The question of suffering.

In this lecture, we will try to answer theoretically and at least partially
the question of the cause of human suffering; in the conclusion we shall find that the answer is not so simple as it appears to us after the first two paragraphs. This question is sufficiently well known, and it is the usual beginning of the discussion between atheists and Christians. It reads as follows: If there is a God , how come, that there is so much suffering in the world? The dialogue goes like this: Is God good? The atheist asks. Surely yes, replies the Catholic. Does God love man? Of course. Is God omnipotent? Certainly. Then why doesn’t he do something about the wars!!!
The atheist triumphs. The main point is obvious: If God is omnipotent
and merciful, why does he let innocent people suffer? Why are there gulags in Siberia, Terezin, Dacha u or Auschwitz? If God is omnipotent and merciful, why did He allow rape in Croatia, war in Kosovo, genocide in Chechnya, killing in Rwanda, hatred in Ireland, the attacks in Palestine and the slaughter in Somalia? God is in the position of a father, before whose eyes his own child is being abused and tortured, can he prevent it, and he will do nothing at all. Yet he claims to love his child. The conclusion is clear: either God is merciful but not omnipotent, or he is almighty but not merciful, or he does not exist at all.
So we come to the problem of suffering. We partly know the answer to this question, and partly we do not. Relatively easier to more easily explained by pointing to the freedom of man: God loves and desires to be loved. Man is created for love. He is loved by love, and he loves and the capacity to love. For love to be possible, there must be freedom. Freedom and love are two sides of the same coin; if I do not have freedom, I cannot love. In this sense I cannot love, for example, an animal. Love is a very voluntary thing, and you cannot force someone into it. If I as a human being (or an angel) have the freedom to love, I must necessarily also have the freedom to not love, to deny love. If I could not to choose between loving and not loving, it would not be possible to speak of love. It is a kind of cosmic law. So I can decide either to love, or to hate, or to be indifferent to . God gives us freedom ; and what he gives, he never takes back. If I choose evil, God respects my decision. Because man has freedom (and reason), he has, of course, responsibility. Gulags Someone had to invent them, someone had to build the camps, and someone had to someone had to kill them. It was men, not God. Wars are the responsibility of the people who invented and implemented them. Because these architects of wars are free, they are responsible for what they caused. The only reproach we can address to God is why God created man so ineptly.

Thus, we can explain the suffering caused by humans by pointing to the man’s freedom and the responsibility that results. What we cannot explain, however, is suffering not caused by man. Earthquakes in Turkey and India, volcanic eruptions and lava and mudslides in Central America, floods in Bangladesh and hurricanes in Cuba, cancer, AID Sand polio : who is responsible?
The ancient Israelites, in the early days of their history, saw things much more simply: whoever is godly and righteous, the Lord blesses. Yes , numerous family and wealth are a sure sign of God’s blessing. On the contrary, sickness, barrenness and poverty are seen as signs of God’s adversity, as punishment for sins. Yet in the New Testament, Christ’s disciples ask in the story of the blind man: “Rabbi, who sinned – he or his parents – that he was born blind? ” and Jesus has to laboriously explain that this is how it is not , that sickness is not a punishment for a person’s sins. Even the Israelites themselves in the course of their history begin to realize that the original theory has serious cracks: there are so many wicked and rich around us and so many godly and poor. The Psalms therefore often say: O God, where is your righteousness? How is it that the godly are doing badly and, conversely, the wicked do well?
The problem of the meaning of human suffering is the subject of an entire Old Testament Book of Job. Since there are a number of very good commentaries on this book, we will try to reflect only on the main idea and leave aside the bulk of the book, which is the dialogue of Job and with his friends. J o b is a righteous and godly man, and therefore it is no wonder that the Lord blesses him. J o b has seven sons, a prosperous farm, and numerous flocks. But the devil comes to the Lord, and the Lord boasts before him Job’s piety. The devil replies, “Is Job free to fear God? And hast thou not thyself made a hedge as it were about him, about his house, and about all his goods? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his flocks have flooded the wide land. But stretch forth thine hand, and smite all his goods, lest he curse thee to thy face. Then the Lord arranges with the devil that they will make a trial. The devil may do anything, but he must not touch Job’s health. And so come the familiar rumors of Job; one by one messengers come to Job with bad news: the enemies have driven away the flocks and have slain.
The house where Job’s children were feasting has collapsed, and they are all dead, other enemies have driven away other flocks, and so on. In a matter of minutes, the wealthy shepherd becomes a poor man without a family. Job, however, does not sin against God in any way and says: The Lord has given, The Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord! The devil therefore agrees with the Lord that he will now reach out for Job’s health, and he receives permission from God that he can do anything, but he must spare Job’s life. And so he does. Satan moves away from before the Lord’s face and strikes Job with a cruel boil from the heel of his feet to the crown of his head. So Job took a shard to give him something to scrape off, and he retreated to a garbage dump. The whole book then continues with a visit from Job’s friends, who try to somehow justify to him his suffering.

Please note that Job has not actually done anything wrong, it is only the reader sees behind the scenes to heaven and earth and hears from above the Lord’s dialogue with the devil and from below Job’s conversation with his friends. Job doesn’t know what’s going on in heaven has happened, he sees only his misfortune, and throughout the entire book – over forty for  chapters – he only cries out to God : “Why? ” – and his question remains unanswered.
J o b finally comes out of the ordeal successfully. It turns out that his piety was conditioned neither by wealth, nor by health, nor by joy of the family. In the conclusion of the book of Pc7″ he blessed the end of Job’s life more than his beginning, so that he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of horned farm animals, and a thousand donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters,  and after that Job lived another hundred and forty years and saw his children and his children’s children to the fourth generation. And Job died, old and full (of his) days. Yes , Job died old and full of his days, but his suffering remained unexplained. On Job’s o ‘why? ” God and even the book does not answer. Nor do we hear the answer in the New Testament, for even Christ himself did not take away the suffering of man. It is true that where Jesus comes, there he heals, cures, revives, gives sight to the blind and speech to the dumb. But not permanently. All whom Christ heals will eventually die, as other people die. Neither Lazarus of Bethany nor the young man of Naima are not excluded from the lot of other men. Jesus did not even explain the suffering. The problem of human suffering remains unanswered to this day and has resisted the consideration of theologians throughout the ages. Can I therefore make this chapter conclude with Blaise Pascal, who says that Jesus did not eliminate or explain suffering, but carried it with us.