In reflecting on the mystery of suffering, we have looked at the redemptive value of suffering, and the compassion of Jesus who suffers with us. This post will address why there is suffering. For while it is a mystery why particular misfortunes afflict particular people, we do know from Sacred Scripture and Tradition why God permits suffering in general – in fact, why it is part of his plan. (1)
First: God’s will for us is that we should know him, love him, and serve him.
Second: For us to do this, most especially for us to love him, God has to give us free will. Love has to be freely chosen. Otherwise it is not love, it is mere servitude. We are called to serve God, but we must be loving servants of God. All of our acts of service must spring from the love of God and others deep within our hearts.
Third: God does not give us a token free will, but a genuine free will to follow him or reject him. Here’s what I mean by a token free will. With our kids, especially when they were little, my wife and I would give them a small choice to make when they didn’t want to do something. Let’s say it was time to take a bath and get ready for bed, but they wanted to stay downstairs and play longer. We’d give them a choice like, “Do you want Mom or Dad to take you upstairs for your bath?” This gave them some say in the matter and helped them go along with what we wanted. But it was a token choice, a small choice. The more fundamental choice – “Do you want to go to bed or stay up later?” – was not a choice we gave them.
But God does give us these fundamental choices. He lets us choose to go to bed at a reasonable hour or stay up as late as we want – even if staying up late means we’ll feel lousy the next day. Likewise, he doesn’t let us choose just between going to mass on Saturday evening or Sunday morning. He lets us choose between going to mass and being nourished by his Body and Blood, or skipping mass and being indifferent towards the incomparable gifts he gives us in the Eucharist. We have the choice, not just between different versions of what is good, but between following God – choosing good – and rejecting God – choosing evil.
Thus, because God loves us and wants us to love him in return (which is what will make us happy!), and because love has to be freely chosen, God gives us free will, with all of its consequences. (2)
Fourth: Our choices to reject God (and every sin is in some way a rejection of God, putting our desires over his will) are the reason suffering and death entered the world. Our sins frequently cause others to suffer, but our sins are also the cause of the physical evils in the world. The account of the fall of man in Genesis makes this explicit:
To the man [God] said: Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, You shall not eat from it,
Cursed is the ground because of you!
In toil you shall eat its yield
all the days of your life.
Thorns and thistles it shall bear for you,
and you shall eat the grass of the field.
By the sweat of your brow
you shall eat bread,
Until you return to the ground,
from which you were taken;
For you are dust,
and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:17-19)
This passage can read like a catalog of punishments from God, but that’s not the case. Physical evils – famine, disease, earthquakes, even death – are not punishments from God. Rather, they are the consequences of Original Sin, which ruptured the harmony inherent in creation. (3)
Jesus himself makes this point in the “Our Father,” when he says “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10) Without sin, there would be no suffering and death. In other words, heaven on earth. That’s the wondrous, uplifting message Jesus is sharing with us, and charging us to pray for.
But if we reverse Jesus’ words, the wages of sin become clear. When we choose our will over God’s will, we are basically saying, “My will be done, on earth what is not in heaven.” And what is not in heaven is sin and the wages of sin: suffering and death.
And yet suffering and death are not the end of the story, because God who made all things good takes what is bad and uses it for good. The supreme example of this is the death and resurrection of Jesus: the greatest injustice and cruelest suffering transformed into the triumph of life over death, the definitive act of mercy. And when we trust in Jesus, even our darkest days become times of transformation, of growth in holiness, through the gift of his grace.
Notes: See also the quotations from and links to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
(1) “If God the Father almighty, the Creator of the ordered and good world, cares for all his creatures, why does evil exist? To this question, as pressing as it is unavoidable and as painful as it is mysterious, no quick answer will suffice. Only Christian faith as a whole constitutes the answer to this question: the goodness of creation, the drama of sin and the patient love of God who comes to meet man by his covenants, the redemptive Incarnation of his Son, his gift of the Spirit, his gathering of the Church, the power of the sacraments and his call to a blessed life to which free creatures are invited to consent in advance, but from which, by a terrible mystery, they can also turn away in advance. There is not a single aspect of the Christian message that is not in part an answer to the question of evil.” (CC, 309)
(2) “Only in the knowledge of God’s plan for man can we grasp that sin is an abuse of the freedom that God gives to created persons so that they are capable of loving him and loving one another.” (CC, 387)
(3) CC, 400.
Image: Cain leadeth Abel to death by James Tissot (downloaded from Wikipedia Commons).
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