by jimwalton » Wed Jan 03, 2024 5:51 pm
"Pray tell"? I can see the smirk.
We know that some evil and suffering actually accomplishes some good, because there are times when suffering brings out the best in people. In the face of suffering and evil we may see love, caring, compassion, nobility and even courage. Sometimes people get stronger because of the pain and suffering, or learn important lessons that could not be learned in any other way. To illustrate my point, Phil Yancey writes, "Bishop Desmond Tutu, in South Africa, sat through the hearings of the crimes that whites committed on blacks in the name of God and the government. Yet after two years of listening to such horrific accounts, Bishop Tutu came away with his faith strengthened. The hearings convinced him that perpetrators are morally accountable, that good and evil are real and that they matter. Despite relentless accounts of inhumanity, Tutu emerged from the hearings with this conviction: 'For us who are Christians, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is proof positive that love is stronger than hate, that life is stronger than death, that light is stronger than darkness, that laughter and joy, and compassion and gentleness and truth, all these are so much stronger than their ghastly counterparts.' … The tragedy in Newtown, CT, in December of 2012, tells a [similar kind of] story. There was an outpouring of grief, compassion, and generosity. ... There were acts of selflessness, not selfishness: in the school staff who sacrificed their lives to save children, in the sympathetic response of a community and a nation. There was a deep belief that the people who died mattered, and that something of inestimable worth was snuffed out on December 14."
If you've read any of the works of Alexander Solzenitzen, he tells similar stories. He talks about the courage, hope, and even spiritual life that came out of the Gulag in Soviet Russia.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that all suffering has this "good" side. My points were as I wrote them in my post.