Gooding, David: 2 - The Problem of Pain: Q&A

That's a good thing. I wonder if I can ask you about this business of, uh, person who has pain even though he hasn't sinned, you see, the idea that, uh, that people, uh, sometimes, uh, experience pain as a result of sin. Are you, is your argument at this point that, uh, there's a moral necessity on God's part to dispense pain randomly? Because if he didn't dispense it randomly, people would worship him because he is a kind of, uh, blessing giver, rather than the kind of God he is in himself. Is that the argument that you're advancing, that God has to give us pain in a random fashion, not just as a kind of slot machine where we put in so much righteousness and we get so much, uh, blessing out on the other side? Well, no, to be frank, that wasn't my argument at that stage, though I am very grateful for the suggestion. Uh, no, I had myself thought that a lot of, uh, pain is in one sense random, uh, because the subjecting of creation as a whole, as a whole system, uh, will eventually involve such, uh, a random distribution may be. Eh, now I'm not theologian enough to know whether beyond that, uh, uh, uh, we ought to think of the Almighty having a possibility if he were going to subject creation to, uh, frustration, that the amount of frustration ought to be equal to all. And that's a very interesting point. Uh, if I get you right, you're saying that he could have done that and made the frustration, uh, uh, dependent on how well you behaved or how badly you behaved. But that if he had done that, people would have soon cottoned on. Good behavior means no pain, bad behavior means pain. I learned that at school and managed to behave moderately decently, but it was all a lot of fake, you know, it wasn't with any conviction, merely a way of avoiding the cane. And that therefore God hasn't done that because what he would produce is not genuine love for God or faith. He would produce a kind of, uh, calculating, uh, calculated behavior, avoid pain, b- b- avoid bad behavior because you'll get pain, do good because you'll get rewarded with pleasant circumstances. Yes? Have I got to... That's how you feel? So let me ask you a question, if I may. Ah, you asked me what, what was I advancing at? Well, I hadn't thought of it, but I can begin to see. I'm asking for observations. Yes, yes, yes, yes, quite so. Do you think it? I mean, do you think that's a good argument to put in my quiver? I think it could make sense. Yes. Yes. That in some sense, pain has to be random. That, that, that means that, um, we cannot, that, uh, I mean, in a sense, it's approaching the idea of the necessity of pain, which you hinted at, uh, that this world might have to have pain. I just wonder if, if that is the case, then it would have to be done in this way, of moral necessity from God's point of view, to prevent it being, uh, really an automaton system. Yes, yes, yes, yes, I take your point. Yes, thank you for that. So I, I think that, uh, what, uh, uh, God, uh, curse, if I might use the term, upon the fall has done is to show us that this world, as of the moment, is not, uh, the final, it's not the ultimate. There's something disorganized, there's something wrong with it. Uh, in a kind of general way, I take off other points. You said earlier that, and some say in your talk that, um, man in his own fallen condition might have experienced pain or whatever that was, um, not too difficult to cope with because they were enjoying the and so on. I was wondering if the fall then is the fulcrum point between pain which is not destructive and pain which clearly is destructive. I mean, I'm thinking of things like, um, that there's a death principle that seems to operate in creation through the seasons of, you know, spring, summer, autumn, winter, and it keeps reproducing itself. Mm-hmm. Similarly, in our youth, lots of our cells die and are reproduced, um, until a certain age when more cells die than are reproduced, which is when we grow and die. And is that then the, the fulcrum point of that? I mean, is there then in the unfallen world, world, um, a conception of pain, of pain or death principle which is not destructive, but which could be positively beneficial? And vis-a-vis fallen world where, um, pain isn't proportioned, and where old age and death itself is something that is not, um, productive on some level, there's something nasty about it in the way that Christ seems to have felt in the New Testament at, say, the funeral of Lazarus, where there's a deep feeling of, uh, of compassion, almost bordering on anger at the suffering. Yes, yes. Oh, moments of this make me wish I were a theologian. Uh, so I answer all sorts of things. Eh... Can I make some random observations first? I begin to understand by type of things that you get at the end of the New Testament, that in the perfect world for to which we journey, there's no more curse, no more pain, no more death, no more crying, no more tears. And I find, uh, all my best friends, uh, commonly count themselves to the thought that in heaven there is no sorrow. In my more mischievous moments, I'm, uh, liable to ask them then, does God ever feel sorrow? And he does, where is it? When he feels it. You