Humanism and the Question of Suffering
When I was a kid, growing up in the Oneness Pentecostal tradition, I had several key bible verses memorized. Romans 8:28 was one of them:
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
This verse explained what is called theodicy: Why do bad things happen to good people?
Early deaths. Serious diseases. Poverty. War. Romans 8:28 explained suffering: Everything, no matter how bad it looked, was working according to God’s plan.
When I was something like ten years old, I had a toothache and my family couldn’t afford to take me to a dentist. Why? God’s plan. I couldn’t see it. But there was a plan. Because I was “called according to his purpose.”
My toothache meant something.
As long as one sees oneself as centerstage in the drama of heaven and hell, good and evil, perhaps this works. But I for one began to wonder why the haves suffered considerably less than we have-nots.
Lot’s of people have left their birth faith traditions after just this realization.
What we do next decides the parameters of our theological stances. We can, for instance, decide that God is there and means good, but is not in complete control of reality.
We can decide that God is the tendency of people toward helping each other — the “God is love” stance.
Some of us decide that “god” just isn’t a factor in what’s happening. I couldn’t get my cavity fixed because my parents were born poor and never escaped poverty. Thus, I was born poor and lived according to the iron dictates of poverty.
I began to question the social and economic system that created the vast differences in the relative wealth of people.
But poverty doesn’t create all suffering, either. It is the nature of teeth to decay; it is the very nature of human life that we and those we love sicken and age. It is the very nature of human life that all of us die.
Suffering. When I began to study Buddhism, I learned that the Buddha thought that suffering is caused by attachment. Attachment to a reality that by its very nature continues to change.
Change causes suffering because we hold fast to things which will of necessity change. It is the nature of teeth to decay; it is the very nature of human life that we and those we love sicken and age. It is the very nature of human life that all of us die.
But could Buddhism fix a toothache? No. I learned that the Buddha was talking about suffering, not pain. Suffering is a mental condition; pain is a physical one.
Suffering is an attitude toward what happens. My resentment at being poor was a chosen response to the reality of my toothache. My resentment could not stop the pain in my jaw.
A Humanist theology of suffering looks at the question from this perspective. It is the nature of teeth to decay; it is the very nature of human life that we and those we love sicken and age. It is the very nature of human life that all of us die.
Given these realities, we hear a call — we find a purpose: to live our lives in such as way that we relieve both suffering and pain in every way that we can. We strive to avoid causing pain and suffering. We strive to alleviate it.
We re-write Romans 8:28 to read this way:
And we know that all things work together, some for good, some for ill, for everyone and everything alive; we are called to increase the good and decrease the ill.
