If I Were God, I'd End All the Pain, Pt 3 - Chapter 2

"The Alternatives"

At the end of Chapter 1, Dickson, presented us with a difficult problem. He writes, "the presence of suffering in the world presents not so much an intellectual dilemma for faith in God but an emotional one." Basically, why does God allow suffering and what has he done about it? Before he answers these questions, Dickson delves into how Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Atheism attempt to answer these questions. Later, he will aim to compare these views with those found in the Bible.

Suffering as Balance
Here, Dickson presents us with the Hindu explanation of suffering. Hinduism explains suffering as "pay-back", or "Karma". This is a universal concept whereby all actions of the past will be balanced out in the present. When you experience pain and suffering now, it is because it is deserved - you have done something bad in the past. Dickson points out that this "pay-back" view also pops up in the Western world where people view there pain and suffering as "God's revenge". Dickson helpfully points out that this view is "quite foreign to the biblical perspective on suffering".
Interestingly, Dickson argues that the Hindu view of suffering is "quite satisfying and virtually impossible to disprove." But he raises one question from this: "If I were to accept that my suffering is a divinely sanctioned balance for my wrongs, is it possible to find consolation in my pain?". Can a Hindu find comfort in their suffering? No.

Suffering as an Illusion
Buddhism's response to pain and suffering is to view it as an illusion. Dickson explains it like this, "our experience of suffering was intimately related to desire or affection for the things of the world. For instance, the pain of losing my father was caused not by the crash itself, but by the affection I felt for my father." If you can remove your desire for such things, the experience of pain and suffering would be gone. I don't know about you, but I found it hard to get my head around this.
This is a very interesting philosophical concept. But how do you live like this? Well, if you are a Buddhist, you escape the 'real world' in order to 'experience an emancipation from the existence into 'non-existence', or nirvana." You have no desires or affections and so you don't feel any pain or suffering. But, is it really that easy?

Suffering as Determined
Dickinson then turns to Islam and presents its views on pain and suffering. This is rather straight forward. The Muslim understands that "all events in history are absolutely determined: from the falling of a leaf, to the trajectory of an asteroid, all of it is controlled by the will of Allah." Everything is controlled by "the specific finger of the Almighty." So, when a Muslim experiences pain and suffering, it is then an opportunity for them to "submit...to Allah's indisputable will."

Suffering as Natural
Lastly, Dickinson presents us with the Atheist view of pain and suffering. To the Atheist suffering "is just natural, the unhappy by-product of a universe driven only by the random intersection of time and space." It just is. There is "no reason, no design and no pity". Life is just a series of meaningless and random events. To me, this is very depressing.

Well, in response to this chapter, I have a few thoughts I'd like to share:

• In theory, it seems like Hinduism lacks compassion, mercy and forgiveness. If something terrible happens to someone, how will they be treated?
• I found the Buddhist viewpoint hard to extrapolate. I kept thinking, what about physical suffering?
• Siddhartha Gautama, the 'Buddha', developed this view in response to seeing pain and suffering. He wanted to understand its origin and meaning. But, how can he truly understand it without first experiencing it himself? From reading Dickson's book, it does not seem like Siddhartha Gautama actually experienced any suffering, so how would he really know? As Christians, we know that Jesus experienced great pain and suffering. Far more than I would ever experience in my life. He knows what it's really like.
• I guess with the Islamic viewpoint you don't need to question suffering, just accept it. It makes me feel very powerless, though.
• Do we seek a meaningful reason for our pain and suffering purely to make ourselves feel better about it?
  

What do you think? I'd love you to share what you thought of the ideas presented in this chapter.

If I Were God, I'd End All the Pain, Pt 2 - Chapter 1

"Why did God let Dad's plane crash?"

Despite what a lot of people believe about God, many people have the belief, whether consciously or subconsciously, that there is a God who controls all things. This belief often erupts after some major catastrophe occurs in a person's life and they will cry out, "WHY?". As a child, Dickson held this view too, "...I still held the conviction that the Creator was meant to be responsible for keeping the world together." So, when something terrible happens, we cry out, "why, God?". This reaction is only natural. We want there to be a 'reason' in an 'unreasonable' situation.

What Does the Bible Say?

In the first section of the chapter, Dickson presents a few helpful ideas about the Bible. The Bible:

• Doesn't answer all our questions

• Doesn't present a "complete and final explanation for all the evil and suffering".

• BUT does offer the best explanation, "the least incoherent one."

Dickson argues that the Bible's perspective on evil and suffering seems to be the only one that holds up against the barrage of the "why?" questions. I think it's always helpful to think about what "the Bible's perspective" is on certain issues.

Does Suffering Disprove God?

The rest of the chapter takes us on a detour dealing with the question, "Does the existence of suffering disprove the existence of an all-powerful and all-loving God?". Can God really exist when there is all this pain and suffering in the world? Surely, if there really was a God, he would not let all this evil in the world. What kind of God allows that to happen?

When we discuss the issue of pain and suffering with people, it's clear that this is the argument that we most often hear. Dickson shows us, in a very coherent manner, the logic behind this view. Evil disproves God because an all-loving, all-powerful God would not allow evil to occur. Dickson makes this clearer by separating these two views: an all-powerful God would be ABLE to end suffering and an all-loving God would DESIRE to end suffering. Interesting. Here we have the underlying issues that people struggle with when they're dealing with pain and suffering. I know that for me, the "would desire" part is the most poignant. We know that God loves us, so why would he allow bad things to happen? But, not just bad things, bad things to ME?

Dickson pulls apart the logic in these assumptions by arguing that,

"the existence of suffering could be used as evidence against God's existence only if you could first prove that an all-loving God does not have good reasons for allowing suffering to continue...Until we could show categorically that there could not be loving purposes behind the continuation of suffering, the logical force of the argument dissolves, even though its emotional force remains."

In reaching this point, Dickson alters the argument to be like this: An all-powerful and all-loving God exists - YES. Suffering exists - YES. So, "God must have loving reasons for permitting suffering" - YES? So we can understand now that the existence of suffering is not an intellectual dilemma, but it's an EMOTIONAL dilemma. When you're dealing with pain and suffering, you're approaching it from an emotional perspective, so rationality goes out the window. This is helpful to remember, especially when you're talking to someone about this. How, then, do you deal with the emotional side of this issue?

I guess at the heart of the issue, if we really delved into it further, is that we want to know what the "loving reasons" are. Will we ever know what they are? But, would that make it any easier for us to deal with suffering?

What do you think?

If I Were God, I'd End All the Pain, Pt 1 - Introduction

John Dickson sets the tone for his book through his introduction and by bringing up the idea of 'doubt'. This book, he confesses, is "a tribute to doubt." As I read the Introduction I began to question what Dickson's angle was in writing about doubt. As I continued to read and think more about this, I realised what he was getting at. Of all the myriad of issues that could possibly cause Dickson to question his faith, or to doubt God, it would have to be the issue of pain and suffering. Dickson writes, "nothing has exercised my sceptical muscles as much as the issue of human pain - mine, yours, that Kenyan baby with AIDS I'll never meet, and so on." Does that ring true in your mind? When you really start to think about it, this is a really hard issue to get your head around.

This musing prompts Dickson to bring forth some questions: "If I were God, I'd end all the pain, so why doesn't HE? Is he powerless? Is he not interested in us? Or is he just plain not there?" These are very provocative questions and I'm sure, like me, you have asked them yourself, or at least, have had someone ask you. When we think about these questions, do we really know how we'd respond?

Well, Dickson assures us he will attempt to answer these questions in his book. Let's read on and see if he does. Have these questions at the back of your mind as you read this book.