know, I'm led by my own Christian, uh, beliefs to the impression that in some very real sense, God does and has feel sorrow, felt sorrow. I could have gone and said anything else at the time of the crucifixion of our Lord. Now, the old Greeks, I'm well aware, the old Greeks and others that have followed them in a lot of schoolmen and church fathers would have argued from the old Greek pre- pre- presuppositions that God is impassable, he cannot suffer, and he is changeless. I am pleased to see that a lot of Christian philosophers nowadays are moving away from that notion, quite naked, and certainly doesn't come out of the pages of Holy Scripture. Well, the pages of Holy Scripture, both new and old, uh, represent us God, in some sense, undergoing what we would call suffering. That's why I know God is in his heaven, while he is suffering. Now you may say to me, yes, but all those expressions in Old and New Testament that talk of, uh, God being suffering in some sense are condescensions, condescensions to our language. Well, all I reply is so are the passages that talk of his joy. There must be a difference. Perhaps there is a thing in eternity that is not like our kind of sorrow and tears and curse. Of them there shall be no more, of the destructive kind. Perhaps, I don't know. I wish somebody would tell me. Who will tell me? You see, I mean, uh, uh... fantasists, I mean this in the right term, like C. S. Lewis writing his allegories and his, uh, revisionary fantasy, has suggested, haven't they, that, um, the principle of dying in order to live, of giving away the self in order to find the self, these are not merely principles of life in this fallen world, but are the principles upon which the very choirs of heaven, uh, proceed. And that there, that kind of death is normal and healthy and is part of the rapture and joy of the heavenly hosts. You'll see. It's only when translated into these lower realms, as you'll see, uh, where sin has infected the whole thing, that it becomes painful. But I don't know. I may be going on what I read in Old and New Testament, where it would appear. Somebody come to my rescue. Where it would appear that God in his head does know some kind of something. Obviously not of the destructive sort. Obviously compatible with divine perfection. I just wonder if I, I mean, relating that to, um, the human nature of Christ himself, um, wondering about, um, I mean, obviously a human nature that was, um, in all senses human like ourselves in terms of feeling tiredness and so on, but presumably not with that sin principle built in, which is the destructive element in pain. Well, thank you very much again for that. Yes, that, uh, that observation. I personally would want to draw a very big distinction there. That, uh, yes, in those senses he was an orphan like we are, but not in his suffering that principle of his own inherent, uh, uh, sinfulness. That so makes the terror of our sufferings. Yes, certainly. Are you also applying this then to the situation before the fall, that we've got death before the fall, but not a nasty death? I mean, I think of a little mouse one morning before the fall, and the cat, presumably a cat liking to chase mice, kills this mouse, and it's a good day for him, you see. But it's a d- pretty destructive for the mouse, isn't it? You see, so is there death before the fall, but an undestructive death? Well, yes, I- I- I take your point, and uh, i- even now we take death at another level, uh, um, flowers, flowers. You see, that process, we don't normally, uh, cry, do we? Over that, uh, uh, uh, principle. You see. A- a- another observation that I, I, I would make, and again, I'm proceeding with a fee, uh, as a physicist, as I understand book of Genesis, it, it first pronounces that God's creation good. Yeah. But I don't suppose, uh, that in those far off days, if Adam, before he fell, could have made a, a space vehicle, who has then gone out into outer space, he would have found it comfortable. Outer space, I, I gather, would have been as dangerous then and lethal to human existence as it is now. Yes? And that, uh, while the Earth was good, I do observe that for Adam, so the ancient story goes, God made a garden. That is, he made him an environment in which all was well. Uh, I, I, I don't know that we're obliged to think that once he got outside the garden, he would have found everything so, uh, so pleasant, necessarily. You see. I, I, I don't know, you know, people have been worried, haven't they, uh, by the appearance in the geological records of animal suffering. Long before man appeared, they tell us, well, if you accept those geological records, eh, you see, um, perhaps you would want to explain them on, on your ground, would you so? No, I did pass. You passed? Oh dear. Pain, um, it seems to me isn't so big a problem if, uh, there is an end to it. But if pain is eternal, as is suggested in the Bible that it may well be in hell, what purpose can you see that pain fulfilling in the universe? Well, yes. That to me, that is a problem of pain more than the, uh, temporal problem of pain, uh. That it should last forever. Sorry? That it should last forever. Yes, that it should last forever for some people. For