Why do good people suffer? And what does Plato and Potter have to do with it?

It's a perpetual question. Why, if an omnipotent God could intervene, does he, apparently, so frequently not? Why, when one of his children pleads in prayer for emotional, physical or mental relief, does he often appear to ignore them? Why do whole families and communities solicit the heavens for a miracle, but the heavens appear to be closed? If God can calm the raging seas and the if the winds and waves obey his will, why do 1000s (sometimes even millions) die in storms, floods and famine?

If God intervenes, and many are convinced he does, why does he only do it some of the time? Why does a God who is supposed to be 'no respecter of persons' or in other words 'doesn't show favouritism' still seem to pick and chose the people who are sent a guardian angel or given a facilitating opportunity?

In London recently a helicopter crashed into a crane. Miraculously, the crane driver had overslept because his young boys hadn't woken him as usual. A brilliant coincidence for him. He, and probably many others, thanked divine intervention for saving him from almost certain death. Some people I know speculated that perhaps his guardian angels made his sons over-sleep.

And yet... the helicopter pilot was not afforded the same protection. He died in the crash. Ahah, came the reply, maybe he brought it on himself. God has to respect agency. OK... final question. What about the pedestrian who was walking by who happened, by poor bad fortune, to be in the exact place where the crane and helicopter fell and also died in the accident. Where was his guardian angel? It wouldn't have needed much. A distraction of a few seconds. A shoe needing relacing. A missed bus. A dropped newspaper. All of these could have been enough of an intervention to have saved him. Why was he ignored and the crane driver was saved?

I don't have a full answer. I wish I did. It's something I've been thinking a lot about recently.

But here's a thought. What if we suffer... not because God is unwilling to intervene... but because at some point at the beginning of days... in some premortal planning process... we made God promise not to if certain scenarios came up?

If God weeps at our pains and sorrows... if He weeps at our misery... is it because He would remove the pain if he could but is bound not to by our own request. Made at a time we have forgotten. Before the veil made our understanding of pain unable to see the eventual benefit.

This may seem ridiculous. Why would anyone choose to be a starving child? Or an abused child? Or a homosexual Mormon with no opportunity of a relationship in mortality? Why would anyone want to die of the ravages of cancer? Why would anyone want their lives and families ripped apart by alcoholism or other addictions? Why would someone want a bipolar disorder?

I don't believe in predestination. I don't think there was some pre-earth check list where we got to choose our trials. There are far too many variables for this. But perhaps we accepted certain possibilities based on biological or social scenarios. Perhaps we embraced the shaping opportunity of one unpleasant experience or another. Because we knew it would be "good for us" even though right now, while living it, we're convinced it's not.

This is illustrated by two writers, separated by over 2,500 years. Plato and JK Rowling.

In The God Who Weeps (p.60), the Givens say:

"Plato... thought life was most likely a choice... spirits were allowed to select their lives from a range of situations and environments. Intuitively, most would choose the easy and attractive path through mortality, but Plato indicates that... the comfortable, effortless life was, in all likelihood, not the life most wisely chosen. The greater good... was the quest for greater virtue and goodness... "call a life worse," he said, "if it leads a soul to become more unjust, and better if it leads the soul to become more just."

In Harry Potter (slight spoiler alert), there is a scene that has also been playing on my mind. I can't help wondering whether it describes God's incapacity to remove a painful situation from some people. In one scene from The Half Blood Prince (p.532 in my edition) Dumbledore needs to drink a large bowl of dangerous potion and asks Harry to make sure he completes the task. Dumbledore says:

"...this potion... might paralyse me, cause me to forget what I am here for, create so much pain I am distracted, or render me incapable in some other way. This being the case, Harry, it will be your job to make sure I keep drinking... do I have your word that you will do all in your power to make me keep drinking?"

In a harrowing scene, Harry makes Dumbledore drink the potion, even when Dumbledore pleads for the pain to be removed. "I don't want to... make it stop..." to which Harry can only reply "You've got to keep drinking, remember? You told me you had to keep drinking." 

