The Way of the World
I can’t even begin to scratch the surface of evil here, but I want to consider one facet of it.
The most common objection to the Christian God is this: If He is good, omnipotent and just, bad things wouldn’t happen to good people. And, by corollary, good things wouldn’t happen to bad people.
This always bothered me, but then it dawned on me: the alternative would be a travesty. Good things happen only to good people, and bad things happen only to bad people. All the successful people are virtuous people and all the poor people are knaves.
“There’s Donald Trump. He must be an awfully good and saintly man to have that kind of money. And there goes Francis of Assisi with his begging bowl. He must be a wicked fellow.”
God rewarding virtue with money and punishing the vice-ridden with poverty. God giving great bodies and good health to those who pray, and imposing physical weakness and illness on those who don’t.
It’s the type of scenario we can scarcely imagine because it cuts against everything we know.
Especially everything we know about virtue.
Tricky Virtue
The trick of virtue is this: It is not immediately or obviously the best thing. We should strive for virtue, but not because the results are tangible. If that were the case, everyone would strive for it.
We strive for virtue because it is the highest thing and the purpose of our existence. It is hard to attain — but only because factors war against it, especially the temptation of lower things (like earthly success). If those lower things were the reward of virtue, there would be little merit in pursuing virtue.
Vice presents a similar problem. If everyone was immediately and obviously punished for vice, who would be tempted? The attractive call girl is tempting because she offers the prospect of intense pleasure and the stimulation of eating forbidden fruit — not because of the health risks she poses. If a lecher knows his sexual pursuit will result in boring sex and disease, he’s not going to be tempted. It’s only because the sex brings intense (if only miserably short-term) enjoyment and stimulation, that the lecher drools.
I can’t begin to explain why we and the world are made this way. Some of the great philosophers like St. Thomas Aquinas have given pretty good explanations, but even their answers leave questions unanswered.
Job's Answer
To be honest, the full answer isn’t for us to know. One of the earliest tracts on suffering, the Book of Job, says the full answer is that there is no answer. After being pelted with suffering, the good and just Job finally objected and asked God, “Why?” God refused to give him an answer. Instead, He answered Job’s questions with questions, like “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?”
God couldn’t give Job full answers because they would fall beyond Job's comprehension. Even if God laid it all out for him, he still wouldn’t have understood.
Yet Job was comforted by understanding that he couldn’t understand. In the words of G.K. Chesterton, Job “has been told nothing, but he feels the terrible and tingling atmosphere of something which is too good to be told. The refusal of God to explain His design is itself a burning hint of His design. The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man.”
When we, like Job, learn to settle back and say, “So be it; it’s beyond me,” we find peace. We find peace, because it’s then that we find truth: the truth that Full Truth transcends our ability to comprehend.
I said toward the beginning that atheistic philosophers can’t make sense of suffering. It should be obvious now why they can’t: They reckon without God and therefore they reckon without the biggest piece of the puzzle, which is itself a puzzle. The entire truth can’t be accounted for — unless you account for That Which Can’t Be Accounted For.
© Copyright 2004 Catholic Exchange
Eric Scheske is a freelance writer, a Contributing Editor of Godspy, and the former editor of Gilbert Magazine. You can view his work at a www.ericscheske.com .
