessential account of the long human journey, is found in the “Job” essay in my book The Soul’s Long Journey/How the Bible Reveals Reincarnation.
ReplyDeleteJo Anne would appreciate your “Why me, God?”, particularly as it deals with bird droppings on her car in the car port—as well as on the deck outside her bedroom. Destroy its nest above these targets and it immediately rebuilds and poops on her domain again. I should tell her to read Job again.
Dr. Hedrick, boy did you roll thousands of years on a discussion into a few powerful paragraphs. I was just outside mowing the poor dead suffering lawn and pondering this same topic. My trees are sure in pain now in need of water.
ReplyDeleteFrom an early age (5) when a brother died of cancer and with my husband sick for many years, in sitting weekly with Richard Christian in his last years, etc, suffering and questions of such have been a key part of my existence.
If we borrow from other traditions, suffering is our ignorance. Or perhaps at some level we choose to suffer for some type growth. I'm not quite as quick to say it is all "random." I was sitting with quantum physicist last week, drinking beer in a pub outside of Sandia Nat'l Lab. They insist the world and all that is in it, is quite orderly.
Rita Moore
Hi Rita,
DeleteI have always thought that learning things through the experiences of suffering and tough times is due to the human genius that is able to find or discover a deeper meaning in the experiences--not that God teaches but that we humans learn. I do agree with your physicist friends that the universe is quite orderly and things happen with regularity so there is usually a reason in the natural world for things that occur: a dried leaf falling in Autumn is what most leaves do; birds indiscriminately pooping is what birds do (i.e., not potty trained). But even in the orderly world of the physicist things do not always work as we expect them to. Here is the only example that I know of a physical irregularity in the natural world. Sometimes light acts as though it is a wave and sometimes it acts as though it is comprised of a steady stream of particles. "This wave-particle duality is an unsolved dilemma of modern physics" (Young, Exploring the Universe (1971), 283.
Cordially,
Charlie
Hi Charlie:
ReplyDeleteThere are a few things that I find interesting here:
1. How is this sort of "improvement" any different than if such events were altogether random?
2. How do people who die as a results of such improvement interventions get the opportunity to improve themselves?
3. As far as I can tell, we haven't heard an answer "straight from the horse's mouth," but only the musings of various religious traditions.
Hi Lee,
DeleteThanks for "pushing the envelope" on the subject of suffering. If I understand your #1 and #2 statements you are suggesting that to think of God testing, improving, or disciplining human beings by causing/allowing their suffering does not really solve the problem of the disconnect between the character of the Christian view of God and the frequently terrible suffering of human beings. We would be better off simply to regard suffering as a random (or I assume natural) occurrence. But that raises the question how is God (i.e., the traditional view of Christian God) then involved with the world? If God is not involved with the world, what exactly does God do?
I agree with your #3. Religious answers about the nature of the world are only opinions based on a particular faith and religious tradition.
Charlie
Hi Charlie:
DeleteWhen it comes to human and animal suffering, I think a better question is this: Would any decent human parent treat her/his children that way? If not, then why should a lower standard of love and care apply to a god who is supposed to be much greater in every way?
I've long been a collector of cartoons. Their responses to the problems and challenges of being human are often closer to the mark than many of the writings of the "great thinkers." One of my favorites shows Charlie Brown in one of his battles with the kite-eating tree. Naturally, Charlie's kite becomes hopelessly entangled in the tree, and Charlie, looking towards the sky, cries out, "Why me?" In the last frame, facing forward, he says, "Don't answer that." Although we are naturally self-centered--we can only experience life from our own perspective--we are not the center of the universe. Maybe we all need to think at least once in awhile, "Why not me?"
ReplyDeleteGood Morning Marcia,
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this reminder from Charles Schultz about our tenuous place in the universe--that is we are always subject to the capricious threats of kite-eating trees. Your last sentence suggests that we humans live in an erratic or whimsical world and only by chance avoid the dangers that lie all around us. Would you care to say a little more about "why not, me?"
