Chapter One: The Cultures of
Suffering
On page
13, Timothy Keller states, “Nothing is more important than to learn how to
maintain a life of purpose in the midst of painful adversity.”
Western
society seeks to avoid pain at all costs.
As medical patients, we have more comfort and are far less equipped to
handle suffering and more traumatized by it.
Why? Other cultures have provided
answers to the purpose of life and suffering can be an important means of
achieving such purpose. But in Western
secular culture, the purpose of life is the freedom to pursue the life that
leads to the most happiness. In this
context, suffering can have no meaningful purpose except to completely
interrupt happiness. Therefore suffering
should be avoided at all costs or minimized as much as possible. The secular view does not have any resources
to deal with pain and suffering.
The
table below is an outline of how several worldviews understand the cause of
suffering, how one should respond to suffering and the ultimate resolution for
suffering.
|
|
Cause
|
Response
|
Resolution
|
|
Moralistic:
Karma
|
Wrongdoing. Failure to live rightly. Everything must be paid for.
|
Do
good
|
Eternal
bliss
|
|
Self-transcendent:
Buddhism
|
Unfulfilled
desires from the illusion that we
are individual selves.
|
Extinguish desire
by detaching from transitory,
material things and persons
|
Enlightenment
|
|
Fatalistic:
Pagan cultures of
northern Europe, Islam
|
High view of fate
and destiny. Life set by stars, supernatural forces,
gods, or will of Allah.
|
Endurance. Stand your ground honorably. Surrender to God’s mysterious will.
|
Glory
and honor
|
|
Dualistic:
Ancient Persian Zoroastrianism,
Marxist theories
|
Cosmic
conflict. Battleground between forces of darkness and
light.
|
Purified
faithfulness
|
The
triumph of the light
|
|
Secular
|
Accident
|
Technique
|
Better
society
|
The
non-secular approaches share several similarities:
1. Suffering
is not a surprise but it is a necessary part of human existence.
2.
Suffering helps one move toward the purpose of life.
3. The
key to rising and achieving in suffering is something one takes responsibility
to do.
These
other cultures see the world consisting of both matter and spirit. In the west, the naturalistic view sees only
material forces devoid of anything that could be considered purpose. Richard Dawkins in River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life states, “In a universe
of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get
hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or
reason in it, nor any justice. The
universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there
is at bottom, no design, no purpose, ne evil, no good, nothing but pitiless
indifference.” We struggle against
suffering because we will not accept that it never has any purpose. “[It]
is hard for us to resist the ‘Why’ question…It is an almost universal delusion…”
and “For Nature, heartless, witless Nature, will neither care nor know. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is.
And we dance to its music.”
Suffering does not mean anything at all.
But
without meaning, we die. So Dawkins
says, “The truly adult view…is that our life is as meaningful, as full and
wonderful as we choose to make it.” So
whatever gives our life purpose would have to be some kind of material good which
includes comfort, safety, and pleasure.
But suffering either destroys or seriously jeopardizes any such
conditions. It is because the meaning of
life is the pursuit of pleasure and personal freedom in the secular west that
suffering is so traumatic for us.
In the
other world views, life’s meaning cannot be achieved in spite of suffering, but
through it. Suffering can actually accelerate the journey
to your desired destination. In the
secular view, suffering can only interrupt your journey. It cannot take you home. It can only keep you from the things you want
most. Suffering always wins. Suffering is of no possible “use.” It must be avoided at all costs, and if
unavoidable, managed and minimized as much as possible.
For
other cultures, the responsibility belongs to the sufferers. They needed to learn patience, wisdom, and
faithfulness. In the secular culture,
suffering is not an opportunity or test – and certainly not a punishment. Sufferers are victims of impersonal forces
and must go to experts - whether medical, psychological, social or civil -
whose job is the alleviation of the suffering by removing as many stressors as
possible. Through various scientific
techniques, emphasizing the emotional pain and discontent, the experts attempt
to lessen the pain, but do not address the life story. There are two ways the experts do this:
1. Manage
or lessen the pain. Using the vocabulary
of business, psychology, and medicine enables you to manage, reduce, and cope
with stress, strain, or trauma by avoiding negative thoughts, buffering yourself
with time off, exercise, and supportive relationships and focusing on controlling
your responses.
2. Look
for the cause of the pain and eliminate it.
Suffering has a material cause and can be “fixed”.
C.S.
Lewis stated, “For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to
conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge,
self-discipline, and virtue.
For…[modernity] the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of
men: the solution is a technique…”
For
westerners there is no internal adjustment, learning or growth required. Moral responsibility is virtually never
assigned and to even hint at it is to commit the heresy of “blaming the
victim.” It’s all up to us, we’re alone
here.
The
following table shows the contrast of the Christian response to suffering
compared to those of several other worldviews.
|
|
The Christian
Contrast
|
|
Moralistic
“Pay for it”
|
Suffering is unfair. It is often unjust and
disproportionate. Life is simply not
fair. Christianity is centered on the
paragon of the innocent man who freely receives suffering for others’
debts. In light of the cross,
suffering becomes purification, not punishment.
|
|
Self-transcendent
“Accept it”
|
Suffering is
real, not illusion. Pain is pain, it
is misery; pleasure is pleasure, positive bliss, not mere ‘tranquility’.
|
|
Fatalistic
“Heroically
endure it”
|
Suffering is not
overwhelming. There is no self-praise
of the sufferer. The degree of
suffering is not measured against his own power to which others bear
witness. Christians are permitted,
even encouraged, to express grief with cries and questions.
|
|
Dualistic
|
The line dividing
good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. The idea that suffering brings one nearer
to God is more Greek and Neoplatonic than Christian.
|
|
Secular
“Avoid it or fix
it”
|
Suffering is
meaningful. There is a purpose to it
and if faced rightly can drive us deeper into the love of God and more
stability and spiritual power than you can imagine.
|
Grace. Max Scheler states, “It is not the glowing
prospect of a happy afterlife, but the experienced happiness of being in a
state of grace of God…” “The Christian
doctrine of suffering asks for more than a patient tolerance of suffering…The
pain and suffering of life fix our spiritual vision on the central, spiritual
goods of…the redemption of Christ.”
All
other approaches are too simple and reductionist. They are half-truths. The example and work of Jesus Christ
incorporates all these into a coherent whole and yet transcends them. Other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst
of life’s joys, foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people
to sit in the midst of this world’s sorrows, tasting the coming joy.
Next week Chapter Two: The
Victory of Christianity.
Until then, have a
little hope on me,
Roger
To learn more about Timothy Keller and his work at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, you can check out his personal website, his Facebook page or the church homepage.
Keller, Timothy (2013), Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering. Penguin Group. ISBN 978-0-525-95245-9
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