“We are people, we are permitted to have dealings with our creator and we must speak up for the creation. God look at what you’ve done to this creature, look at the sorrow, the cruelty, long-damned waste!” – Annie Dillard
καὶ ἠρώτησαν αὐτὸν οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ λέγοντες,
Ῥαββί, τίς ἥμαρτεν,οὗτος ἢ οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ, ἵνα τυφλὸς γεννηθῇ;
Kai erotesan auton hoi mathetai auto legontes, “Rabbi, tis hemarten, houtos e hoi goneis auto hina tuphlos gennethe?”
And they asked him the disciples of him, saying, “Rabbi, who sinned, this one or the parents of him so that he is blind from birth?”
More than two thousand years, the Greek philosopher Epicurus posed a theological question, which still baffles theologians today: How do we reconcile an all-loving and all-powerful God with a world of suffering?[1] Although various theologians offer a panoply of diverse and creative solutions to the problem of suffering, theodicies can be classified broadly into the following general categories: 1) a theodicy of an omnipotent God who is not good; 2) a theodicy of a good God who is not omnipotent; 3) a theodicy that denies the reality of suffering or 4) a theodicy of a good and omnipotent God whom we cannot understand, especially in the midst of suffering. This fourth and final theodicy coincides well with the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, especially the Book of Job. However, the question of suffering and the anger and resentment often underneath the question can still haunt humanity. Anglican bishop and author Christopher FitzSimons Allison also affirms this last theodicy but writes, “We have still in our laps this abundant anger and the need to displace it….Does this God do more than allow us without condemnation to shout our anger at him and then rebuke us for inadequate understanding [as God appears to do in Job]?”[2]
In his article “Repenting of Retributionism,” Britton W. Johnston explains that theological attempts to solve Epicurus’s trilemma often result in relativizing either God’s righteousness or God’s power or our experience of God’s apparent injustice.[3] He then writes, “In the meantime, a pastor in Des Moines calls on a widow who serves him, along with the coffee and cookies, a generous helping of resentment toward God: ‘Why did God allow my husband to suffer for so long before he died?’ And a chaplain in an Atlanta hospital stands a death watch with a young couple over their 10-year-old with leukemia: ‘How could God let this happen?’”[4]
Allison and Johnston identify the “abundant anger” and “resentment toward God” that often accompany the question of suffering when it is asked by people in the midst of tragedy. Psychologist Julie J. Exline has researched anger toward God and found that those who suppress their anger toward tend to withdraw from God while those who approach God honestly with their anger and negative emotions tend to “report the most resilient, close relationships with God.”[5] She concludes, “If people are able to honestly bring their concerns, questions, and negative emotions to God with a sense of openness and honesty, they can open the door for healing. For Christians and Jews, the lament Psalms may be particularly helpful in this regard.”[6] Exline recognizes the Scriptures, particularly the Psalms of lament, as a resource for helping to express anger towards God in the context of an honest, close and potentially healing relationship with the divine.
Though both Jews and Christians share the laments of the Psalms as well as the protests of Job, the Jewish tradition of lament and protest against God has persisted and developed throughout the centuries, serving as a rich theological resource in the midst of catastrophe and tragedy[7] while the Christian tradition of lament and protest against God has mostly been eclipsed by theologies of sin that redirect the source of suffering back to humanity. Within the last few decades, a Christian movement has emerged led by Hebrew Bible scholars such as Claus Westermann and Walter Brueggemann to reclaim the tradition of protest against God as an effective resource for dealing with suffering and catastrophe. American author Annie Dillard incorporates protest against God and the question of suffering into her exquisite writing, especially in her observations of the apparently amoral disturbing world of insects. While observing the slow death of a creature, she writes, “We are people, we are permitted to have dealings with our creator and we must speak up for the creation. God look at what you’ve done to this creature, look at the sorrow, the cruelty, long-damned waste!”
Following in their footsteps and standing on their shoulders, I seek to offer the Fourth Gospel, especially chapters 9 and 10, as an invitation to participate in the tradition of praying the question of suffering and experiencing a divine response.
According to New Testament scholar Margaret Davies, “the genre of the Fourth Gospel, like that of scriptural narrative, is a theodicy”[8] and in chapter 9 of the Fourth Gospel, the disciples ask the question of suffering in a particular context: “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (Jn 9:2-3). Although their question does not seem to be driven by anger and resentment, the text offers a response to the question that is capacious enough to address the various motivations that might drive the question, including anger and resentment. I argue that the text invites the reader to join the disciples in asking the question, “Why? Where does this suffering come from? What is its cause and origin? Whom do we blame?”
