While the opinions expressed in this article are mine, the idea to write it came after a conversation with a sweet lady theologian.
... man requires a huge ‘unnatural’ effort to change the negative realities tied to his freedom...- Anthony Licari
On April 22, Good Friday, Pope Benedict took questions by video link from a child in Japan, a Muslim woman in the Ivory Coast and a mother caring for a son in a permanent coma.
To the mother of the moribund boy, the Pope explained that “the situation, perhaps, is like that of a guitar whose strings have been broken and, therefore, can no longer play”. A strange, non-optimistic explanation and surely not a reduction of the mother’s depression.
To a seven-year-old girl in Japan, asking him to explain the suffering in her country after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that killed 28,000 people, he pointed to Jesus and said suffering was not in vain.
“We do not have the answers but we know that Jesus suffered as you do,” the Pope said. So here we have neither answers nor solutions, nor proof that man’s suffering is not in vain.
Responding to a request for advice from the lady in the Ivory Coast, where 1,500 people died and a million were forced to flee, the Pope said people should look to Christ as an example of peace.
“Violence never comes from God, never helps bring anything good but is a destructive means and not the path to escape difficulties,” he said. While it is easy to understand that Christ is an example of peace and that violence never comes from God, there is here again neither an explanation nor a contribution to a solution to human suffering.
Reflecting on “the phenomenon of suffering”, one realises it is a painful, mysterious, unsolvable reality. Declaring a problem mysterious does not reduce it.
Proof of the vast presence of suffering is the continuous wars throughout man’s existence, torture, illness, injustice, imposition etc. I have spoken to theologians who hesitate and offer unconvincing arguments about this phenomenon, thus making it remain an embarrassing mystery.
The question goes something like this: There is a being called almighty, just and good, who is aware of the permanent state of suffering in the world but who seems not to do much about it. The answer is: (a) this suffering is a result of the freedom man is allowed; (b) this incomprehension emanates from the fact that man’s logic is different from divine logic.
Let us say that these look like ad hoc arguments.
The Pope’s explanation that intrigues me most is “we do not have the answers”, which is the same as the explanation given by theologians, including those I met at the Centre Theosophie in Paris.
It seems to me that most people are not happy with this mystery and want explanations and solutions. And this is not just recently. The gospel mentions the case of a sick and suffering woman who was determined to have an explanation and a solution, tugging energetically at Jesus’ robe to make sure He gave her his attention.
Jesus no longer walks around in towns and villages, so people cannot tug at His robe any more. They are, however, told that He listens to prayer – which is just as good as tugging at His robe – though unemotional proof of this is rare. Here the explanation is mathematical. Let us say that the sick lady may have tugged at Jesus’ robe 10, 20 times. Let us exaggerate and say that she tugged 100 times. In the end, she was listened to. Very often people who pray say they have been praying for a solution to their suffering for years without a solution. This means that tugging and praying are very different. Indeed, tugging 100 times produces results and praying a million times may not produce any.
Which brings me to refer to the only solution left to humanity.
Intelligence and energy have so often been used by humans to create suffering. And this gives rise to another question that deserves discussion on its own: Why was man created in such a way that the freedom he was given ended up creating a little joy and a lot of suffering?
We are told that man is to blame because he is free to create what he likes but, at the same time, he is not to blame as the type of freedom he was given seems perverse as it is capable of creating more harm than good.
My conclusion is that man requires a huge “unnatural” effort to change the negative realities tied to his freedom and to use his intelligence and energy to create peace and joy while eliminating suffering.
This is the major role of man, while waiting for another opportunity to tug at His robe.