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.