some people. Yes, and I take your point, and as far as my emotions go, I, I share that. Uh, what purpose will it serve, uh, and so forth. The kind of thing, I don't know whether you will find it helpful, the kind of thing that appeals to me is, one, the existence of hell, if you may use the term. It seems to me to flow, so as I can read scripture, flow straight from God, the nature of God's love. And God's respect for men. Uh, when I was saying a while ago, uh, uh, that the God's original plan, according to the New Testament, is to have sons of God, not just creatures, but sons of God. And to have sons of God, the offer has to be made for a creature of his free will to enter into this relationship, which again must mean the creature must be free, if he thus determines, to go against all the efforts, all the attempts to woo him and persuade him against all the warnings to say no to God. Now, I personally find a problem there. If God is then going to say, well, you say no to me, and therefore you must be destroyed. That seems to me to do away with the creature's choice. You see what I mean? If your only choice is to choose God or else be destroyed, well, that ain't the choice really, is it? As it follows, it seems to me it follows again from our definitions of God. If we were dealing with some pagan God, we could say, well, God ought therefore to make an alternative paradise. For those who elected to reject God and fellowship with him, there ought to be an alternative world, at least where they could be, uh, enjoy themselves, so to say. But as a, a, a, a Christian and a monotheist, that seems to me to be quite impossible. God is in himself the source of every good thing. To say no to him is to find the other good things go bad. That's why I, I find it not so hard to believe the doctrine of the fall, for that reason. It might, on the surface of it, look spiteful. Well, if Adam sinned against God and, and chose creation rather than God and disobeyed God, why does God have to go and mess it up? Why can't God gracefully retire and let Adam enjoy Eden? And the answer, uh, as I understand it, would be that Eden would remain Eden. That things would lose their significance. It would indeed become a death, as Adam warned it would be, was warned it would be. Now, if that is so, I say, I find it difficult myself to see how God, eh, can then, uh, destroy the man. It seems to me to be tantamount to removing his, his free choice. The other thing with which I, so to speak, comfort my heart is that, uh, and I'm very uncertain of this, when we talk of eternity, uh, whether we should think of it in terms of extinction of time, I'm not so sure. Now, why I say I'm uncertain about that is, philosophically, I know many people, very learned people, and Christians too, have suggested, haven't they, that in eternity there is no time. Very commonly said, and even by theologians who found all sorts of doctrines in the Bible, you see, that in eternity there is no time. Everything is simultaneously present. Well, I don't know that we know, for some, and I can't think of anywhere in Holy Scripture where such a thing is real. And it would seem to lead to consequences that go clean bang counter to what scripture does. As far as I know, scripture reveals that the, the, the Holy Trinity once did not have a human member. But that through the incarnation, it came to have as one of its members someone who was God and man. That suggests to me some kind of extension, some kind of before and after, even in eternity. To say that, uh, that the, uh, the second person of the Trinity was always man, was Mary always eternally Mary or something? And similarly, I mean, come to the smaller things of the, uh, the incarnation on our Lord's life on earth. I find it very difficult to believe that our Lord is this moment offering himself to God as a sacrifice for sin. For according to scripture, when Christ offered himself as a sacrifice to God for sin, he was be- he was rejected of God, he was aban- rather abandoned of God. I cannot bring myself to think that in eternity, Christ is eternally in a state of being abandoned by God. And so I myself am driven to think of some kind of extension in eternity, some before and after, duration, if it's not the same kind of sense of duration we have now. But if you say, what purpose would it for? Oh, sorry, what purpose would it serve? That people should be allowed to continue in their self-chosen state. One purpose I could think of, and I believe I have with me many of the old divines. It would eternally be there to show that God isn't a tyrant. That he does allow his creatures their free will. And so would serve the glory of God. God, in that sense, is less apparent than some of them in the Kremlin. And indeed, some Christian churches. We've had to agree them will be dissolved. I don't know. What do you think, what do, if I ask you what your, have you any solutions to your own question? I have no solution to it. It is my problem with Ted. Um, I don't see your problem with annihilation, really. I don't see how that, uh, negates, uh, an idea of free will or choice. Uh, to me, it's, it's still a choice, life or death. Oh, I see, well, I see what you mean, yes. If