Why, God? Trust.

I wrote earlier about some of my thoughts on suffering and why it happens.  It's such a big topic that even two posts doesn't do it justice.  But here's some more thoughts.

How do you explain natural disasters, things that just 'happen?'  Are they the result of choices too?  How?  Earthquakes and volcanoes, floods and hurricanes are all the result of living on a dynamic world- plate tectonics and weather are essential for life to exist.  But if God is all powerful, why did he design a world like this, with what you might consider a built-in flaw?  Couldn't he have done it some other way?

Then there's the idea that the world has to include bad things and suffering for us to know what is good, to know right and wrong - that there has to be bad for there to be good.  I suppose there is some merit in that, but it doesn't really answer the question.  Why would anyone design a world like that, if they cared about the people in it?  

So the biggest question is still why, if God cares about the world, he allows suffering to happen?  I think possibly the only answer is what we can learn from what God does about suffering.  He, as Jesus, came to Earth as a baby born to a poor family.  He went into the desert to suffer hunger and thirst.  He was criticised by the authorities, betrayed by his friend, beaten and mocked and finally killed in an incredibly cruel manner.  No one can say that God hasn't shared our sufferings.

I don't agree with the view of a God who just makes the world, winds the 'clockwork,'sets it running and sits back to watch.  The God I believe in didn't.  He stepped in to deal with the problem of suffering.  Couldn't he have done it another way, that didn't involve suffering himself?  I don't know.  But he chose to do it that way, to suffer with us, as one of us.

So the real answer to the question is that I don't know exactly why there has to be suffering.  But I trust that if there is suffering in the world, it must be there for a reason, even if it's not one I can understand.  And I don't believe that God is cruel and enjoys watching our suffering.  Otherwise why would he give the life of his own son, who he says he loves, to try to sort the problem out?

The answer I give is that I trust God.  Not blind, unthinking trust, I think about it a lot.  Why do I trust God?  Because I believe he is trustworthy, from my own experience and that of others, and from the Bible.*  So my response to suffering is similar to that of the clergyman mentioned in the BBC article: to pray.  To tell God that I don't understand, and to ask for his reassurance.  And to ask for him to intervene in the world to alleviate the suffering.

As a footnote to this, see this WordLive session on the last plague on the Egyptians.

*To go into further detail on this would be opening up a whole other can of worms.  Later!

Why, God? Choices.

The terrible, disastrous earthquake in Haiti is much on people's minds at the moment.  And inevitably, when confronted with a situation like this the question of suffering arises again.  Why, people ask Christians, why does this God who you say is all powerful and loving, allow that to happen?  If he's all powerful he could stop it, if he was loving he'd want to stop it, so why doesn't he?  

The short and most honest answer is, we don't know.  We can come up with answers, but they all seem to leave me feeling not completely satisfied.  The BBC published an article where a philosopher addresses the arguments.  I think it's actually a decent summary of the arguments.  While I don't agree with his views on some of them, I think it's a good statement of how many people feel, and useful for the rest of us to understand that.  

I do believe in an all loving, all powerful, all knowing God.  But I do sometimes find that hard to reconcile with the world around us.  As well as the Haitian earthquake, several people I know are having to cope with the illness or death of family members at the moment.  I can understand that idea that suffering is often the result of people's choices- that someone who chooses to smoke might suffer ill health as a result, for example- but what about the people around them who suffer because of their choice, having to deal with their illness and perhaps being ill themselves as a result of passive smoke?  And then how do you explain natural disasters, things that just 'happen?' 

First there's the question of people's choices causing suffering.  It's a very simplistic view, echoed in Old Testament ideas (for example Job's friends assume he's having a bad time because he's sinned) but it's clear that it's not always the reason for suffering (Job hasn't sinned).  Those people who say whole nations are to blame for a natural disaster because of a supposed event in their past are on very dangerous ground and should probably keep their mouths firmly shut.  

That's not to say it's always wrong, though.  As in the example of the smoker above, our choices do have an effect on our lives.  Some actions bring their own consequence- like, for example, choosing to mess around on an icy path in shoes with no grip.  If you fall over and hurt yourself, that's probably your own fault.  If you make someone else fall over, that's your fault too, caused by your choice, even if they don't deserve it.

But, people ask, couldn't God have made people who didn't choose to do the wrong thing sometimes?  Well no, I don't think he could.  God made people to love him.  You can't force someone to love you, you can only invite it.  So they had to have a choice- to love God, to know him, to obey his will, or not.  If not, then they often end up hurting themselves and others, because the world is designed to work God's way.  And the road isn't smooth for those people who do love God and try to obey him- we make mistakes, other people trip us up because they are not going God's way.  Humanity's choice on a daily basis not to follow God means we all suffer.  

People are not good or bad.  They're just people, who sometimes do bad things and sometimes do good things, for many reasons.  I don't think you need to be godly to be a good, moral person.  As a wise old woman* said: "It's which way you face that matters."  It's our ability to choose that makes us human.  Without that we wouldn't be what we were made to be- people who choose to love God.

That's some of my thinking.  More later.

*Granny Weatherwax in Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad.  

What class am I?

Class seems to be reasserting itself as a topic of political debate after a decade of being told the class system is dead.  But what is class, these days?  What divides people?  Is it all about money?  If so, presumably the 'upper class' consists of high-earning, high profile figures like footballers, pop stars and TV celebrities, as well as top bankers and businessmen (and women, although probably fewer of them).  That's quite a variety, and suggests that there are many ways of rising to the top of society.

But further down perhaps it's not so clear.  Is class purely about money, or does the type of work you do, the education you have, how you choose to spend your money, play a part too?  When we say 'middle class' we often mean consumer choices more than mere household income.  Middle class brings up the image of someone who has a mortgage and a savings account, is part of a 'traditional' family,  works in an office or is part of a 'profession' as opposed to a 'trade'- doctors, lawyers, bank managers, teachers- sends their children to uni, reads 'literature,' drinks wine and goes to the theatre.  Working class brings up the image of grim concrete council estates, baseball caps and hoodies, listening to rap and dropping out of school at 16 to work in a shop- if you can get a job- or to have a child.  Yet these are both stereotypes, and while I guess there's some truth in them, it's not the whole truth.  

I've always been slightly confused in terms of class.  My mother is a teacher, her father was a printer with some connection to the civil service- middle class, but probably at the lower end.  My father and his father were office workers, again lower middle class.  Before that the family were skilled craftsmen- blacksmiths, shoemakers, wheelwrights- and were at the upper end of village society, but could still count as working class.  My father left school at or even before 16 to work on a farm, before moving into office work.  I doubt he ever considered that any of his children would go to university.  My mother had a scholarship to a private school before going to teacher training college.  Even though I have been to a good uni and am culturally 'middle class'  (I like Gilbert and Sullivan for goodness sake!  How middle class is that?) I'm still doing the same kind of work as my father did, and earning less money than many 'working class' people.  

There's one clip I seen several times now where John Prescott asks a girl what class she thinks she is, and she says "middle class."  He says that he (and probably most people) would have described her as working class, but her reply is that: "I don't work."  Perhaps in a recession that's led to the loss of jobs across all classes of society, from bankers to office workers to retail and manufacturing we can realise that the kind of job you have and the amount of money you earn isn't something that should pigeon hole you.  I'd like to think that.  I suspect we won't.  The difference is that if you've been struggling to make ends meet even when you're working, you've got nothing to fall back on when your job goes.