on pain again

It is very possible to read this particular post as preachy or as a social commentary, but that is not really how I intend it to be read. If I am making a point, it is less about the condition of society and more about how that condition impacts how we perceive God.

I have already dealt with the topic of pain and its relation to the existence of God, but I have been giving it some more thought recently and had what I feel was a minor enlightenment. It is my experience that more people are put off of Christianity by God's seeming indifference to specific horrific things that He allowed to happen than by other issues that are more easy to argue rationally. I think that this is because when we as humans are dealing with things at a visceral level we aren't wired to think everything out. This is not my enlightenment but the setup for my enlightenment.

In my earlier post about pain I pointed out that either God has to draw the line somewhere and allow some forms of pain on the one side of the line or He has to take away our ability to do wrong. If we know nothing of the horrors on the other side of the line that God has drawn, whatever is the closest to the line but not quite over will be the worst evil that we could imagine and will inevitably cause many to question a loving God's existence. If God decided that the worst that would ever happen to anyone was that they would occasionally get a traffic ticket, people in that existence who didn't understand anything worse than traffic tickets would question the possibility that a loving God would allow His children to get pegged for speeding. It sounds ludicrous because we have perspective, but our perspective can only include that which God has deemed knowable, and that can only come from the one side of the line.

My new epiphany was that the whole argument that a loving God wouldn't let certain bad things happen relies completely in our believing on some level that God is a hedonist, or at least that He wants us to be hedonists. Whether or not anyone else agrees on that point, it hit me like a ton of bricks. The only reason that the horrors of this world could make me question the existence of a loving God is because they violate my idea of a pleasure-fulfilling God. If God loves me, then He will not do anything that stands in the way of my happiness or makes me decidedly unhappy, especially if I have done nothing that is obvious to me deserving of bad treatment. I can imagine a God who is not focused on being pleasure-fulfilling, but there is a strong temptation to make that God unloving as a result.

Now, I should note again that I am not trying to be preachy. I am just walking through the logical path this has taken in my mind. I know very well that at the first sign of pain my inner hedonist comes out and I get impatient, demanding, and sometimes very angry at God. I haven't questioned whether He existed because of pain, but I have questioned whether His motives were good. Just because I know better does not mean that my actions follow. Now that I have children, I will behave even worse when they feel what I believe is unjust pain.

I think that the church has often taken the wrong tactic when discussing pain. Pain is rarely viewed as a victory because our hedonistic minds don't allow us to think that way. Testimonies usually involve how God graciously helped people escape various forms of pain or death rather than how He provided strength and growth in adversity. I am not saying that healings or relief are bad. I would by far prefer to be healed or relieved than to be given the strength to endure the pain. Our priority on praising God for ending pain over providing strength, though, says a lot about what drives us.

There is another mistake that does not come up quite as often, but also stems from our hedonistic nature. Some seeking healing or relief from God who have not been healed or relieved have been told that their conditions are left unaddressed because they don't have enough faith. I am sure everyone reading this recognizes that line of thinking is bunk. This is actually a different side of the same coin where a physical healing is considered more Godly than having to live with the pain.

I will conclude with a passage from Hebrews that has always been important to me, but that I have not always liked for obvious reasons. Healing is important, but other things must come first.

"In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: 'My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.' Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 'Make level paths for your feet,' so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed."- Hebrews 12:4-13