Getting there...slowly.

So I did not actually read Kreeft's book cover to cover. I read the first chapter, where he sets up the problem or magnitude of suffering, leading the reader to think "Really?? You're going to have answer to all that? I'd like to see you try!" Then he loses me in the next chapter by being too philosophical, perhaps unavoidable in someone with a PhD in philosophy. But he's not writing to philosophy students, he's writing to people like me! (Just as I hope doctors explain diseases to patients in lay terms, and not medical).

Demythologism, pantheism, a smattering of uncommon latin phrases, and "withness" (is that even a word?), made it feel like if the problem of suffering is this difficult to answer, then maybe the author doesn't really know himself, and is just hiding behind fancy words! Was I wasting my time with this book? He did acknowledge this quickly, and asked the bored reader to at least read chapter 7 before giving up on it altogether. So I skipped to chapter 7, and aha! "the answer was the answerer, Jesus!"

Wait, there's more.

And even though I didn't go back to philosophical parts in the middle of the book, the last 2 chapters spoke more clearly to me.

The "problem" of suffering has 2 sides that one may need to wrestle with: the logical side, which I've slowly come to accept, and the emotional side, which I think is what most people have issue with. Suffering just feels BAD!! What do you say to someone whose spouse has left them, whose child was killed in an accident, whose parent was taken by cancer, who's been abused?? When we suffer, it's not an intellectual answer we're looking for from God, it's "rebellion or tears" asking God WHY?

I will come back to the 2 sides at the next post, hopefully. (note, I have not actually planned what I'm going to be writing, and am re-reading my favorite chapters to hopefully come up with something meaningful).

But I'd like to mention a crucial point I had not considered in the beginning of asking why bad things happen to good people. And that is what the real purpose of our lives is. It is not to maximize happiness and minimize suffering (if it were, then suffering really is a problem we must work hard at to rid!); but to train and prepare for heaven - where we will be with God forever. I had always thought it was just to love and serve God, by being good. I know, I'm still drinking spiritual milk, not even close to being ready for solids yet.

The first time I started to read Job, and knew that God would speak to him eventually, I was so excited to get to that part! Only to find that God's answer was not at all what I expected. Why didn't he say "poor Job, I'm so sorry you had to go through all that"? Why didn't he even tell Job about that challenge with Satan? Why wasn't he promising heavenly crowns and rewards? Instead, he shows us why he owes us no explanation at all. It's beautiful and brilliant.

If I can accept that happiness is not my entitlement, but my reward in the hereafter, and that God does not need to justify himself to me, but rather, the other way around; perhaps the answer to suffering becomes less mysterious, or my questions need re-framing.