The One Right Answer to the Problem of Pain
By Randy Newman, TGC.
Over the many years that I’ve listened to people share their struggles and questions about faith, the problem of pain is the objection most frequently raised. That makes sense. It’s a disturbing and ever-present problem.
Often the problem of pain is raised as an accusation against people of faith. “How can you believe in God in a world with so much evil and suffering?” The implication seems to be that Christians, Jews, Muslims, and adherents of other religions face an insurmountable incongruity between their reverent faith and unavoidable pain.
But pain is also a problem for atheists, agnostics, “nones,” and “dones”—those who once identified with a religion but now feel as if they’re “finished with that.” Whoever we are, we need both perspective and power to face suffering and pain: perspective to make sense of the suffering and power to handle it.
Weigh the Options
With this in mind, let’s evaluate five views of suffering, looking for answers to both the why and the how questions.
1. Moralistic View
This view is that suffering comes as a consequence of someone’s actions. It’s caused by people, and therefore it could have been avoided. This is a common view, and perhaps the oldest one.
It’s the perspective offered by Job’s friends. Job must have committed some sin, they tell him, and that’s why his children died, his property was destroyed, and his body is afflicted with disease (see Job 4:8). In the Hindu tradition, current suffering may even be the result of karma for a person’s actions in a previous life.
We should acknowledge that some suffering comes to people because of foolish choices they make. If you decide to drink a lot of alcohol and then drive a car, you may have an accident and get hurt or hurt someone else. When we experience pain and suffering, it’s worth asking if there’s something we could have done differently to avoid the mess we’re in.
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