Many atheists argue that if God existed, He would not allow all the suffering that goes on in the world. And many theists believe in an omnipotent God without thinking more deeply about what this entails.
In Steiner’s lecture “The Origin of Suffering” he refers to Aeschylus who is quoted as saying, ““wisdom comes through suffering”. (A reading of the lecture can be heard here.)
And from a commentary on Aeschylus by Duane W. Krohnke, a Christian and an active member of Minneapolis’ Westminster Presbyterian Church:
The chorus in Agamemnon, a famous play by the Greek playwright Aeschylus (circa 525/524 BC—circa 456-455 BC) makes the following statement (in English translation):
“He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain, which cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
No matter how we dislike the experience, pain and suffering are great teachers. Kids that run about in nature soon learn to avoid nettles. Pain is an unavoidable consequence of consciousness. It is a rather obvious fact that living beings must necessarily have a conscious inner nature to experience pain.
Steiner claims that rather than spirit originating in matter, the opposite is the case. Matter can be thought of as condensed spirit, it originates from spirit. From a materialist perspective matter is primal and out of it emerges life, followed by consciousness and then self-awareness. A spiritual perspective regards spirit as primal, giving birth to matter. The birth of matter, regarded from the opposite pole, is a spiritual death. And the emergence of self-consciousness by way of living substance and consciousness is a return to the spirit. Reflective thinking is a spiritual activity.
Throughout the world, theologians and theistic philosophers in recent times are more and more coming to believe in a God who suffers For instance:
American process theology, following A. N. Whitehead’s oftquoted characterization of God as ‘the fellow-sufferer who understands’, has readily incorporated God’s suffering into its reformulation of theism which makes much of God’s receptivity to the world.
Later in that link it is written:
…It is of the very nature of love to suffer when its object suffers loss, whether inflicted by itself or others. If the suffering of God be denied, then Christianity must discover a new terminology and obliterate the statement “God is love” from its Scriptures.
And that beautiful soul, the late Queen Elizabeth II, said, “Grief is the price we pay for love”.
Loving others, we share their suffering. Suffering is an aspect of reality, and reality is rooted in the spiritual. The ultimate lover experiences the suffering along with the loved one who suffers. Anyone who shows the slightest love for another being should be able to understand the feeling of sharing another’s pain, no matter how small the portion they experience.
I believe that suffering is built into the fabric of reality, and it cannot be avoided. Even the highest spiritual beings can’t escape from this aspect of reality.
Whether or not this stimulates discussion I’m grateful for the opportunity to share my thoughts.
The amount of suffering in this world may be slightly on the excessive side though, wouldn’t you agree?
Talking of suffering: I fear whipped cream orgasms may be mentioned again in the near future.
Corneel,
Speaking personally, I prefer my cream unwhipped.
To quote Charlie Chan, “experience great teacher, but sometimes fees high.”
CharlieM:
This is true, but are they necessary teachers? Is there anything we need to know that God could not impart to us without putting us through the wringer or allowing us to be so put? For that matter, are there things we need to know that God could not create us already knowing? If so, what are they, and why do they require suffering?
Corneel:
Haha. I’ve missed phoodoo during my time away from TSZ.
Following in the steps of Buddha you have recognized the first noble truth. A reminder of these truths:
There is suffering. We can know the causes of suffering. There is a need to end suffering. We can Know the means to end suffering.
Buddha answered this by suggesting the eightfold path.
As long as beings evolve who have reached the stage where they are allowed the freedom take responsibility for their own actions, then there will be selfishness and suffering. Wrongdoing is the price we pay for freedom.
How many of us if given the choice to repeat our lives, with all its hardships and challenges, would choose to do so rather than not to have existed at all?
Would you prefer that we are all automatons with set programs unable to make choices for ourselves? How would a world full of knowledgeable creatures work? Babies being born equipped with all the knowledge they need. Or maybe we could reproduce by a bacterial like fission as fully developed adults.
