If you have ever read any of the works of Thomas Aquinas, you will find that he has a logical, almost scientific, way of writing, and that works for me. I am in the process of reading his Summa Theologica, and I will be reading it for the rest of my life, as it is 7000 pages and I’m a slow reader, usually with several books going at one time. I know I have written about the problem of suffering before, and many great thinkers, such as C.S. Lewis, have, but I want to take a more straightforward approach, in the spirit of Aquinas’ style.

Sidebar-Science/ Philosophy Vs Religion
I wrote here a couple of years ago that I love philosophy and hate religion (the same type of religion that Jesus hated). I mentioned that I love philosophy because it is pure and straightforward. You look at a question and all the possible answers. Then you look at the objective evidence and logic.

In religion, which is about conformity, not the truth, it is a quagmire. There are specific answers you can’t even think about because the religious culture makes nonconformity a moral failure. I have been a Presbyterian for most of my Christian life, supposedly following the teachings of John Calvin. If I were a religious person, then I would have no choice but to agree with those teachings even though they have many absurdities, because to do otherwise would make me immoral to my fellow Presbyterians. Even as a Christian, speaking generally, some ideas are forbidden. This limits the availability of Christianity.

In the science world, where I have spent most of my career and love, where the search for truth is supreme, different opinions are just that, nothing else. Those with the most evidence, in the end, hopefully succeed in convincing the others that their ideas are correct.

In religion, however, conformity is the norm; offering a different opinion becomes a moral failure. Religion uses personal insults to coerce people into the same view. Group Think. For example, my old evangelical friends, some of them begin the conversation, “I can’t believe you attend a church pastored by a woman,” or “I can’t believe that you like LGBTQ people.” Each suggests I’m either stupid or immoral, likely both. But in science, you would never start a conversation that way because the pursuit isn’t conformity, but truth, so you don’t use emotional manipulation as religion does. You would start the conversation, respectfully, “That’s very interesting. How did you reach your conclusion?” or “Show me your evidence.” Even if you disagree, you are still pals with respect for each other, but religion doesn’t allow that.

The Problem: Christianity claims that there is one God who is personable, knows us like a friend, yet is omnipotent, omniscient (which literally means the perfect scientist), omnipresent, loving, and good. However, in the real world, horrible things happen to the best of people. This conflict causes many to leave Christianity, not even consider it, or live in a state of lukewarm affection toward a God they can no longer trust.

Possible Answers to the Problem of Suffering
Atheistic View

Assumptions: The cosmos is entirely natural, without a creator, and there can be no meaning to good or bad. The only issue is freedom or fatalism.

Atheistic fatalism holds that everything is programmed to happen just as it does, and that is what it is. While we biological organisms experience suffering, that suffering has no meaning.

Atheistic Free will assumes that due to some mystery, possibly a quantum level of probability, we have a will that we can impose on nature. While many causes of suffering, such as natural disasters, are the meaningless workings of natural laws, humans make choices, commit murder, and wage war, which cause suffering. Yet, because we are all products of chance, there can be no meaning assigned to human causes of suffering. In the atheistic world, watching an old woman limp across the road and running her over with your car, or stopping and helping her. Both acts are meaningless.

The modern atheist will say that meaning is existential, imposed by our experience, the meaning we give. But that is only magical thinking.

Polytheism
Assumptions: In the Greco-Roman world of polytheism, their gods did not have the traits listed as the nature of the Abrahamic faith, God. The Roman gods, while active in the human realm, were themselves victims of fate and therefore offered only minimal protection against suffering.

In the next post, I will look at the Abrahamic God and possible conclusions about human suffering.