Perhaps God, like Harry, could stop the pain at any moment of His choosing. But will not, can not, because He recognises that to do so would be to break his word and to remove the eventual benefits achieved by experiencing the pain.

That doesn't stop it hurting. That doesn't mean we don't want it to stop. We may plead sincerely for it to do so. The pleading sometimes appears to lead to some sort of intercession. But if it doesn't, perhaps it's not because God doesn't want to. Perhaps it's because we didn't want an intervention if it ever came to such a situation.

If two churches claim 'only absolute truth' does one have to be wrong?

I’ve been spending a lot of time over the last couple of months reflecting on the need for ‘absolutism’ in faiths. Joseph Smith said God told him to “join none of (the churches), for they were all wrong” and “all their creeds were an abomination in his sight.” He further compounded the absolute nature of our faith with the revealed statement: “this church… (is) the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth.” While some members will politely acknowledge there are ‘some truths’ in all faiths, many believe that eventually Mormon covenants and beliefs are the only way for the whole world to have eternal life (hence genealogy and temple work).

Mormons are not the only ones to claim to be the ‘only’ way or ‘best’ way in the whole world. I can see how that belief is useful, but could be contradictory if applied to more than one faith. The value of absolutes is well-illustrated by the apparent moral fallout of a few people at the Mormon Stories conferences. I’m not judging their motives, but see it as an interesting case study of the reaction of some people to loosing the certainty offered by Mormonism. Without the absolute beliefs, some attendees appeared to abandon basic moral values; values that aren’t dependent on Mormon doctrine. Having an affair or not isn’t simply a question of being a good Mormon boy, but loving and respecting someone you’ve made a commitment to. If I’m only avoiding an affair because I’m a Mormon, that’s a poor reflection on my underlying moral values. I like to think it goes beyond simply being told, by God, what to do and instead embracing ways I can treat people the way I would want to be treated.

People in Sunday School sometimes imply that if they became atheists they would also become immoral rogues: lying, cheating, being unfaithful, abandoning their responsibilities, hurting their bodies with substance abuse. I’ve often been critical of that slur on atheists. But maybe they really would. Maybe God knows them well enough to realise they can’t be trusted with moral independence. Maybe only the very strongest souls are given a free reign in life to map their own morals and to still be motivated to serve their fellow-man without a religious compass imposed on them.

I sometimes wonder whether God, in his mercy, is happy for certain faiths to make absolute claims in order to help the people in them. Some people can’t handle uncertainty. When we visit friends one of my kids needs to know, on arrival, what time we’re leaving. We used to say we didn’t know yet, but that would make him feel anxious about whether he’d have enough time to play. We’ve now learned to tell him something specific like ‘4pm’, safe in the knowledge that if it ends up being a little earlier or later he won’t complain about it. Maybe we’ll get to the other side and discover God has been doing something similar; giving absolutes to those who need them in order to help us along the way.

Others seem very comfortable without absolutes. They can function with uncertainty and are happy finding their own way along a spiritual path or in a faith that leaves a lot of room for personal interpretation or application. I admire people who have strict morals, warm hearts and helpful hands with no religious belief at all. To believe there will be no eternal blessings or consequences and accountability before God after they die, but still be a positive influence in the world seems, to me, to be truly praiseworthy. A brother-in-law of mine believes he will be nothing but worm-food at his death, but is one of the most moral, considerate and compassionate people I’ve met. He supports his family, uses his time productively and looks for ways of treating other people with kindness.

I’m uncertain about whether I can consider D&C 1:30 to apply to the whole human family. I’m comfortable saying it’s currently the only true and living church for me and that others would be wrong for me at this stage of my life. Probably for all of my life. Maybe I’m one of the people who would struggle without the absolutes. But in saying all that, am I making my foundation of Mormon absolutes start to crumble? An absolute can’t be an absolute if it’s not… absolute.