I’ve said already, I believe that evolution is a factor of reality in which all beings are in the process of development which hopefully leads to higher stages of existence. Even Christ experiences suffering.
Buddha might have put that a little more succinctly and left out all that stuff about meditation and mindfulness, but I believe at bottom we are in agreement.
I note that, predictably, you got yourself into a discussion about the problem of evil. Since you do not believe in the omnipotence of God, why do you bother?
BTW, I am fine with any way you choose to accommodate suffering in your faith.
Without the meditation and mindfulness it would not be Buddhism.
Why does anyone bother to post here? Among contributors here there is a wide range of views on God and omnipotence. I just try to stimulate discussion and just because you may agree with me that an all-loving, all-powerful God does not square with the existence of suffering and evil, others may have a different opinion and I’d like to hear what people have to say on the subject.
And I’m happy that through faith you have developed your worldview and I hope that you are able to accommodate morality within it.
There are two great approaches to the search for meaning, the sciences which take the outer path, and the contemplative method which is an inner path. These should not be mutually exclusive. There are groups that have made inroads into combining these methods. The Mind and Life Institute being one of them.
The source of the world’s suffering is the suffering mind. and the need to understand this mind is a priority.
For my part, I have never argued that if a god existed, there would be no suffering. To reiterate what I noted in some previous discussions, my issue is that if a given quantity or unit (however one wishes to measure such) is sufficient for some kind of growth, learning, character, human quality, whatever…anything in excess of that amount is unnecessary and cruel if a supposed loving, personal god exists. Of course, if no god exists, then we humans (and everything else in the universe) is simply subject to the laws of large numbers. Clearly, some folk, in such a universe, are…alas…going to get a disproportionate amount of shafting…
The Buddha’s teachings about the necessity of mindfulness and meditation are of one piece with his analysis of suffering.
The first noble truth is that it is not possible to live without dissatisfaction (dukkha). The second noble truth is that the cause of dissatisfaction is craving (tanha for stability. The third noble truth is that craving can be eliminated or extinguished (nirvana). The fourth noble truth that the way to eliminate craving is by following the Eightfold Path, which includes mindfulness training but also much more.
It is said by some schools that we realize the Four Noble Truths by doing the work of the Eightfold Path, so one should not expect to be convinced of their truth prior to study, devotion, meditation, and adopting the simplest possible way of living.
It may be helpful to reflect on the difference between the Buddhist approach to suffering and the Christian approach to suffering. The problem for Christians is how to reconcile the fact of suffering with belief in an omni- God. So they need to find some story that will reconcile the two. The gist of all those stories is that they give meaning to suffering.
The Buddhist approach is not about giving meaning to suffering — it is about eliminating suffering. But the way to eliminate suffering is to extinguish craving. All things suffer because they crave what is not possible: permanence. We tend to think of ourselves as existing selves or egos, having some identity over time. So we cling to illusions like ‘mine’ and ‘yours,’ ‘self’ and ‘other’, collective identities (Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, Republican, Democrat, human) — all of which are based on illusion, an illusion sustained by craving for permanence, and there is none.
This is why the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna said “emptiness is form and form is emptiness”: the patterns that we feel and describe (form), of both inner and outer experience, do not have stability or permanence (hence are emptiness).
If “to exist” is “to exist independently of all other things, to have intrinsic properties that would be the same regardless of all other things”, then the Buddhist teaching is that nothing exists. Nothing is because everything is always becoming, and the coming-to-be and passing-away of any thing is inseparable from that of all other things. This is as true for the self or ego as it is for all things. The Buddhist solution to the puzzle of personal identity (“what is that makes me the same person over time?”) is: nothing, there is no such thing as ‘personal identity’. Selfhood is illusion based on craving.
keiths:
CharlieM:
Do you really think knowledge turns people into automata? Should we then refrain from learning, and from teaching, in order to preserve our freedom? Are the wisest among us also the least free?
