Theology

First premise: In the 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind staring Russell Crowe, the character John Nash sees and talks to people who are not really there. In the 1999 movie The Sixth Sense staring Bruce Willis, he plays a child psychologist who is trying to help a boy who sees and communicates with the ghosts of dead people who are unaware that they are dead. The boy is the only one who can see these dead people. In the 1971 musical Fiddler on the Roof the central character, a Jewish dairyman, is constantly talking with God, who appears not to be there.

In all three of these shows, the central character is seeing or communicating with people who cannot be seen by the other characters. One may rightly ask: What do these shows have to do with God, pain and suffering? These shows provide an analogy for when God communicates with His children and they with Him.

When God communicates with one of His children, seldom are the times when anyone can perceive these communications – including the person receiving the communiqué. Further, when one communicates with God, seldom are the times when it appears that God is there listening to one or even hears one. However, God does hear and listen to everyone who communicates with Him.

Second premise: Many may claim that God does not have absolute power over everything in this world. But such beliefs are untrue. One knows this because one knows of the absolute control over a chessboard a master chess player has when competing against someone who is an amateur. The amateur cannot make any move unless the master either allows it or forces it.

If a master chess player can have that much control over a chessboard then one can only stand in awe over the control that God has over this world. As an individual, one has power over absolutely nothing; one can only go forward. Just as Chuck (who talked to an imaginary Wilson) in the 2000 movie Cast Away, staring Tom Hanks, could only endure because he did not know what fate the rising sun would cast upon his shores tomorrow, so also must one endure.

Each morning one awakens, everyday of one’s life, one stands in the crossroads of one’s life and one does not know what fate awaits one tomorrow, only God knows what fate awaits one.

God even has control over one’s own thoughts. He can put thoughts into one’s mind.

For example, He can inspire one to do a good deed. He can put fear of retribution for violating the law into one’s mind. He can give one some materialistic goal to seek in order to distract one and thereby prevent one from committing some foul deed or doing something that could bring harm to one’s soul. God can manifest to one the advantages (or disadvantages) of entering into a certain occupation or project in order to get one to enter (or prevent one from entering) into that field.

This does not mean that God is the cause of schizophrenia or any other mental disease. It does not mean that God is the source of those who have “visions” of the devil or other types of hallucinations. Nor does it mean that someone can claim that God put evil thoughts into a person’s mind and caused that person (or anyone) to commit an evil act.

It merely means that God can and at times does control the thoughts and actions of His children – those who are contemplating evil actions as well as those who are trying to do His will – in order to protect them. Just as a chess master will limit the movement of his opponent’s pieces in order to protect his own pieces, so also does God limit a person’s own thoughts. This is for their own protection as well as for the protection of His Children, for all children need adult supervision and protection.

Third premise: Every thought, every emotion, everything one senses or perceives in any way in this physical world, one can also perceive in one’s dreams. Since it is one’s thoughts, emotions and senses that “create” reality for one, one can therefore say that the “world” one enters when one dreams is a “real” world.

The words world and real are put into quotation marks because one knows that dreams are not a real world; dreams are not reality. But they can be considered “as though” they are real because, as noted, everything one senses in the physical world can also be sensed in one’s dreams. Thus in this sense, dreams are a “real world” to the person doing the dreaming. The world one enters when one dreams is real to the person doing the dreaming, even though no one else can see one’s dreams.

Here again, God has control over one’s mind. As anyone can discover, God frequently communicates with His children through their dreams. The scriptures are full of examples of God communicating with His children through their dreams. In the book of Job, He tells one that the purposes for dreams is to reveal to one what one is doing wrong so that one can correct one’s errors and begin to live in peace (Job,33:14-18).

After considering these three premises and contemplating upon the power of God and His absolute control over this world, one must ask himself: If God is so powerful and has so much control over this world, why does God allow His children to endure pain and suffering? It would be very easy for God to alter one’s life so that one would not have to endure any pain or suffering.

Just as one little pawn movement by a chess master can alter the entire course of a chess match, so also can God change the course of one’s life with just a small change in any aspect of one’s life. For example, a person could oversleep one morning and such could cause his or her whole day to change, which could cause his or her whole life to change. So, why does God allow His children to endure pain and suffering?

First of all, most of the pain and suffering a person experiences is caused by man’s inhumanity to man. If everyone obeyed the law then there would be far less pain in this world. Another large amount of the pain one suffers is caused through ignorance.

But most of all, the answer to this question can be found in the nature of free will. The character of free will is this: One has power over absolutely nothing. One can only go forward; one can only accept the life one is living as though it were the will of God.

Each person is nothing more than a puppet or pawn; it is God who is the Puppet Master. He controls every aspect of one’s life. One must endure, because one does not know what fate awaits one. The only power one has is the power to accept or to reject the will of God for one’s self.

This does not mean that one does not have free will. To accept or reject God’s will is one’s free will. Nor does this mean that anyone is predestined for heaven or hell or that God is the author of evil (Sir.15:21). One chooses heaven or hell by living a life of love or life of evil. God allows those who choose a life of love to go as they please. But those who choose to do evil, God will control the conditions under which they commit their foul deeds. Just as a master chess player chooses when and where he will allow an amateur opponent to attack his pieces.

Finally, this does not mean that one should just quit trying to change the direction one’s life is going. On the contrary, one is obligated to try to make changes in one’s life in those areas where one is unhappy. This too is one’s free will. But one must also accept one’s lot in life in those areas where change is impossible. Hence, the proverb: Lord help me to change those things that I can change, accept those things that I cannot change and the wisdom to know the difference.

What else does it mean? It means that one must have faith. When one accepts pain and suffering with dignity and without complaint then one receives grace from God. This grace is used in time of temptation. This grace is used to help one overcome evil.

Herein is temptation: One has no proof that every thought, every emotion, everything one sees, hears, senses or perceives in any way is not just a figment of one’s own mind, one’s own imagination. For all one knows, one is at this very moment having a vision that these words are before one. For all one knows, one is right now sleeping somewhere having a dream or some other type of hallucination about the life one is presently living.

As Decartes said, the only thing one knows for sure is that one exists: “I think, therefore I am.” Everything else is faith. The only thing one has to accept as actual reality that which one perceives as reality while one is awake is one’s own faith, faith gotten from grace.

Indeed, it is only one’s faith in God that reality isn’t something akin to the first two movies mentioned in the first premise, or worse something akin to the world one enters when one dreams, or akin to some of the more bizarre Twilight Zone episodes. (I am not trying to judge Rod Serling’s excellent program, just trying to prove a point.)

In fact, one does not even have “proof” for the existence of God. It is only grace that gives one the faith to accept God’s existence, and the acceptance of God’s existence is the beginning of life.

God knows that one’s faith is weak. In order to help one’s faith, our Lord has given one the Shroud of Turin. A person can use it, the scientific investigations of it and those passages in the Holy Bible that discuss it (Jn.20:5-8) and the Resurrection (Mt.28:2-3; 1Cor.15:50-53) and build an argument that proves the exclusive divinity of Jesus Christ. One can then use their faith that reality is what one perceives while awake and use this evidence for the cornerstone for one’s life.

God, Pain & Suffering