God comes to me and says, now choose me, that's life, or if you reject me, that's eternal death, I might be trying to say, why do I choose eternal? And I wish. Yes. Yes, I still want to say that the very putting of that choice before me is more, uh, the act of a dictator than I should care to be. If not easy, I couldn't, I couldn't find any grounds for disputing his right to do it actually anytime. But it seems to me to be a more magnificent thing. That he should not impose upon me that kind of decision. I wonder if I'm a last concern for one, and I read a book that was here, read something called Sister Mercy by an American, uh, who had come across C. S. Lewis at Oxford and had some correspondence with him. But the main point of the book really is this man had a very close relationship with a woman who died and had tremendous difficulties sort of accepting this and so on. And C. S. Lewis offered the observation that, um, in his view, Christians in certain circumstances do suffer more than the norm, so it isn't a random, uh, distribution of suffering. I mean, he didn't say this as a, as something that he felt conviction about or that he ought to say as a, you know, as a public command or anything. He said it as a, as an inkling based on his experiences of life, um, because, um, God, um, in his wisdom found, uh, felt that a person living close with him could accept this kind of suffering without rebellion, and so on and so on. Now, the point I'm really getting on to is that, um, Sheldon Panoiken's problem was, as he worked about at the end of the day, that his relationship with his wife had been so intense that it actually limited his relationship with God in certain major ways. Now, my question is, um, how can, I mean, as a Christian who wants to enjoy the good things God has given in this world, and how should that enjoyment proceed without risk of... the, of, um, chastisement by God, if you see what I'm getting at. Mm-hmm. And so that, you know, how can one live with the uneasy feeling that to devote oneself to, um, one's wife or family or the good things that are, are around one's work or whatever, is to somehow lay up stores of difficulties for oneself. You see, that's put in a crude form, but Yeah. Yes, if I may answer, be allowed to answer in a crude form as well, which I mostly do anyway. Uh, you see, I take your point. My, my first answer would be by being a Christian rather than a pagan. Uh, to say the, the idea is widespread, at least in the Greek world, the ancient Greek world, that the gods were jealous. And that, uh, you'll find it in the pages of Herodotus a great deal, and, uh, elsewhere, that, uh, if people succeeded too much, then they thought this was a dangerous kind of situation because the gods were jealous. And therefore, the famous letter of I forget who to I forget who, uh, uh, who noticed that his friend, uh, had gone from out for a number of years, uh, with great success, with no incident of suffering. So he wrote him a letter and said this, uh, displeased him to see this because the gods were jealous, and if he went on like this, succeeding i- invariably, he would eventually get it in the neck. So he better take something or other, the th- thing he prized most, and throw it away so it couldn't possibly come back, and that would cure this excessive success and avoid the wrath of God against him, so say. Now that is a commonly spread notion in the ancient world, and sometimes you'll find it masquerading as Christian piety, as though a joy and gladness and success were somehow bad things, uh, just saying. Now, of course, they can be, uh, ba- risky, can't they? Our Lord warned us in the parable of the fir that, uh, the seed, when it is sown, can be smothered by the riches of this world. So, uh, riches, success, uh, are dangerous. But he likewise added that the cares of this world can smother it too. And a great deal of poverty and a- a- a- a- and distraction for those reasons can suffer it, uh, can smother it, if I'm not careful. You see. Yes, this is a dangerous world. Of course it is. I'm tempted to say that's what half the fun of it is. It isn't a safe world to risk every morning you get out of bed being run over by a bus or something of the sort. And if you say to avoid that, I'll stay in bed, you, you run the risk of a thrombosis. It is a, it is a dangerous world, you'll see. Uh, and in that sense, uh, I'm not sure it's all bad that it should be dangerous. When we haven't got the resources to avoid the danger, you'll see. Now, how can I enjoy the lovely things? Uh, uh, Bible is so insistent on this, against the old notion, you see, that has blighted Christendom, or did do once upon a time, many years, that somehow marriage was infradig, if you wanted to be really super duper spiritual, you wouldn't get married. And so there's something wrong in it. Against that notion, the Bible, I just pass saying that that kind of doctrine is a doctrine of demons. That these things are good. It's an insult to the Creator to say they are not. And that God has, moreover, given us all things richly to enjoy. If you want to avoid the danger that comes with it, I think, eh, perhaps this will sound a bit weak, but it's true