Because being-a-Christian is essentially about resurrected eternal Heavenly life beyond mortal death; it may seem that - even if it were assumed to be a real and attainable possibility - this is not of any help in helping people deal with the sufferings of this mortal life.
And, after all, it is this-life and its suffering that presses most strongly upon us; in a day by day (minute by minute) way.
What most people most-want is: Help. Now!
It seems, on the surface, that another-life after this-life cannot be of any genuine assistance.
We must still live-through all the miseries and pains, and perhaps for many years, before attaining the transformed state in a deathless and good situation.
However, this understanding is mistaken; because resurrected eternal Heavenly life creates a larger context, that transforms what went before - both by expectation, as well as in retrospect.
What I mean can be illustrated by the pains of childbirth.
To generalize: giving birth (especially for the first time) is often extremely painful. It is often about as painful as anything can be: genuine agony, and this may continue for hours.
(Although, of course, medical technology nowadays provides methods for alleviating this pain.)
And this is when things go well!
Unless you have experienced, or been present at, such a childbirth; you probably don't believe me - or think I am exaggerating ridiculously.
You probably think: "If childbirth was really as painful as all that, then surely I would know about it? Surely people would go on about it more than they do?"
Well, the point is that - when childbirth is anticipated positively (the baby is wanted), and goes well, and a healthy baby ultimately arrives - then people more-or-less forget about how painful the process had been.
More exactly, they don't forget so much as put the pain into the context of having-a-baby; the pain happened by-the-way, almost as a means-to-that-end.
The pain of having a baby - even while it is happening - happens as part-of, and en route to, a desired destination.
In other words the occurrence of child-bearing pain is contextualized by its meaning and result; and this has a powerful influence both during, as well as after, the agonies of giving birth.
To understand the power of such a context; consider that the same amount of pain which happens in childbirth would have a very different, and much worse - indeed traumatizing - significance; if it were deliberately inflicted in the course of torture.
The pain of torture would be worse both at the time, and also worse in recollection; than the same pain happening in a childbirth context.
(Again; assuming the baby was wanted, and was alright when born.)
To close the analogy: this is like the effect of resurrected eternal life on the sufferings of mortal life.
Having the destination of Heaven as a purpose, has a transformative effect on the meaning, hence the experience, of suffering during mortal life.
Transformative both during suffering, and also when looking back from resurrected life on that suffering.
This does not make the pain of life go-away; any more that the childbirth context prevents the pain being very painful indeed.
However the meaning of pain is part of the suffering; and when the meaning of pain changes, the nature of the suffering changes.
The reason why the pains of life are worse for modern people than it was during the ages of faith - is that for modern people pain has no meaning, because an atheist-materialist life has no purpose.
Pain without purpose is pain without meaning; so pain without purpose is experienced as "pure suffering".
The pains and sufferings of mortal life are far too many and too various for there ever to be any possibility of preventing or curing them all - and some causes of suffering are innate and intractable to the Human Condition.
Therefore we should not consider Christianity as if it were a supposed-painkiller, nor as a preventive or therapy for the sufferings of mortal life.
However; our mortal life - including its pains - is given purpose and therefore meaning by the desired destination; by personal positive transformation (resurrection) and the Heavenly life to come.
And this affects our experience of suffering in mortal life while it is happening, as well as in retrospect.
"A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world." John 16:21, KJV.
ReplyDelete"He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” F. Nietzsche
As I was reading this post, it felt like a clarification of, and excursus from, the above Bible verse. Nietzsche's observation also seemed alluded to.
An important point to bear in mind, both for ourselves and also to contextualize the "problem of suffering" in general.
@Gary - Good quotes.
ReplyDeleteA very important post.
ReplyDeleteI had an inkling of the relationship between pain and suffering but never thought of applying it over the timescale of an entire life or indeed over eternity!
Pain and suffering do seem to be orthogonal, as any opiate user knows. Pain is a signal to pay attention. Suffering arises when there's uncertainty about the meaning of the pain.
So if I stub my toe there may be considerable pain. As a boy I'd run about yelling and hopping on the other foot. Nowadays, instead of denying the situation, I can direct my attention into the toe and I know (a) there is and will be no permanent damage, (b) the pain will subside in a matter of minutes.
The result is less suffering.
I think as modern Westerners and hedonists we are relatively speaking 'out of our bodies'** and therefore, absent pain killers and whatnot, we potentially suffer *more* as a result of injury or fear.
**Don't know how to describe it but it's got something to do with not having enough juice invested in our etheric bodies in the sense you defined recently:
https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2026/03/distinguishing-etheric-and-astral.html
We are less armoured internally.
@Ron. Thanks. As the post took shape, during the course of writing; I realized that the point I was making had a more fundamental applicability than I first suspected.
ReplyDelete