On Pain

Many times people argue that an all-good and all-powerful God can not exist because there is so much pain and suffering in the world.  This pain and suffering includes human emotional pain, pain caused by us through war and strife, animal suffering, pain caused through natural disasters like hurricanes, and also the past pain of animals and the natural world during ages past.  People claim that since pain is evil and bad, and if God was all-powerful (capable of preventing pain), and all-good (wanting to prevent the evils of pain), then He would not have allowed so much useless suffering to occur in the world.  This is a pretty strong argument for atheism. 

However, I think it misses the point entirely.  Pain is not something that is necessarily evil.  While it is true that we normally consider pain a bad thing which we wish did not happen to us or anyone/anything, it is not necessarily an evil in itself.  For example. Pain is useful to animal life.  Pain is a natural mechanism which warns us when our bodies are being harmed.  Without pain, we may not be aware that harm is being done to us. 

Furthermore, pain would only be a grave evil if the purpose of our lives/existence (our telos) was to not be in pain, but to be in pleasure, the opposite of pain.  But no Christian believes this.  The Christian belief system holds that the telos of the human person is to know, love, and serve God in this life and be united with Him in the next, in heaven, after we die.  Christians believe that we are supposed to unite ourselves to Christ and live as He did.  Jesus Christ is our model for life.  We are to imitate Him.  The thing is, Jesus suffered tremendously.  He also suffered innocently.  There never has been, is not, and never will be anyone as undeserving of suffering as Jesus Christ, for He is God incarnate.  Therefore, Christians believe that we are supposed to have pain in this life.  We expect it.  We try to welcome it.  Pain in this life is perfectly compatible with our telos, with the reason we exist.  We do not exist to have pleasure, or to be free from pain.  Only if you accept that of the human telos idea (that humanity exists for the sake of pleasure) is pain a problem for God’s existence. 

The atheist assumes that since God is all-good, He wants us to have pleasure and not pain.  But that is actually a pretty low standard for goodness.  Imagine if your parents only cared about whether or not you were experiencing pain or pleasure.  If that was their top priority, and not your health or moral character or educating you about how to wall, talk, and behave, then they would be really crappy parents.  Pain and pleasure matter, yes definitely.  But they are not the most important things in life.  Not even close.  To consider pain and pleasure the purpose, or even close to the purpose, of our existence is shallow.  It is sad and depressing.  It is very nihilistic.  Our lives have much deeper purpose and meaning than merely what sensations we are experiencing. 

Some might object to this argument and agree with our conception of the human telos or grant it to us for the sake of argument.  Then they might continue and argue that if we are genuinely experiencing unity with God: knowing, loving, and serving Him, then pain should not be something we experience.  For fulfilling our telos is the highest good anyone can achieve.  Pain, as a metaphysical experience, is something we feel when something is wrong with us.  Pain is a signal we receive from our bodies to inform us that something is harming our integrity.  Emotional pain can be traced to physical causes, but also informs us when we are not acting correctly, in accord with our conscience.  This is referencing the ideas of guilt and despair.  So, when we are fulfilling our telos, we should not be experiencing pain, yet we do experience pain, even the holiest among us do. 

In response to this objection, a Christian only has to highlight the difference between the fallen world in which we now exist and the afterlife which we look forward to.  Christians believe that, due to sin, there is a rift between God and man, caused by man’s sin.  Jesus became man in order to mend that rift.  And He did.  Now, due to Christ’s sacrifice, we can be perfectly united with God in heaven.  And that is precisely the point.  We can be perfectly united with God in heaven.  Christians do not expect to fulfill our telos on earth, sin made that impossible.  But Christ’s sacrifice made it possible for us to fulfill our telos in the afterlife.  Our telos is not merely to serve God in this life, but to praise Him and experience perfect unity with Him forever in heaven.  So the objection offered previously is naught, for we do not (and can not) perfectly fulfill our telos on earth, where there is suffering.  But in heaven, where we will (hopefully) fulfill our telos perfectly there will be no suffering.  This is why St. John writes, “He will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (Revelations 21:3-4). 

The main point of this essay is that pain is not necessarily incompatible with the human telos on earth.  Pain and pleasure are not what life is about.  We do not exist to have pleasure and avoid pain.  Our purpose is much higher and richer.  We exist to know, love, and serve God in order to be eternally united with Him in heaven.  In heaven there can be no pain, for perfect unity with God is incompatible with pain of any kind.  But on earth, pain is not incompatible with knowing, loving, and serving God.  In fact, pain is more often than not a part of knowing, loving, and serving God.  Pain can help us know, love and serve God.  The life of Christ demonstrated that pain is a necessary part of knowing, loving, and serving God in this life.  Therefore, to a Christian, pain is not logically incompatible with an all-good and all-powerful God.