Award in Religion and Contemporary Society

1. Award in Religion and Contemporary Society Issue : Suffering

2. ARCS: character • ARCS provides the opportunity for students to explore and study, in a contemporary and motivating way, the values, beliefs, practices, issues, problems and events that are relevant to their own and others’ lives, and that have an impact on being citizens in the world today, on a local to global scale. ARCS thus develops an awareness of ethical, social, cultural, political, religious and spiritual implications, and of the impact of key themes on individuals and society. It provides a coherent programme of learning balanced in terms of breadth and depth, offering students the opportunity to demonstrate their attainment irrespective of gender, ethnicity or cultural, religious or social background.

3. I sought "whence is evil', and found no way St Augustine, Confessions

4. Introduction to Suffering • What is suffering? • Types and causes of suffering • Religious responses to suffering • Case studies • Catholic responses to suffering

5. Activity 1 • What is Suffering? Create a mindmap which includes as many ideas about suffering that you can think of

6. What is suffering? Hurt Murder Sickness Painful emotions Bereavement Imprisonment Destitution Loss of faith Pain Suffering Rejection War Homelessness Fear Injustice Squalor Sorrow Loss of dignity Evil Hopelessness Poverty Depression

7. Types of Suffering • Physical suffering • Mental or emotional suffering • Personal or individual suffering • Spiritual suffering • Suffering of groups or nations • Social Suffering

8. Types of Suffering • Physical suffering • Mental or emotional suffering • Personal or individual suffering • Spiritual suffering • Suffering of groups or nations • Social Suffering • sickness or injury • bereavement • depression • loss of faith • war or famine • poverty

9. The Causes of Suffering TASK Identify the causes of suffering distinguishing between human causes and natural causes

10. Human War Selfishness Violence Crime Personal conflict Squalor Personal loss Homelessness Injustice Poverty Natural Disease Earthquake Flood Death Storms, tornadoes, etc Volcanic eruption Causes of suffering (examples)

11. Activity 2 • What conditions arising from war may lead to suffering? • Spend a few minutes on this activity thinking what the consequences of war might be.

12. War and Suffering • War may lead to: • Homelessness • Poverty • Economic breakdown • Death • Sickness and injury • Injustice and indignity • Corruption • Famine • Family breakdown

13. Religious Responses to Suffering • A theological Problem: it challenges the nature of God. • A philosophical problem: it compels the believer to accept conflicting claims which it is logically impossible to reconcile. • A diverse problem: suffering manifests itself in many ways which demand different explanations. • A challenging problem: it is a problem that will not simply go away. • The existence of evil and suffering is an objective reality which it is difficult, if not impossible, to deny.

14. Evil and Suffering • Religious believers usually put suffering into two main categories. • Moral Evil – the “evil caused deliberately by humans doing what they ought not to do, or allowed to occur by humans negligently failing to do what they ought to do, and also the evil constituted by such deliberate actions or negligent failure. (Swinburne) • Natural Evil – “the evil that originates independently of human actions, in disease, in bacilli, in earthquakes, storms, droughts, tornadoes, etc” (Hick)

15. Evil and Suffering • Do you think that “suffering” can be a word used interchangeably with “evil”? • How would you define evil? • In relation to moral evil, do you see a difference between evil intent and evil consequences? • Suffering is always a consequence of moral actions or some natural cause. In what senses do you think it can, therefore, be described as “evil”?

16. The source of evil I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things. Isaiah, 45 God created a world in which the corruption of material things is ordained. God did not create sin: God gave humankind freedom and the misuse of that freedom brought sin. Is the source of evil and suffering an external being – the devil – who opposes God in a cosmic war between good and evil?

17. Activity • Does the fact of suffering suggest that God does not exist? • Why did God create human beings capable of performing morally evil actions? • Why has God created a universe which contains such apparent faults and flaws? • Would a world without suffering be a better world? [Think of two reasons why the world might not be a better place if all suffering were taken away.]

18. Moral Evil • Here is a response from a student to the question just posed. • We do not appreciate the good things in life if we have not had some experience of bad things. • We would not have the chance to demonstrate some good qualities if people did not sometimes suffer – e.g. showing compassion and courage.

19. The Inconsistent Triad God’s Omnipotence Suffering Exists God’s Benevolence

20. Task 2 • How might we try to solve the problem of evil without rejecting the notion of either a benevolent God or an omnipotent God? • What would constitute good reasons why God permits evil?

21. How Religions Respond to Suffering • Different religions all offer their particular responses to suffering, which are influenced by other beliefs which they have. • In the 3rd century, the St Augustine offered a solution to the problem of suffering which was based on the narratives of creation and the fall in Genesis 1-3. Read the passage first.

