The mystery of suffering, Part One

Tonight, we will begin a series of posts that deal with the reality of human suffering.  We have had so much tragedy in the world recently, from natural disasters to gun violence.  It is natural to ask “why?” Why does suffering happen?  Why does God allow it to happen?  These are questions no one can or should avoid asking.  

Suffering is real, there is no use denying it.  We all experience it in our lives: some seem to more than others, but we all do, and if we are brutally honest, we will realize we all suffer a little every day in one way or another.  This life is sometimes called a “valley of tears”, but it could also be called a “battlefield of pain”.

So, let’s start by asking why does suffering happen?  Well, the answer is because of sin.

I guess we can end here because that statement is true; sin causes suffering.  That is the answer to the question.  But, I think we can agree that statement deserves a lot more unpacking and thankfully for us, the Church does just that.

There are some beautiful words in the Catechism that show the Church is with us in our experience of suffering, and in our questioning of it.  We read in #385: God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil. Where does evil come from? "I sought whence evil comes and there was no solution", said St. Augustine and his own painful quest would only be resolved by his conversion to the living God. For "the mystery of lawlessness" is clarified only in the light of the "mystery of our religion". The revelation of divine love in Christ manifested at the same time the extent of evil and the superabundance of grace. We must therefore approach the question of the origin of evil by fixing the eyes of our faith on him who alone is its conqueror.  Note the Church does not want us to run from this question of evil, but rather, to approach it and it suggests that we approach it through the eyes of faith.

Why does the Church want us to approach this issue through the eyes of faith?  Because only through Divine Revelation can we see the reality of sin.   Only through sin, can we begin to understand suffering.  Therefore, only through Divine Revelation, can we begin to understand suffering. The Catechism explains in #387: Only the light of divine Revelation clarifies the reality of sin and particularly of the sin committed at mankind's origins. Without the knowledge Revelation gives of God we cannot recognize sin clearly and are tempted to explain it as merely a developmental flaw, a psychological weakness, a mistake, or the necessary consequence of an inadequate social structure, etc. 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. 

Let me try to explain this point a little here.   Imagine if God had not revealed himself through Jesus Christ.   Imagine if because of that, we were unsure about the existence of God, we were unsure about our dignity as human persons, and we were unsure if we were loved.   It is easy to imagine that in such a world, human behavior would have to be identified by something else other than man's relationship to God.   Therefore, his whole being, including any what we deem abnormal or horrendous behavior, would have to try to be explained by purely natural or human reasons, such as was outlined in the quote from the Catechism above.

The Church, on the other hand, wants us to see that we have meaning, that our lives have meaning.  If that is the case, then there logically has to be a reason and meaning to suffering, as it is such an ongoing part of our lives.  Divine Revelation sheds light on a lot of things, and one of those indeed is the mystery of suffering.

So, the Church proposes that we approach the mystery of suffering by looking to Divine Revelation.  Revelation, remember, is an unfolding of the mystery of God that does not go against the natural, but supplements what we can know of God in the natural order.  We have discussed how God revealed himself gradually through our first parents, then after different nations formed, through his chosen people, Israel, and finally completely in Jesus Christ.    (For more details, here is a link to my post on Divine Revelation in June of 2016 http://jimscatholicblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/divine-revelation.html.)

I think if we look at the different stages of Divine Revelation, we will get insight into the mystery of suffering.   It makes sense to start with the first stage of Divine Revelation, where God revealed himself to our first parents.    The following passages come from Genesis 2 and 3:

2 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. ¹⁶ And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” ² The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; ³ but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’” ⁴ But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; ⁵ for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” ⁶ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

⁸ They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. ⁹ But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰ He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” ¹¹ He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” ¹² The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” ¹³ Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.” ¹⁴ The Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this,
    cursed are you among all animals
    and among all wild creatures;
upon your belly you shall go,
    and dust you shall eat
    all the days of your life.
¹⁵ I will put enmity between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head,
    and you will strike his heel.”

¹⁶ To the woman he said,

“I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing;
    in pain you shall bring forth children,
yet your desire shall be for your husband,
    and he shall rule over you.”

¹⁷ And to the man^[ he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife,
    and have eaten of the tree
about which I commanded you,
    ‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
    in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
¹⁸ thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
    and you shall eat the plants of the field.
¹⁹ By the sweat of your face
    you shall eat bread
until you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.”

²⁰ The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. ²¹ And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.

²² Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— ²³ therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. ²⁴ He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

The Catechism has this to say in #390 about this story of the fall of our parents: The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents. So, in other words, we do not have to take this story literally but seeing Sacred Scripture is one means of Divine Revelation (http://jimscatholicblog.blogspot.com/2016/06/sacred-scripture-part-one.html) we do have to try to see what God is revealing through this story.   For our discussion here related to suffering, I think there is this important point:

God have us freedom and responsibility.  We abused that freedom and responsibility.  This refusal causes suffering.

Indeed, we saw earlier that the Catechism defined sin in those terms.  Let me repeat them here: 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.  In other words, sin is a conscious choice; it is not something we have no control over.  It is this choice that causes suffering. 

Now, if you read the story closely, you might see something else that contributes to man’s decision to abuse his freedom, and that is the “tempter”, or as we know him know, the devil.  We will discuss his role in all this in an upcoming post.

But before we close this post, I want to just highlight a few other points from this story.  We read in the Catechism #396  The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil"²⁷⁷ symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.  

Several points here:

1)      Man has limits.

2)      God gives us limits for our own good.

3)      We have to trust that he knows what is best because he created us in the first place.

4)      Sin is an abuse of that trust.

When we fail to recognize our dependence on God, that we are not him, and rather try to be like him, we begin to think we can do anything, and can choose what is right and wrong for ourselves, and when we do that, bad things happen.   

So to summarize what we have gone over in this post:

1)      Divine Revelation reveals to us the mystery of sin.

2)      Sin is an abuse of the freedom God gave us.

3)      Sin started with our first parents.

4)      Sin causes suffering.

 I think, however, we are left with two questions after this discussion:

     

1)      How is this sin of our first parents still able to affect us today?   In other words, how does it explain suffering now?

2)      This might explain suffering that is caused by bad deeds, such as one shooting people, but how does this explain suffering caused by seeming natural things, like hurricanes or severe illness?

We will explore those questions and more as we continue this series.

Joseph, solace of the wretched, pray for us.