Campus Ministries: Catholic Ministries

WHY DOES GOD LET PEOPLE SUFFER?

People suffer. Even good people. Pain can be a helpful signal that something is wrong. But what of people whose lives seem to be swallowed up in a great cloud of suffering? We view on the news the catastrophic suffering caused by earthquakes and wars, famine and disease. Such suffering leads people to question: if God is as benevolent and almighty as we believe, why doesn't the Good God use divine power to stop people's suffering? Why does God let people suffer? What follows are some personal reflections on the great mystery of suffering.

Our Responsibility

Almost all suffering is caused by what we do, or fail to do. God gives us an earth rich enough, and intelligence keen enough, to meet the needs of all the earth's children. It is our own greed and fear that squander our material and mental resources, and lead to so much suffering.

For example, we create such inequitable economic systems that 20% of the world's population consume 80% of the earth's resources, leaving 80% of humanity to subsist on only 20% of the earth's goods. Can we rightly blame God, then, for the 40,000 people, mostly children, who die every single day from malnutrition?

If we dedicate the time and talents of half our scientists and engineers to the defense industry, should God be blamed because so many of our basic human needs are left unmet? If we spend as much money on one B-1 bomber as we spend all year on cancer, or heart, or AIDS research, who's to blame if we have not yet found the cure for these ravaging diseases?

The sorry list of our tragic misuse of resources goes on and on. We cannot blame God for the injustices we ourselves cause. We are personally responsible for our own actions, and for their consequences, in our lives and in our world. God is not a scapegoat for our sins.

What of all the suffering produced by natural disasters--floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanos? Isn't God responsible for these?

Many of our floods are caused by our own wanton stripping away of the earth's protective forests. We prefer not to see how our sins against the earth lead to so much suffering. The alarming increase in many diseases, like cancer and asthma, are the direct result of our contamination of the environment. The accusing finger needs to be pointed not at God, but at ourselves.

We divert vast resources to produce an obscene overabundance of armaments. It is within our power, instead, to harness our technological energies to produce safer housing, etc, in danger zones, and so drastically curtail the damage caused by flooding, earthquakes, etc.

As it is, much of the suffering from natural disasters is not caused by the initial trauma, but by the horrible aftermath of trapped victims, homelessness, hunger and disease. We have well armed military forces ready to move on a moment's notice to engage an enemy in any part of the world. We are able to equally well equip rescue forces prepared to move on a moment's notice to combat the aftereffects of natural disasters, and so dramatically reduce suffering. If we were as committed to sending out rescue forces and vaccines as we are to sending military forces and weaponry, how much suffering could be reduced. The fault does not lie with God, but with ourselves, with our greed and fears. As President Kennedy once said: "Here on earth God's work must truly be our own."

The Good News

Far from wanting people to suffer, God sent Jesus to lead us out of suffering, to usher in God's reign of peace and love. Jesus came with the Good News ("Gospel") that only God's love, not greed, can fill the emptiness of our restless hearts. Jesus showed us that fear is useless, but that trust heals (Mk 5:36).

Because so many of us turn our backs on the Good News and entrust our hearts to worldly idols--possessions, power, prestige, pleasure--the reign of God is still eclipsed by a reign of tears. Scientific and technological progress is not going to bring suffering to an end. Only the Good News will do that. That's why our faith is so important. Nothing is as important as understanding and living the Good News. Only Jesus, and the new Way of living that His life, death and resurrection have made possible, can liberate us from the sufferings brought upon us by our own sins.

Holy Tears

Rigorous training causes athletes pain. They accept their "suffering" as the best way to condition their bodies. As Christians we accept our suffering as the best way to holiness. Jesus came to take away our tears, but He also shows us how to make them holy.

Our sufferings can crush us, make us hard and bitter. We have all met people like that. These people weren't always like that. They let life's crosses crush the love out of them.

We also know people who have suffered just as much as the embittered ones, but did not let their cross crush them down. Instead of becoming bitter, they became better people. Their faith enabled them to dig down deep within themselves, to connect with a Power beyond their own, and let God raise them up above their sufferings. Christians have no easy answers to the mystery of suffering. But we do know that if there were another, better, way, God would not have let Jesus die on a cross. Jesus is our model. In His death agony Jesus experienced desolation (Mk 15:34), but He did not despair (Lk 23:46). God is continuously at work transforming Good Fridays into Easter Sundays.

One of the most beautiful people I have ever met had just graduated as a teacher. She shared her story with a group of us studying alcoholism. She told us that in her childhood she had been abused by her father. Upon coming to college she tried to cover up her pain by abusing alcohol.

Fortunately, she eventually sought counseling and, through hard work in a 12 Step program, gained sobriety. She said that as a teacher she would have her eye out for signs of child abuse in her students, the signs that had been missed by her teachers. She was not going to work out her issues through these children; she had her own resources for that. But she would be alert to assist children suffering abuse. There was a deep beauty in this young women, a sensitivity and compassion, a purpose and maturity beyond her years.

At the end of the session I approached her and thanked her for her presentation. I told her that I though my own sufferings as a child, as painful as the were, had helped make me the person I am today.

She responded by telling me something I will never forget. Looking back on how she had been abused, and on how she had abused herself, she said: "I wouldn't change any of it." God had used it all to make her who she is today! What a profound spirituality!

This young woman's wisdom for living far surpasses my own. If I could change things that have happened to me, or things that I myself have done, I would be sorely tempted to do so. But she is right. God is so awesome that God can bring blessings even out of evil. That is why, at our solemn Easter Vigil, the Church calls original sin a "happy fault...which gained for us so great a Redeemer!" To the extent that we open our lives to God's healing, God does write straight and true with all the crooked lines of our lives.

God does not want people to suffer. But God does respect our human freedom and tolerate our sins. Jesus patiently leads us away from greed and fear to the day when "God will wipe away all tears from [our] eyes" (Rev 21:4). We follow Jesus, burdened, but not crushed, by our crosses. In the midst of our sufferings we continue to trust that the darkness which sometimes engulfs us is the shadow of God's Hand stretched over us in blessing.

Ronald Stanley, O.P.

For additional articles relating to this topic see:

GOD IS DEAD

THEN CAME THE STORM

QUESTIONING YOUR FAITH

ASHAMED OF YOUR FEELINGS?