Good may indeed come out of suffering, but it would be quite wrong to believe that God causes suffering in order to produce that good.
Every time there is a major natural disaster – like the recent (2009) earthquake centred around the ancient Italian town of L’Aquila – a question always lingering just below the flow of day-to-day life comes to the surface. Why does God allow such devastation?
This of course is mainly a question for people of faith. If you don’t believe in God it doesn’t logically apply. Yet those eager to decry belief in God also seize on this question. If God is all-loving and all-powerful, they say, how can he allow such pain and suffering in the world? Either he is all-powerful and not all-loving, or if he is all-loving but not all-powerful.
But the dilemma posed is no easier for those of us who do believe in God. Some put forward notions of divine punishment – but what about the very young or innocent to whom dreadful things happen? Do they deserve to be punished? Others simply say, ‘It is God’s will’. (Here in Britain, in legal and insurance circles, natural disasters, which cannot be traced back to any human cause, are categorised as ‘Acts of God’.)
The Christian Bible has passages that talk of suffering as a refining and character-building process. ‘We rejoice in our sufferings,’ says St Paul, ‘because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character; and character hope.’ While there is some truth in this ‘refined by fire’ approach – of God acting like a father who disciplines his children for their own good – it clearly does not and cannot apply in all circumstances.
Good may indeed come out of suffering, but it would be quite wrong to believe that God causes suffering in order to produce that good. ‘Mack,’ God tells Mackenzie in William P Young’s remarkable book The Shack, ‘just because I work incredible good out of unspeakable tragedies doesn’t mean that I orchestrate the tragedies. Don’t ever assume that my using something means that I caused it or that I need it to accomplish my purposes.’ And he goes on, ‘Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist, but where there is suffering you will find grace in many facets and colours. In some instances pain is clearly beneficial. The Leprosy Mission quotes pioneering leprosy surgeon Dr Paul Brand saying, ‘I thank God for pain. I cannot think of a greater gift to give my leprosy patients.’ They explain, ‘This is because pain is the body’s mechanism for telling us that something is wrong; the leprosy bacterium destroys nerve endings so that people cannot feel pain. If left untreated this ‘painlessness’ can cause disfigurement, blindness and possible loss of limbs through infection and damage that the brain doesn’t register.’ Why God allows suffering is perhaps one of the questions we will never find a full answer to in this life. Recalling some of the scenes he has witnessed during 22 years as the BBC’s Chief of Bureau in New Delhi, Sir Mark Tully (in his book India’s Unending Journey) asks, ‘Why should there be cyclones? Why should there be earthquakes? Why should there be droughts?’ He goes on, ‘I can’t pretend to have the answers to these profound questions, but I do know from personal experience that belief in God and in the grace of God can provide comfort, hope and meaning in times of suffering.’ One of the most refreshingly realistic and helpful observations I have come across is the following from Christian writer Margaret Clarksen. ‘Pain is pain and sorrow is sorrow. It hurts. It limits. It works devastation deep within personality. It circumscribes in a thousand different ways. There is nothing good about it. But the gifts that God can give with it are the richest the human spirit can know.’
Since graduating in Modern History from Oxford University, Paul Williams has worked for Initiatives of Change – mainly in India and Wales. For 20 years he was Secretary of the national twinning link between Wales and Lesotho.
NOTE: Individuals of many cultures, nationalities, religions, and beliefs are actively involved with Initiatives of Change. These commentaries represent the views of the writer and not necessarily those of Initiatives of Change as a whole.
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