In my last post we investigated the nature of evil to discover that it is not “a thing in itself” but rather the privation or disordering of some particular good. Today we shall look at its close companion, suffering, with which evil is too often equated. At first glance, evil and suffering appear to be but two faces of the same coin mainly due to their sharing certain traits in common. For instance, suffering, like evil, may be described as the privation of a good: the loss of one’s health, liberty, even property or a loved one. All these thing cause one to suffer. Like evil, suffering is dependent upon the agency of persons. In fact, God himself seems to have ordained suffering in Genesis when He sentences Adam to toil “by the sweat of your brow” and for Eve to suffer pain in childbearing. And if suffering is just another manifestation of evil, that would mean that God has directly willed evil to exist, contrary to his nature which is pure goodness. How are we then to resolve such a paradox?

Genesis does give us a clue in resolving it. Notice that suffering did not enter the picture until after our first parent fell into sin. By embracing evil (disobedience to God’s direct command) Adam and Eve invited the baneful effects of suffering into their own lives and the lives of all their future progeny. Suffering, in other words, was an after effect of the sin they first committed. Suffering did not bring on the evil, rather it was their acceptance of evil which introduced suffering (and death) into their previously felicitous existence. Suffering is downstream from evil – it is one of the effects of sin, not its cause. Yet like evil, suffering is not “a thing in itself” but is attached to and inheres only in some conscious creature.

Suffering does not play favorites or take sides, for the righteous suffer alongside the wicked as the Book of Job so clearly illustrates. Suffering stalks its victims with no regard for one’s age, faith, politics, or income level. It is the great social leveler, undoubtedly by God’s design. Unlike evil, which God allows but does not will directly, suffering is not only permitted but at times actively willed by God for his own inscrutable purposes. So one may ask why a good God would will some innocent child, for instance, to suffer from an incurable disease? This is where the mystery of suffering deepens well beyond our limited ability to comprehend, and consequently where many become shaken in their faith. We cannot help but sense a link between suffering and evil and yet we struggle to draw a meaningful distinction between them.