I think you’ll agree that’s nonsense. Knowledge itself clearly isn’t the problem; what you’re objecting to is the idea that pain and suffering aren’t necessary components of our education.
Which brings me back to my question: what are some essential things that can only be taught through pain and suffering, and not through any of the other means available to a creator God? Why does such knowledge lose its value if it is not acquired painfully?
That’s interesting, thanks. Indeed that resonates with some of the stuff that Charlie has been arguing for.
Not my cup of tea though. The only thing I ever crave for is some spot in the sun with a book and a beer. I think I will stick with that.
After this small commercial break, we resume our regular program.
I’m not one to dismiss the value of simple pleasures. I’m much more Epicurean than Buddhist myself. I just wanted to clarify some aspects of what the Buddha actually taught.
Kantian Naturalist,
I had to google “Epicurean” and now I will be using that word myself. A related phrase used around here is “Bourgondisch”, after the dukes of Burgundy, who enjoyed a similar life style.
Epicurus’ ideas were given a bad press by Cicero and subsequently by early Christians. He was not the patron of drunks and gluttons as he has been portrayed. We could do worse than try some of them.
For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to help people attain a happy (eudaimonic), tranquil life characterized by ataraxia (peace and freedom from fear) and aponia (the absence of pain).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus
Alan Fox,
Oh yes, the Epicureans definitely got a very bad rap in the history of philosophy and religion. (In fact, the Jewish word for heretic is “apikoros“).
Part of what’s peculiar about their whole view is how they define pleasure as the absence of pain. So we get the following line of reasoning:
1. The only thing that is intrinsically desirable is pleasure.
2. Pleasure is the absence of pain.
3. There are two kinds of pain: bodily pain and mental pain.
4. Bodily pain is caused by excess and by deprivation of what the body needs to function: by too much food, drink, sex, stimulation and also by too little (fasting, ritual self-harm).
5. Therefore, bodily pain is eliminated by moderation in everything that the body needs to function. A life free of bodily pain is a life of simple food, no alcohol, sex only when the urges cannot be easily controlled, and no luxuries.
6. Mental pain is caused by fear of the gods and fear of the afterlife.
7. We should not fear the gods because they do not take notice of us, being completely tranquil and content in themselves.
8. We should not fear the afterlife because the soul ceases to exist when the body dies, since the soul is a collection of atoms just as much as the body is.
9. Therefore, mental pain is eliminated by accepting the correct metaphysics (ancient Greek atomism).
10. So, the life of pleasure is that of moderation in all bodily things and accepting ancient Greek atomism as the correct metaphysics.
11. So, the intrinsically desirable life is that of moderation in all bodily things and accepting ancient Greek atomism as the correct metaphysics.
It’s worth noticing that the Epicureans had a pragmatic argument for their metaphysics: they thought that the best reason to accept ancient atomism was the beneficial psychological effects of doing so. They did have arguments to support materialism, but the arguments are not very good.
(For example, they insisted that there must be atoms because if there weren’t, then things would be infinitely divisible, which is absurd. But why? This isn’t made clear in their texts. I suspect that it’s because the ancient Greeks didn’t have the mathematical tools necessary for conceptualizing infinity, so infinite meant incomprehensible.)
Well, that was way more than anyone here wanted to know, but maybe of some interest anyway.
Well, you are wrong about that.
Personally, I have some vague recollection of being told about the Epicureans in High School, and thinking “that sounds about right”, but not giving much more thought to the matter since.
So, thank you KN: I have now moved to “that sounds right”.
Interesting post!
I believe that from a higher standpoint there is no contradiction between the teachings of Buddha and that of Christ. Neither teaching advocates a separate self. As St. Paul said, “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me”. I have no independent existence.
Belief in separation leads to suffering. As Jesus said, “I and my Father are one”.
