Why Does God Allow Suffering?: A Brief Reflection 

The Book of Isaiah particularly chapters 40 to 55 represents one of the highest point and richest explorations of the nature of God in Old Testament theology. In these 15 chapters of Isaiah, we find consistently the view that God is at the same time infinitely close to us and infinitely transcendent. St. Augustine later declared that God is interior intimo meo et superior summo meo— that is, “God is nearer to me than I am to myself,” and he is higher than anything I can possibly imagine. To demonstrate God’s nearness,  Isaiah says, “Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near” (55:6). God the Creator and Sustainer of all things is near. In Isaiah 49:15, we read the famous quote, “Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even though she forgets, I (Yahweh) will never forget you” Why? Because “upon the palms of my hands I have engraved you” (49:16). This is how close we are to God and how close God is to us. However, at the same time as you look through Isaiah, you will find lots of passages that emphasize the peculiarity and radical otherness of God. For instance in chapter 40:18 you find the question: “To whom can you liken God?” In the same chapter 40, you find another question, “To whom can you liken me as an equal? (v 25)” In 42:8 we read “I am the Lord, Lord is my name; my glory I give to no other.” In Isaiah 43:11 we find, “I, I am the Lord, there is no Savior but me.” Another passage says, “I am the Lord, there is no other, there is no God besides me” (45:5).  In all of these, we can see that while God is closer to us than we are to ourselves; he carves each of us on the palm of his hand, he is totally other.

Check this out! The same book of Isaiah that urges us to seek the Lord and call upon him because he is near, also stresses this fact, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts” (Is. 55:8-9). God is infinitely close, and infinitely far at the same time. The fact that God is the Creator of all things means that he is intimately connected to all things. God creates and continually sustains the whole universe. St. Thomas Aquinas said that God is present in all things by essence, presence and power. No one can in reality run away from God because God is in all things. Since God is the Creator of the universe, God cannot be an item within the universe. He is the Creator of all the operations and so cannot be one of the denizens of creation. One of the biggest mistakes made by atheists old and new is that they see God as a big being in the world. As such, they embark on a search of this big being in the world, and since they cannot find him, they conclude he is unreal. Of course, anyone who embarks on this kind of search cannot find God because God is not one of the beings in creation. He is the Creator of all things and all beings; therefore cannot be found as one of the created items in the universe. An artist exists not in the work of his hands but outside of it. St. Thomas Aquinas refers to God not as the highest being, rather God is “ipsum esse subsistens” that is, “the sheer act of ‘to be itself.” To see God as the highest being is to compare him with created things. But God is incomparable to all things. Isaiah asks, “To whom can you liken God? (compare me). God is not the biggest thing around; of all the impressive things in the universe, God is not the most impressive. That makes him comparable. God is “the sheer act of to be itself.” God is in all things because nothing on earth would exist without the influence of God, but God is also above all things because he is not one of the items in the universe. Does this sound abstract and philosophical? Yes! But here is where the rubber meets the road and where these classifications are of enormous practical import. And it is all around the problem of suffering. Suffering is a reality that affects all and sundry. Everybody suffers! Even a newborn child suffers. The first thing a child does the moment he or she is expelled from the mother’s womb is to cry. Why? Because for the first time, the baby is exposed to a harsher environment. To suffer is to live in a harsh environment that can sometimes be life threatening. 

For us religious people, the question then is this: if God is infinitely close to all things, close to us, and engraves us on his palm, if God is our friend, the one who sustains us in and through all things, then how in the world could God be presiding over this disaster? We are told that God is closer to us more than we are closer to ourselves, but why is he allowing us to go through suffering? The answer to this question is in the book of Isaiah: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord” (55:8). Is God close to us in our suffering? Yes, indeed! But will we understand God’s purpose for allowing our suffering? Not usually! Because “As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my ways above your ways and my thoughts above your thoughts” (55:9). Let me give this silly analogy to buttress my point: Those who are close to me know how much I love dogs. Of all the lower animals that God created, dogs are humanity’s best friend. Dogs are amazing animals. When I was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I had a male dog named Max. I bought him as a puppy, that means he grew up with me. Max knew I loved him so dearly. But there is this experience I will never forget. I took him to the veterinary doctor for regular checks and shots. While he was on the doctor’s table, he was crying, groaning and moaning as well. He knew what was coming: the shots. Before the shots, the Vet. doctor wanted blood sample to run some tests. He asked me to hold Max, and as soon as the doctor started to draw blood from him, my dog looked at me with this deep sadness. Without doubt, the look on his face was communicating a questions like, “You that love me, why are you doing this to me?” Max knew I was his master, his friend, his companion, and care-taker, but I was at the same time presiding over his pain and suffering. The look on his face obviously means, “How could you be doing this to me?” You know, even though I stroked Max’s back, and gave him a hug, but none was able to explain to him why I was taking part in his anguish. I tried to talk and explain to Max that the shots are good for him, but all my efforts failed to produce the desire result. When we got into the car, Max avoided me. Not until we got home and I gave him his favorite bone that he forgot about what transpired previously. There was no way I could have explained the situation to the understanding of my dogs because there is a qualitative difference between his capacity to understand and my mind. There is something totally different from the way I see and imagine the world and his. This may not be a compelling example, but it’s an analogy that coveys of God’s relationship to us. Do we go through suffering in a way that we look at God as presiding over our calamity? Yes! Do we look at God with the same look that Max gave me? Yeah!

Parents often struggle to explain to their kids the need to take pills or injections when they are sick because they are too young to understand the purpose of the pain of injection or swallowing medicines. They are too young to understand why they should endure all that. This too is an analogy to God’s relationship to us when we suffer. The problem with suffering is our inability to comprehend it. When we suffer, we question God’s nearness to us. We question how could God forget us; we ask why and how God who promises never to forget us will preside over the adversity that has befallen us. Is God close to us? Absolutely, yes! Even if a mother forgets her child, God promises he will not forget us. But at the same time, let’s not forget that as high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are God’s ways above our ways and our thoughts above God’s thoughts.” Although God is intimately close to us, he is totally other. 

One last point, if someone asks you, “How come we suffer?” feel free to reply, “I don’t know. I am like a child who does not know and does not understand the need to take medicine and allow shots be given to him or her. But there is someone who loves me, who is present to the situation, who may not even in principle begin to make sense of it for me because of the radical difference between him and me. 

Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara, CSsR

St. Alphonsus Catholic Church

Thursday, October 1, 2020