Charlie
Hello Charlie,
ReplyDeleteTo paraphrase a Gospel verse, Woe to the world for troubles or suffering that must come, but woe to the person who unnecessarily causes it. Regarding “Why me?” I think that Edward Reaugh Smith is on the right track. Students of reincarnation have given that question a lot of study. It is from unpleasant experiences and suffering that one’s spirit most readily learns lessons that convert into wisdom for one’s soul or conscience. As I understand it, in the between-life stage, after reflecting upon one’s own recent past life and receiving guidance from other spirits, one chooses to be born into a next life that will provide experiences most needed in the evolution of one’s own spirit/soul. Often expressed also is that the choice of a future life containing a tragic aspect for you is sometimes made because it will benefit the evolution of another, kindred soul who will learn from your experience. As your spirit evolves over many, many lifetimes, you will be better able, by heeding your conscience and logic, to avoid causing woes to the world. (However, it’s hard to discern if mankind’s souls are evolving even over two thousand years.)
To avoid thinking along these lines, Western religions envisioned an afterlife in heaven or in some resurrected state. Even in Hinduism the goal is to get out of the rebirth cycle and reach Nirvana at the end of one’s present life. So, if you aren’t asking “Why me?”in this life, you may already have done so in a past life or may do so in one or more future lives.
Hi Jim! You always raise interesting issues that force me to think and do a little research. On this issue, I think I disagree with you that we learn best through the unpleasant and through suffering. You of course are talking about "my conscience and my soul" learning rather than my brain. Hence I gather that the learning you have in mind are spiritual and moral lessons. My own experience has been different--others can speak to their own experiences. I have learned best when I had leisure undistracted time for contemplation and pondering--that would not be in periods of stress involving hospitals, etc. I cannot talk about what if anything my "soul" learns but my conscience is influenced for the good through observation and for the bad through social/political/religious indoctrination. To be honest personal suffering has taught me little, and I don't think Job learned anything from his suffering. Readers of course learn from the book of Job about the immorality of a God who could have prevented Job's suffering but did not. On the subject of reincarnation (metempsychosis) and belief in an afterlife on another plane of "existence": I did a hurried check of dating. One source cited an early date in the Iron Age (@1200 BCE) that thoughts about reincarnation were known (that date is uncertain as I could not verify it). Generally the idea of reincarnation is earliest associated with the religions of India and the germ of the Hindu ideas about reincarnation may go back to the Indus River area to around 2500 BCE. The written evidence in the Upanishads is written down around 300 BCE. Belief in an afterlife on another plane of existence, however, goes further back to Pre-dynastic Egypt (by artifact to around 5000 BCE) and is attested in inscriptions to around 2400 (the king) and in the burial of commoners in the Middle Kingdom (2040-1640). So your thesis that Western religions envisioned an afterlife in heaven to avoid thinking along the lines of reincarnation does not seem to fit the evidence. I am way out of my area here so would welcome observations from those who are better read in these areas.
ReplyDeleteCordially,
Charlie
It's true, a better question about suffering would be "Why not me?" Of course, it's easy to say this when everything is going well.
ReplyDeleteOver twenty years ago, while sitting in the waiting room of an intensive care unit for two long weeks, I became acquainted with many others, all of us waiting for news of our loved ones' conditions, alternating erratically between hope and dread. In these conditions a sort of macabre humor often surfaces, and we began to refer to ourselves as "the other guy." We hear and see of all sorts of tragedies that affect people on a daily basis--the "other guy"--and I suppose most of us think, "poor people" in one breath, and "thank God it isn't me" (or someone we love) in the next. If we are fortunate enough to go for long periods without experiencing tragedy, it is easy enough to begin to believe we deserve or have earned some special privilege, either through our own merits or because we are favored by God.
ReplyDeleteDo I think life is capricious? Since I don't believe in a "grand plan," to some extent I have to say, "yes." Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. More specifically, life happens, or as John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." That's the context for my statement: "Why not me?"
Over twenty years ago, while sitting in the waiting room of an intensive care unit for two long weeks, I became acquainted with many others, all of us waiting for news of our loved ones' conditions, alternating erratically between hope and dread. In these conditions a sort of macabre humor often surfaces, and we began to refer to ourselves as "the other guy." We hear and see of all sorts of tragedies that affect people on a daily basis--the "other guy"--and I suppose most of us think, "poor people" in one breath, and "thank God it isn't me" (or someone we love) in the next. If we are fortunate enough to go for long periods without experiencing tragedy, it is easy enough to begin to believe we deserve or have earned some special privilege, either through our own merits or because we are favored by God.
Do I think life is capricious? Since I don't believe in a "grand plan," to some extent I have to say, "yes." Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people. More specifically, life happens, or as John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." That's the context for my statement: "Why not me?"
Marcia Morriset