Suffering and Theodicy

My last post I discussed one of the lectures I attended on Friday and this blog will be about another lecture I attended that was on theodicy. For those who are unsure what theodicy means, as I was at the beginning of the lecture, it means the belief that God is good in the face of suffering. It is also commonly referred to as the problem of pain. I read several chapters from C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain in high school and I believe it was an honest and forthright attempt to explain God's goodness in the face of suffering. However, for those that have ever suffered it would probably leave one rather wanting.

The lecture was entitled The Problem of Pain Revisited: Some Insights & Implications for Servant-Practitioner-Scholars by Richard Butman of Wheaton College. I appreciated hearing Dr. Butman speak not only because he was an author of our primary text in one of my classes but also because he was an extremely heartfelt speaker who shared the pains of his experiences.

I will hardly do it all justice but I will try and summarize the key points. Despite our great desire to be able to cope with loss and our understanding that suffering produces character and perseverance, we continue to be battered by a life that is filled with frustration and sadness. We Christians often think that the healthy Christian will rebound from painful experiences quickly and see God's purpose in it all. Of course we allow ourselves some time to grieve and be in pain but we expect to recover quickly.

What we will eventually discover is that there will come a time when we are faced with a pain so terrible that it will set us back and cause us to question God. People find themselves asking the great question, why me? Of course many of us, myself included, wonder why calamity doesn't seem to be striking and we ask the equally important question, why not me?

It appears that if we cannot explain it away logically or passively dismiss it, the only positive alternative is to embrace our pain. To be able to grow from it and expand ourselves is the great challenge that we are faced with. We can either become better or bitter.

Finally, I must address the psychology that was presented in the lecture. The predictors of coping with loss are 1) social support, 2) a sense of efficacy, and 3) a sense of meaning and purpose in life. Here we find that God has prepared a faith and a community for us that we might find help in dealing with loss. The Christian church is meant to be social support. The Christian faith believes that God can work through us to help us recover. And the Christian hope is that we have not only eternal life in Heaven to look forward to but a mission of evangelism, restoration, and recovery while we are alive on earth.

On a personal note, some of you may or may not know that in junior high I was severely depressed. Of course it would be nice if I could share that my faith in God saved me from despair. Well it did to some extent because it did keep me from suicide. But I hated that God left me in that state for so long. I was depressed for two and a half long years. I wish I could say that I see God's great purpose in that experience but honestly, as a result of that time I became angrier, more emotionally isolated, and more hypocritical. Basically during my depression I became an ugly and wretched human. It is hard to make sense of all that because I thought God should have brought me out of it all and suddenly I would have been positively changed by my suffering. But I had let my depression make me bitter and resentful.

I do thank God now in a small part because I believe that my experiences will bring hope to those I counsel and understanding to those who want to support those who are depressed. I just pray that I do not waste the lessons in suffering I learned. I also thank God in faith that he has already worked those experiences into my life in mysterious and amazing ways (some of those ways have been revealed to me recently).

What is the takehome message? That depends on the feelings that all of this arose in you. If you read this and felt compassion and hope for the depressed, then the message for you is that you must be humble, you will not be able to fix anyone. If you felt despair and frustration, then your message is to recognize those parts of your own life where you have been wronged which you may be ignoring and grieve the pain you feel. And if you are depressed, then the message for you is grace - simply that God wishes to grow you but is willing to be incredibly patient with you every step of the way.