The day something broke inside

(Written Sep 2012)
Sunday morning in mid June 2012 on a Filipino island dawned and I left my wife and three children sleeping at the resort while I set off on the hired motorbike to find the chapel on the island. An hour and several wrong turns later, I pulled up outside a pristine chapel with a handful vehicles in the car-park.

I sat down in a room filled with humble, poor Filipinos, 2 tourists and a retired white American giving a talk. I guess he may have been a service missionary, though he had no badge. Or perhaps just a retired businessman.

He stood up and berated people for their lack of dedication and righteousness. He referenced a Saturday service project that only he, the missionaries and branch presidency had attended. Then he turned to the young men sitting at the back, ‘probably too busy gossiping to be listening to what I’m saying. How many of the young men were there yesterday? (he held his thumb and forefinger in a circle)' 'Zero.’ They’re here now aren’t they? I thought. While their peers are playing down at the golden beaches or more likely earning some weekend cash to give to their parents, these boys are sat in white shirts and ties, sitting through a dull 60 minutes of lecturing.

Something broke inside me that day. Guilt, criticism, superiority. Is that what I’m a part of? Is this a process of our white, middle-class, conservative Western superiority being imposed on the rest of the world? As the intermediate hymn started ‘I have a family here on earth…’ I realised, yes, I do, they’re waiting for me back at the resort. I stood up, walked out and rode home, wondering if I would ever feel comfortable in a chapel again.

That was neither the beginning nor the end of my journey. We had moved to Asia some 4 months earlier. Going to a new branch was a shock to me. What I had experienced back home and the attitudes I discovered in the new one were a real contrast. I was sad to come across a persistent condescending narrative. My wife, who was not active when we moved to our ex-pat experience, had not been attending for a while and continued to feel that way. Through a combination of factors I decided to start an investigation of our church's origins, motives and doctrines to understand where we, as a church, came from. This was the beginning of a painful process of discovery and really opened my eyes to many uncomfortable aspects of our history and policies.

Months have passed and I’ve continued going to church. I teach lessons, I study my Book of Mormon on the commute to work most mornings – and I get something meaningful out of reading it. I tend to enjoy church. I don’t want to leave and abandon something that fundamentally makes me feel good, gives me a purpose and place in life, teaches me and my family good, moral family values. I currently want to find a solution to the history and staying. I’m not looking for a way out.

As I've studied I've made myself take a responsible approach. I've read from many perspectives. I've chased the sources to their original context where possible. I've made myself take at least a year before reaching any conclusions. I'm realising it's going to take much, much longer than that.

On the other hand...

As a child I often watched the magnificent 1971 Fiddler on the Roof with Chaim Topol's Tevye capturing my attention and imagination.

There was a particular recurring theme of the film that has become something of a mantra for me in recent times:

Over and over again, as I work through multiple questions about life and particularly religion and faith, I keep  making myself say 'on the other hand...' Any time I find an article, blog or source that causes either a strengthening or undermining of spiritual certainty I can hear Tevye's willingness to consider 'the other hand.' For Tevye, the other hand means letting go of some of his Jewish matchmaking tradition, the opportunity to marry his eldest daughter, Tzeitel, to a wealthy neighbour and letting her marry, into poverty, but for love.

Throughout the film Tevye is faced with the challenge of change. He accepts his second daughter Hodel's relationship with the radical Perchik, who has earlier broken with tradition by dancing with Hodel at Tzeitel's wedding party.

Tevye's final dilemma is when his youngest daughter, Chava, falls in love with a Russian Orthodox Christian and asks for her father's blessing to marry.

In a highly emotional scene Tevye asks himself again, is there another hand. It brings tears to my eyes when I recognise the anxiety of the impact of his choice on the faith and tradition he holds dear compared to the love and care he has for his daughter and family.

"Accept them, how can I accept them? Can I deny everything I believe in? On the other hand, can I deny my own daughter? On the other hand, how can I turn my back on my faith, my people? If I try and bend that far, I will break. One the other hand... No! There is no other hand!”

And so I find myself continually considering "the other hand." I wonder how far I could bend before breaking. There are many other hands. I don't know on which hand I will rest.