The Mystery and the Value of Suffering

One of my various apostolates here in Italy is to teach the joys of medieval philosophy to American college juniors studying abroad here in the Eternal City. And for the first couple years, as a new instructor, it was admittedly a bit of a challenge!

However, since I have taught this course for several years now, I know what to expect in terms of questions from the students. And, without fail, the students always raise questions about a required reading from the great Saint Augustine. The work, “On Free Choice of the Will,” presents Augustine in dialogue with a certain Evodius regarding a great number of questions.

It does not make for light reading!  And, as my students like to point out, it seems that even Evodius falls asleep about two thirds of the way through the dialogue!  This is because the third of the three books is practically an Augustinian monologue without much input from Evodius.

A Challenging Text

But it is precisely in this monologue that Augustine touches upon the suffering of children. He notes that children before the age of reason are not capable of sinning.  Why then should they have to suffer?  Indeed, Augustine places the following question on the lips of people who see these young ones suffer: “What evil have they done so as to suffer these things?”

Augustine’s answer to this question is rather blunt.  He says, “Since God accomplishes some good in correcting adults when they are scourged by the sufferings and death of their young children, who are dear to them, why should those things not happen?”

Without fail, I ask my students if they think Augustine is right.  Do they agree that innocent children are meant to suffer so that the adults who see them reform their lives? And without fail, my students reply that this seems wrong.

What is the right answer?

I tell my students that I agree with them.  I don’t believe that Augustine’s answer is the best to explain why children, and the innocent in general, suffer. It is true that we can learn from suffering, and when we see others suffer, it should move us to compassion. However, to say that the melting of our hard hearts needs to come from innocent suffering seems extreme.

Yet, as I also say to my students, this leaves us with important questions.  What is the point of suffering? And what good does it do?

A few answers

This semester I received several different answers to these questions.  And each of the answers had their own validity and truth.  But the answers failed to capture the entire complexity of the issue of suffering.

I always present a famous quote by Elie Wiesel, the 1986 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.  He said, “Suffering gives man no privileges; it all depends on what he does with it. If he uses his suffering against man, he betrays it; if he uses it to fight evil and humanize destiny, then he elevates it and elevates himself.”

So on the one hand, it seems that Augustine is wrong to say that suffering always makes us better. Indeed, I can think of many examples in which those who have suffered have become bitter.  Often people get angry at God and at the world.  They become harder of heart than they had been before.

But on the other hand, Augustine is right to say that suffering is an opportunity.  There is something gained from suffering.

C.S. Lewis addressed suffering in his book “The Problem of Pain.” In the book he writes about pain with an insight that can be applied to what we must suffer in general.

“Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong when he is being hurt… And pain is not only immediately recognisable evil, but evil impossible to ignore. We can rest contentedly in our sins and in our stupidities; and anyone who has watched gluttons shovelling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating, will admit that we can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

It is true that God uses suffering to get our attention. We cannot simply ignore any suffering that takes place in our lives. When suffering afflicts someone that we love or our very selves, as Lewis states, it is “impossible to ignore.” It “insists upon being attended to.” It needs a response.

Sometimes, as noted, the response is that people grow angry with God.  They complain, curse, and even lose their faith.  These are all responses to the problem of pain and suffering.

Some words from John Paul II

My students always debate about whether the Christian understanding of suffering is different from other understandings. In general, it seems that there is a difference between the way, say, atheists suffer, and how Catholics suffer. But what is it, exactly, that makes the difference?

The students usually go back and forth, examining different points of view. However, in the end, almost all the various perspectives seem to find an excellent response to the problem of suffering in the works of Pope Saint John Paul II.  In his Apostolic Letter Salvifici doloris (On the Christian Meaning of Suffering), the saintly pontiff explains in point 13:

“But in order to perceive the true answer to the “why” of suffering, we must look to the revelation of divine love, the ultimate source of the meaning of everything that exists. Love is also the richest source of the meaning of suffering, which always remains a mystery: we are conscious of the insufficiency and inadequacy of our explanations. Christ causes us to enter into the mystery and to discover the “why” of suffering, as far as we are capable of grasping the sublimity of divine love.”

These words express very well what my students, and indeed most people I have met, think about suffering.  And many I have met have never even read the words in the pontiff’s exhortation.

It seems that God wants us to grow through suffering, no matter how hard it might be. Suffering draws us to the mystery of the cross and, as the Pope says so well, suffering is a mystery. We will not be able to understand it completely or explain away all the suffering that we experience or undergo.

With the eyes of faith, however, we can catch a glimpse of the meaning of suffering. But without faith, suffering appears both senseless and utterly useless. Even at the end of the document (pt. 31), the Pope, after explaining suffering considering the life of Jesus Christ, summarizes:

“This is the meaning of suffering, which is truly supernatural and at the same time human. It is supernatural because it is rooted in the divine mystery of the Redemption of the world, and it is likewise deeply human, because in it the person discovers himself, his own humanity, his own dignity, his own mission.

“Suffering is certainly part of the mystery of man. Perhaps suffering is not wrapped up as much as man is by this mystery, which is an especially impenetrable one.”

So, again, suffering is a mystery. But God does get good out of it, somehow.  Even so, it remains a mystery, one that we can never fully understand. However, having seen Jesus on the Cross, suffering for love of us, we know, with the certainty of our faith, that we participate in the redemption of the world and in the mystery of Christ’s love for us as we suffer. The fruits of this participation we will fully know only in heaven.