22. Augustine’s explanation (1) Augustine identified several key features of this narrative which provided an explanation for why there is suffering in the world • Humans were created in the perfect likeness of God • Humans were created with true freedom to make moral choices • Freedom led to their choosing to disobey the one prohibition God gave to them. As a result of evil, suffering came into the world and all humans now live in a ‘fallen’ world which is affected by natural and moral evils

23. Augustine’s explanation (2) • Humans can only be redeemed from the consequences of sin and suffering by trusting in the death of Jesus to bring them back into a relationship with God • God foresaw everything which happened in the Garden of Eden and planned that some would be saved but those who did not accept Jesus would be condemned and sent to Hell • Sin, evil and suffering are part of the aesthetic pattern of the universe – they contribute to the overall picture, which has a greater balance of good over evil • Evil is a privation or an absence of good

24. Student Response • It is a logical contradiction to say that a perfectly created world had gone wrong. • Augustine’s view that the world was made perfect and damaged by humans is contrary to the theory of evolution which suggests that the universe has developed, not got worse. • Suffering is essential to survival and belongs to a natural cycle of birth and death so God must bear the responsibility for this at least. • The existence of Hell as a place of eternal punishment seems a contradiction for an all loving God.

25. Personal suffering Task Read the response of Dr Tim Hinks to the suffering he sees as a Senior House Officer in a hospital in Oxford. • What do you consider to be the strong arguments he uses in support of the Christian approach to suffering? • Explain why you might find some of his arguments to be unsatisfactory

26. Personal suffering (2) Read the article Where is God when it hurts by Dr Hugh James • What do you think of his arguments that: • in Jesus, God suffered for us and to save us; • suffering is inherent in this fallen world?

27. Job’s Afflictions William Blake, Satan inflicting boils on Job “If we take happiness from God’s hand, must we not take sorrow too?”

28. Natural evil The Lisbon Earthquake, 1755 On the morning of Sunday 1st November, All Saints’ Day, a devastating earthquake hit the centre of Lisbon. The earthquake started fires over the city and was followed by a tsunami which also struck coasts from North Africa to the West of Ireland. Up to 100,000 people died and 85% of the buildings were destroyed, including churches and monastic buildings.

29. A contemporary illustration of the tsunami and fires

30. Impact of the Earthquake Before the quake: The prevailing view of the universe was that it was rationally organised even if humankind could not perceive the order and goodness: Alexander Pope, Essay on Man: Safe in the hand of one disposing Pow'r,Or in the natal, or the moral hour.All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;All chance, direction, which thou canst not seeAll discord, harmony not understood,All partial evil, universal good:And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.

31. How could the earthquake be explained? • Church in Portugal: Learn, O Lisbon, that the destroyers of our houses, palaces, churches, and convents, the cause of the death of so many people and of the flames that devoured such vast treasures, are your abominable sins, and not comets, stars, vapours and exhalations, and similar natural phenomena…. As for the dead, what a great harvest of sinful souls such disasters send to Hell!

32. Voltaire, Poem on the Lisbon Earthquake Come, ye philosophers, who cry, “All’s well,” And contemplate this ruin of a world. Behold these shreds and cinders of your race, This child and mother heaped in common wreck, These scattered limbs beneath the marble shafts— A hundred thousand whom the earth devours, Who, torn and bloody, palpitating yet, Entombed beneath their hospitable roofs, In racking torment end their stricken lives… …But how conceive a God supremely good, Who heaps his favours on the sons he loves, Yet scatters evil with as large a hand? What eye can pierce the depth of his designs? From that all-perfect Being came not ill: And came it from no other, for he ’s lord: Yet it exists. O stern and numbing truth! O wondrous mingling of diversities! A God came down to lift our stricken race: He visited the earth, and changed it not!

33. Questions • Why would the Church attribute the earthquake to God’s punishment for sins? • How did Voltaire’s view of the world differ from that expressed by Pope (and others such as Leibniz)? • John Wesley argued that if the earthquake was a natural event and was the result of blind chance, there is no hope for suffering humankind. What is your response to this view? Compare the quotation from Richard Dawkins in the article byTim Hinks (Slide 22 above)

34. David Hume David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, wrote in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (published 1778-9): [God’s] power we allow is infinite: whatever he wills is executed: but neither man nor any other animal is happy: therefore he does not will their happiness. His wisdom is infinite: he is never mistaken in choosing the means to any end: but the course of Nature tends not to human or animal felicity: therefore it is not established for that purpose. Epicurus'old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?