I believe that acquiring knowledge is a very pleasurable activity. But this does not mean that it is free from an element of suffering. Craving, whether it be for food, drink or knowledge, all involve pain to some degree. Pleasure and pain are not mutually exclusive. Dedicated athletes are willing to experience pain to achieve their goals.
Would you prefer that there is a God who, from the outset, gives us complete knowledge of existence thus depriving us of the joy of learning through our own efforts?
Lower life forms do have an integral instinctive knowledge which gives them the ability to exist. Would you prefer that way of existing as opposed to the conscious human existence which gives you the opportunity to take personal responsibility for a portion of your journey through life?
I don’t go looking for pain and suffering but I know that it is the inevitable price I have to pay for higher levels of consciousness. I believe in a God who is willing to sacrifice power for love.
So suffering is required. Now I see why we need child-molesting catholic priests.
It all makes sense now.
It’s true that both traditions reject a ‘separate self’, but there’s a rather big difference between (1) accepting that there’s a ‘higher self’ into which all individual selves somehow participate and (2) rejecting the very concept of selfhood altogether. Likewise there’s a difference between an ethics of universal compassion that’s articulated in terms of all things being created out of an outpouring of divine love and an ethics of universal compassion that’s articulated in terms of all things suffering from the delusion of separatedness.
Not quite sure what the point being made here is — for one thing, no one at TSZ is Catholic. CharlieM follows the anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, and he’s the only explicitly religious participant at TSZ these days.
Not sure of the point … You are correct, just feeling a bit snarky about religion in general.
That it has the hide to tell us pain is good for us
Not required, but a consequence of sentience and a feature of the polarity of reality.
Both Christianity and Buddhism have taken on so many different forms. They are interpreted in multiple ways many of which are contradictory.
But both Buddha and Christ dealt with enlightenment which involved an expansion of consciousness rather than a dulling of consciousness. To become dead to the lower self does not mean the loss of consciousness. It means overcoming selfish desires such as greed and understanding that hate is born of ignorance. And total loss of consciousness would be extreme ignorance.
KN:
How odd. It’s reminiscent of Augustine’s definition of evil as the absence of good, which Christian apologists trot out all the time to defend God against the charge that he created evil. It’s a lame defense, but the apologists are desperate because the Problem of Evil pretty much wipes out the entire apologetic project. There are multiple easy refutations of their defense, but one of my favorites is to quote Isaiah 45:7, an awkward verse for those who claim that the Bible is the Word of God:
Thus saith the Lord. QED.
A refutation that is more relevant here, in this thread, is that many instances of evil are active in nature. When person A murders random stranger B, he isn’t merely failing to do good; he’s actively doing something bad. If A were merely failing to do good things for B, that would be neutral, not evil.
A logically similar objection can be raised to the Epicurean notion that pleasure is the absence of pain. The absence of pain would merely be neutral. Pleasure is a bonus beyond that.
keiths, to CharlieM:
CharlieM:
I don’t see how that supports your position. If a lack of knowledge necessarily creates pain in the form of craving, then God could abolish the pain by preventing the lack of knowledge from arising in the first place — that is, by imparting said knowledge to us at the time of our creation. The pain is a price God imposes on us, not a necessary price. Second, it’s not actually true that craving inevitably follows from a lack of knowledge. I lack knowledge of whether Pirahã is an SVO (subject-verb-object) language or whether the Calgary Roughnecks did well during their last season, but I’m fine with that. My lack of knowledge hasn’t induced cravings in me.
It’s not clear that the joy of learning in dribs and drabs would outweigh the joy of understanding everything. Also, this isn’t an all-or-nothing question. God could selectively impart the knowledge that would otherwise be painful to acquire without depriving us of the joy of learning other things.
Why do you think it’s impossible for us to take personal responsibility unless we learn some things painfully?
Last, though I’ve asked more than once, you still haven’t named any essential lessons that can be learned only through pain and suffering and cannot otherwise be imparted to us by God. Are there any?
Are you really bored, mentally?