Week 46 Corinthians
In his second Corinthians letter Paul talks about pain & suffering.
One of the totally theoretical questions that comes up about suffering is that since suffering is unpleasant wouldn’t it be better if it was eliminated? Let’s say a super-powerful god could remove suffering. Wouldn’t it be great if he did?
The obvious answer seems to be yes. So I wonder. What if suffering’s a constituent part of the whole deal? A non-removable essential in the mechanism? What if it’s such an fundamental structural component that the apparatus collapses if it’s removed? If I subtract suffering what-all else in the equation changes?
What if suffering is as inherent a part of my environment as – let’s say – oxygen. Let’s say a super-powerful god could remove all the oxygen in the world. Would that miraculous removal be a net gain for world ecology or for me? How desirable is something that isn’t?
I wonder what-all other changes occur when suffering is taken away. On the plus side no one suffers for any reason any more. I wonder if by that one act the world is fixed.
What if a super-powerful god could eliminate human suffering but he knows that human suffering is one of the things in human life that’s set in stone and without it life isn’t life and that a super-power-re-set would leave us with something worse or maybe with nothing at all? Would he do it? Maybe if he was a brainless super-powerful god. But not otherwise.