35. Aftermath • Within a decade of the earthquake, the first gothic novel was written. The arts began to reflect the futility of hope in the face of the overwhelming power of nature, the idea that nature was not benign, and that humanity was alienated from that nature. • Public belief in God lingered, but the old certainties were gone for many and atheism began to be respectable among philosophers

36. ContemporaryReligious Responses toSuffering: the S E Asia Tsunami

37. An Anglican Response Archbishop Rowan Williams: The question: "How can you believe in a God who permits suffering on this scale?" is therefore very much around at the moment, and it would be surprising if it weren't – indeed, it would be wrong if it weren't. The traditional answers will get us only so far. God, we are told, is not a puppet-master in regard either to human actions or to the processes of the world…. If some religious genius did come up with an explanation of exactly why all these deaths made sense, would we feel happier or safer or more confident in God? Wouldn't we feel something of a chill at the prospect of a God who deliberately plans a programme that involves a certain level of casualties? Sunday Telegraph, 02.01.2005

38. A Methodist Response Tsunami is a typical Earth event. Lightning strikes!… Catastrophes far worse than tsunami occur about every 500 million years and at least five have almost extinguished life on Earth…. Asking 'Why does God allow it?' is the wrong question, like 'Why is ice cream cold?' It is part of being human. It is through collective conquests from microbes to meteors that this incredible human-ness has emerged. But now we are facing a sixth extinction. Tsunami disasters will still happen but the major peril today is that humanity has lost the plot. We are causing global warming, environmental destruction, war, and over-population which will extinguish centuries of life unless we change it…. Sweeping over us like a tsunami wave, individualism, capitalism, and fundamentalism have brought humanity to the brink of oblivion. Cedric Mayson, Director of the African National Congress Commission for Religious Affairs

39. American responses Three issues from a symposium in the US following the tsunami (http://www.upcam.org/tsunami.htm) The explanations are: • It was an act of commission. In other words, everything that happens is God’s will including the tsunami. This implies that God caused it to happen and hence can be viewed as cruel. • It was an act of omission. God did not cause the tsunami but did nothing to save people from its effects. This implies that God does not care about suffering. • It is a sign of impotence. God does care but is incapable of preventing such events. This implies that God is not all-powerful.

40. Religion and Suffering: Islam This [S E Asia tsunami] is the will of God almighty. It is this aspect that is beyond us. Allah knows best. None of us is going to live for an indefinite period. Death always takes place but what form it takes is always beyond us. People of faith need to have a very firm belief in God almighty. It is for God's will. It is for the betterment of mankind at large. Iqbal Sacranie Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain

41. Religion and Suffering: Hinduism To blame God [for the S E Asia tsunami] is infantile. It is about accepting personal responsibility and the truth which is that you are not the centre of the universe. You should not be thinking you are in charge. We are not going to stop this kind of thing happening and it is not important to try. We must try to realise our own perfection rather than trying to make the world perfect - that's not going to happen. We have chosen to enter a realm in which suffering exists. We are doomed to suffering and death. This does not reflect on our relationship with God. Shaunaka Rishi Das, Director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

42. Buddhism and Suffering • Buddhism teaches causation, that the whole universe is a web of interrelated causes and effects. There are two types of causation -- natural causation and moral causation. Natural causation has nothing to do with people being good or bad, it is simply a matter of the various forces in the universe acting on each other. Moral causation is about how people think, speak and act and how they feel as a result. • A tsunami is an example of an event caused by natural causation. The tectonic plates on the earth's surface move causing an earthquake, the energy released creates huge waves which, if they hit the coast, cause devastation. [Moral causation is concerned with how people react to the tsunami, either for good or for bad.] Buddhist For You Monthly Magazine (Singapore)

43. Activity • What are the differences between the different religious responses to the S E Asia tsunami? • Which of the responses do you find most convincing? Explain your answer. • What differences can you identify between the responses to the Lisbon earthquake and the S E Asia tsunami?

44. How does the Catholic Church explain suffering?

45. A Catholic Understanding of Suffering • The creation story shows Adam and Eve using the freedom God gave them to choose the pleasure of material things (the “forbidden fruit”). • Humanity had in this way chosen the path of instinct and egoism which would threaten the destruction of everything. • God, in response, sent suffering and death, not as a punishment but as a remedy to limit the effects of unrestrained freedom.

46. Mary Craig, On Human Suffering Our images of God, generated from our own human projections, often prevent us from understanding things as they really are. To make us human and distinct from other levels of creation, our creator gave us the ability to make choices. If we are to exercise this innate ability, it follows that we must be able to abuse it. If God were to intervene in our decisions, wrong actions would be impossible, our ability to make choices would be meaningless, and we would be no more than robots. The price of our freedom is painand suffering, a price that must be paid. http://www.jesuits.ca/orientations/Human%20Suffering.htm

47. Personal Response Is it better for us to have freedom of choice with the possibility of suffering rather than not to have such freedom?

48. Suffering and Christ • In choosing suffering and death, Jesus rejected the choice of pleasure rather than pain, the choice made by humanity. • The consequence was pleasure that arose from suffering – Christ as suffering victim brought about humankind’s redemption. • Those who suffer share in Christ’s suffering: • “To suffer means to become particularly susceptible, particularly open to the working of the salvific powers of God, offered to humanity in Christ.... In this redemptive suffering ... Christ opened himself from the beginning to every human suffering and constantly does so“ Pope John Paul II, Salvifici doloris