Human Anguish and Divine Love

In 1971, Truman G. Madsen wrote the awe-inspiring essay: Human Anguish and Divine Love. It is one of the greatest answers to the question: why do bad things happen to good people.¹

The most basic of all human challenges, as Mr. Madsen points out, can be shown with three weighty illustrations.

1. “An irreverent, but it seems to me, downright honest critic of Christianity argues in effect, ‘If a child is born to me healthy and bright-eyed, you tell me, God loves you. If a child is born without a spine, or hopelessly paralyzed, you tell me, God still loves you. Frankly, that kind of love I can do without. If God causes or permits events that my worst mortal enemy would not permit, then both the idea of ‘God’ and ‘love’ are absurd.’”

2. “One day my family sat watching the big screen production of the Greatest Story Ever Told. You see a sinister Herod send his soldiers to Bethelehem (sic). Then come the screams of mothers, glimpses of blood-smirched swords pulled from children’s bodies. Then you see Mary and Joseph who have received divine warning, walking peacefully with their Babe toward the safety of Egypt. As this scene closed, the hand of my little girl came into mine and she whispered, confused and frightened, ‘Daddy, didn’t Heavenly Father care about those other children?’”

3. “Third is the universal outcry of our own souls in tribulation. ‘Why?’ and ‘Why me?’ We speak much of worthiness and blessedness — and of keeping the laws that result in both. But there is, in this cry, the sense of what some call ‘frustrated entitlement.’ We have, in measure (not perfectly but close enough) kept the law; and we aspire through dark and dawn to do better. We feel a certain inner worthiness, a sense of ‘deserving better.’ But no better comes. Only worse. And still worse. Others we think of as less worthy seem to prosper. We do not demand ease. But we sense injustice and we crave, alas, a little mercy. And how long can we hold on to this slipping rope, and pray in faith? Let alone in love?”

Who God Isn’t

I won’t attempt to produce a comprehensive response to that question. In Christianity, we are taught that God is omnipotent (all-powerful), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipresent (all-present). But what do those things really mean?

As a young child, I often asked the question: If God is all-powerful, can He make a rock so big that even He cannot lift it?

Let that question sink in for just a moment.

Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good things happen to bad people? What makes a person good or bad?

Go ahead and grapple with those questions for a few minutes. I’ll wait.

In all normal situations, an ethical surgeon will not operate on a person without their consent. Even though she is capable — maybe even the best surgeon in the world — she is bound by a moral code.

So it is with God. He can’t simply just do anything. As Mr. Madsen points out, “He can do only what our wills and eternal laws will permit. In short, he did not make us from nothing and what he makes of us depends on us and the ultimate nature of a coeternal universe.”

If that is true, and I believe it is, then I also have to accept as true that I chose to be here. In fact, I have to accept that I must have been given opportunity to not only choose to be here, but to prepare for it, with all the real risks, opportunities, and promises that come with it.

Why? I suppose the answer to that question is I, like everyone else who has ever graced this planet, knew this was the only way to learn what needed to be learned.

We do not demand ease. But we sense injustice and we crave, alas, a little mercy. And how long can we hold on to this slipping rope, and pray in faith? Let along in love?

When Troubles Come

No one born into the world will live a life free of trouble. Where one is born has some — perhaps a great degree — of influence over the kinds of troubles one will endure. It may be that you are born into circumstances where learning to cope with affluence without becoming consumed with obtaining more money and the goods of the world (at the expense of all else) is your greatest trial. Or, it may be that the more basic needs of life (food and water, shelter) are your greatest trial.

Whatever the case, everyone faces trials. We can sit and pass judgment on those around us that our trials are more or less difficult than theirs. But, our trials are ours. Often, the greatest lessons we learn come from embracing our own suffering.

Here, Mr. Madsen makes a profound statement:

To believe, better, to know that this lonely or crushed or deprived or painwracked condition won’t last forever; that it will somehow, somewhere be over, is a balm of comfort.

I had an instructor in literature who was fond of saying, “you’ve got to suffer to learn”. It was something of a tongue-in-cheek statement, but also holds truth. Our bodies grow as we put stress and strain on our musculoskeletal structure. Similarly, our ability to “endure it well” grows when we face challenges head on with faith.

I love this statement from the essay:

The greater thing is to endure suffering with faith in the Son of Man which enables it to yield its perfect result, which means the fulness of the powers of Godliness.

Please read that again.

Maybe one more time for good measure.

This isn’t to say that asceticism is the answer. Self-inflicted suffering isn’t the point. Suffering is a byproduct of mortality and devoted service to others. As Mr. Madsen points out, it is “not a self-obsessed way of life.”

It’s far easier to make those kinds of statements than to live through the experience. Two parting thoughts from Human Anguish and Divine Love that make the way a little simpler.

“It is the root of our spiritual nourishment that changes everything. That is the scale on which we came to be weighed.”

That’s a powerful statement. And, to emphasize that to razor-sharp perfection:

The outcome will far exceed the price; the ‘chastening’ will be visioned as our blessing, the fiber of soul quality will leave no regrets, only infinite and eternal gratitude, and the partnership we forged with [God] before we entered this refining fire will loom as marvelous to us as does the face of a loving mother in the eyes of a child who has just emerged from his fever — healed, alive, and prepared for life, eternal life, life like God’s.

These are not simple thoughts to consider. At first read, I believe they will help each of me retain perspective in the face of human anguish.

And perhaps that will lessen the load just a little.

¹ The full text of Mr. Madsen’s remarkable essay can be found in his book Four Essays on Love available from a number of outlets.