Understanding Human Suffering and Faith in God
Understanding Human Suffering and Faith
Evil and pain are among the most puzzling of human experiences. Any protest of meaning for life should be approached from this dimension. Some ills come from our status as beings of nature. Nature has its laws, and we are subject to them. Similarly, the natural biological cycle ends in death. However, other types of suffering are caused by evil people, evil that sometimes nests in the human heart.
Jesus’ Experience of Pain and Suffering
Jesus faced these realities throughout his life. He fought the injustice caused by evil people, healed physical and spiritual suffering, and most importantly, experienced our own suffering. Becoming one of us, Jesus went through our pain: fatigue, physical pain, thirst, discomfort. But he also experienced injustice in his own flesh. A wrongful conviction led him to the cross where he experienced the most profound human experience: death.
In Jesus, we find a God who becomes man to share our own existence, but it does not stop there. After death comes the resurrection, which is the victory of Jesus over evil and pain. Therefore, Christians, whenever we suffer, feel accompanied by the risen Jesus. We are also called to the final victory against evil and pain.
The Nature of Faith
Faith is an experience of personal relationship with God based on trust, friendship, and surrender. It is an experience that is lived, not only thought, and it involves the whole person. Faith is only given if the person relates to God personally. The initiative is God’s, who calls in multiple ways. When a person responds affirmatively to this call, the path of the experience of faith begins. The first fruit of this response is conversion.
When a believer freely decides to take the step of faith, they are not driven by logical proofs, but by trusting and having confidence in God’s support, which inspires and sustains their experience. Thus begins a path not without difficulties and failures because faith is not a tranquilizer; it requires courage and fortitude. The proof of the authenticity of faith is its action, its commitment.
Believing is Reasonable
Reason is that for which we find multiple reasons, but none of them are sufficient to establish the truth with the utmost rigor and necessity. The human experience closest to the Christian faith, and therefore what makes it reasonable, is the experience of interpersonal relationships. Two people who fall in love *believe* in their mutual love and decide to *trust* in that love. It is precisely in the most vital and far-reaching aspects of life where faith is most required and rational demonstration is least possible (marriage, profession, friends, etc.).
But faith is not demonstrable. Wanting to give a reason for the necessity of faith in God would be like killing its character at its root of interpersonal encounter. This certain darkness that always accompanies the experience of faith is, on its positive side, a demonstration and test of the freedom of faith. Finally, beyond all reason or consideration, is the personal choice and freedom that is manifested in a faithful response to God’s call. Where there is “rational necessity,” there is no freedom. Thus, the Christian faith will always remain a mystery at the crossroads between the mystery of human freedom and the mystery of God’s grace. It is found in the mystery of interpersonal encounter.