nonetheless, uh, Thanksgiving is the number one important thing. Saint Paul, in his great treatise on the Christian gospel, in chapter one of that treatise, chapter one of the Epistle of Romans, starts men's going wrong when they glorified not God as God, neither were thankful. That is, when we take the good things as things in themselves, and instead of allowing them to, uh, be the basis of fellowship with God and the enjoyment of God in fellowship with God, we choose the thing and its joy rather than God itself. Now, where that moment comes, I don't think any of us could prescribe for the other, but that that is a possibility. I know myself, uh, I could find such joy and interest in the study of Holy Scripture as to take my heart away from God himself. Yeah. Your other point, uh, uh, uh, I- I- I- I- I'm not quite sure now how, how it connected, but in pointing to David, uh, you were saying something about, uh, suffering for Christians not being arbitrary. Perhaps they get more than other people do. Well, I, I, I, I, I, I don't know about that. Uh, I don't know that we have any sort of statistics on the matter. I imagine that, uh, it's possibly true. To start off with, the thing I didn't say in my talk, which was too long anyway, but a thing that perhaps ought to have been said, is that Christians are not only themselves saved, and their perfecting involves pain. They are invited to follow Christ voluntarily in accepting what you might call vicarious suffering for the salvation of other people. Not for the purification of their own souls, but as Saint Paul would put it, in his great evangel- evangelistic labors to bring the heathen to God. He faced voluntarily an enormous amount of suffering that he could have in- eh- eh- eh- avoided had he remained a rabbi in Jerusalem. Stoning, imprisonment, thirst, persecution, abuse, you'll see. Let alone the sufferings of long hours of work, making tents and preaching and praying night and day, and so on. Suffering which he voluntarily undertook to promote the salvation of others. And Saint Peter, who once had, uh, uh, found this element in Christianity more than he could face, and ran away from suffering with Christ, e- eventually, however, not only suffered himself, but is heard to be exhorting people, for instance, wives, uh, converted wives, Christian wives, uh, whose husbands were non-Christians. He tells them that Christ has left them an example, true like he's left all of us, that we should follow his steps. Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, who when he was revived, revived not again, when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously, that we, passing away from sin, might live unto righteousness. Now, the historical thing, when Christ suffered, he did not threaten. He warned people of consequences, he did not threaten them. That is to say, he, he, he, he, he didn't condone evil. He committed himself to him that judges righteously. Christ believed in a final judgment. He didn't condone sin. But he was prepared to suffer it without retaliation, for the purpose and in the hope that it might lead some of those that were persecuting him eventually to repentance. A way of stopping evil that you might call the bullet and blanket method. If the blanket yields to the bullet, there's more hope of stopping the bullet. And Christ endured suffering without retaliation, in the hope that by that means people might be weaned away from sin and brought to repentance. And Christians, as I understand it, are called to that same office of suffering. So the good woman, and here I- I- I'm not a priest, it's not my sermon, I didn't make it up, don't charge me afterwards. It's Peter, uh, and he was married, and uh, he does exhort these Christian women that if their husbands are unreasonably, unreasonable in their behavior, and the more so because their wives have become Christians and they're still pagans, that these women are by God's grace to seek to endure this, like Christ endured his suffering. That it may turn under God to the leading of their husband to repentance. Whereas if the wife gave them back as good as they since, so to speak, tore their hair and burned their buns and all that can seem a wise do. And the husband is not likely to be impressed by the salvation that these women profess. So the Christians, by definition, are liable in that sense to get more suffering than unbelievers. And the other kind of thing, uh, without now becoming, uh, becoming pompous or or farceable, the man who stands for positively doing right in the world, as a Christian is exalted to must, but in certain circumstances, suffer. Uh, one example of doing right in that sense is, of course, for a Christian to confess Christ. Whereas if he were prepared to offer his pinch of, uh, incense on the altar to the emperor, he could escape suffering. If he weren't prepositively doing good, he might well be master. Again, the Christian gets more suffering. I, I, I immediately add, uh, men who are not Christians, who are of such moral stature as are prepared to stand in business and elsewhere for moral rectitude and are prepared to pay in various forms for their moral rectitude when they might have gained by illegitimate behavior.