The Jewish Spirituality of Asking Questions
Rabbi Hillel used to say, “A bashful person cannot learn nor can an impatient person teach.” (Pirke Avot 2:6). Hillel insists that those who are timid and afraid to ask questions will not learn and also the teacher who is not patient with such questions will not be able to teach. In his book on Rabbi Hillel, Jospeh Telushkin shares the following story about asking questions,
“Rabbi Soloveitchik asked Rabbi Norman Lamm (now president of Yeshiva University) to summarize the approach of Tosafot (a medieval commentary) to a passage the class had been studying. The young Lamm, thinking to please his teacher, repeated the explanation of the passage Rabbi Soloveitchik had offered the previous day. But instead of being pleased, the rabbi said to Lamm, ‘I know what I am saying. I do not need you to tell me. What do you think?…The problem is that you check your evil inclination (yetzer hara) outside the classroom door and come in with your good inclination. Next time, bring your evil inclination with you, and leave your good inclination outside.’”[9]
According to the Gospel of Luke, young Jesus was not bashful (and did not leave his yetzer hara at home) when he was asking questions of the rabbis at the temple, who were both patient and impressed with him. As a rabbi himself, Jesus expected his disciples to not be bashful and to ask him questions. This might sound like a no-brainer to us, but I believe this is a very important point for us to consider, especially when it comes to spirituality and prayer.
There is a very high Christology in the Gospel of John, which means that Jesus is more clearly divine in John than he is in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke). So the disciples are asking the divine Jesus a question about the origin of suffering. The disciples’ question functions therefore as an invitation for the readers to bring their questions to God in Christ through the reading and praying of the Scriptures. Although many of us petition the Lord and offer thanks (which is meet and right for us to do), I wonder how many of us ask questions, especially around the subject of evil and suffering, like “God, why did you let my best friend die?” or “What did so-and-so do to deserve that horrible disease?” or, more generally, “Why is this world full of so much suffering?” Job and the Psalmists asked these questions to God in prayer. Augustine and Julian of Norwich and several other Christian saints and mystics asked these questions to God in prayer. And here, the disciples are asking the divine [Jesus] this question of suffering. In the disciples’ questions is an invitation for the readers to bring their own questions to God in prayer and furthermore, to expect a response. In her Showings, Julian of Norwich (14th century English Mystic and anchorite) brought her questions about suffering to God in prayer. Although she did not receive the kind of answers we might expect or hope to receive, she did receive revelations of divine love in response to her questions about suffering. God responded to her questions. And the divine Jesus also responded to the disciples’ question.
The Question Itself
The question involves the origin of a particular person’s suffering, but the question is not “Why was this person born blind?” but rather “Who sinned that he was born blind?” and then they limit it even more by giving Jesus only two options “Was it him or his parents?” Now it is important for us to realize that attributing illness and disability to sin was a commonly held understanding at the time. Furthermore, this was a biblical understanding. The Torah, especially Deuteronomy (Deut 28, Exodus 4:11; Lev 26:16; Num 12:9-10; Deut 32:39; 2 Chronicles 7:13; 21:14-15), suggests that if you obey God you will receive blessings and if you disobey God, you will be cursed. So logically, if someone appeared to be cursed with some ailment, they would assume there was some disobedience (some sin) that brought it about. You can also see this mentality in Proverbs and even potentially in the Gospel of John, in Chapter 5 when Jesus healed the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda and later says to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you” (5:14). In the first Anglican prayer book (in 1549), there was an “Order for the Visitation of the Sick” and one of the first things in the order is an anthem that prays, “Remember not our iniquities” implying that sickness may be the result of our wickedness and sin. And the Order goes on to describe sickness as God’s “correccion” and “visitation” and the sick were encouraged to endure the chastisement. The word to the sick was “Take this sickness profitable to you with patience” and would then quote Hebrews 12:5 which says, “The Lord disciplines those whom he loves,” followed by a prayer to examine oneself, morally. There are some vestiges of this understanding in the 1928 prayer book which also includes in the Order of Visitation to the Sick the prayer “Remember not, Lord, our iniquities…” and includes many opportunities for confession and a prayer of repentance. The 1979 prayer book only suggests a General Confession after a choice of Scripture readings. So this understanding of suffering as the result of sin was widely held not only during Jesus’ time but also in 1549, in 1928 and today.
However, the Bible also includes another approach, which we see most clearly in the Book of Job, where the understanding of suffering as the result of sin is portrayed by Job’s friends and then highly criticized, even by God. Job’s friends, who had been operating out of the assumption that Job had sinned and had therefore brought the calamity upon himself are chastised by God in the final chapter, when God says, “My wrath is enkindled against you for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (42:7). Job, who questioned God and who brought his yetzer hara to God in prayer by asking God questions like, “Does it please you to oppress me?” (10:3) and asserting that God had wronged him and mistreated him, was actually affirmed by God and had spoken more honestly and more rightly about God than Job’s friends. Here God affirms protest prayer. God affirms these bold questions. We see this same prayerful protest and questioning in many of the psalms of lament as well.
Personally, I think some suffering is the result of sin and allowing the option for repentance and confession is a good idea. However, assuming that everyone who suffers is suffering because of his or her sin (or their parent’s sin) is extremely unhelpful and not very pastoral at all. So the disciples are certainly not being pastoral in asking their question. And that’s ok, that’s probably not their intention. They are simply trying to make sense of suffering within their limited mindset that all suffering is the result of someone’s sin. Whenever we ask God questions like this in prayer, we are also asking out of a very limited mindset. And like the disciples, we try to get God to answer on our terms. The disciples only gave Jesus two options for an answer: either the blind man sinned or his parents sinned. And so how does Jesus respond?
[1] Lactantius, A Treatise on the Anger of God, Chapter 13 in Roberts, Alexander and Donaldson, James, Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume VII (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.), 1997.
[2] Christopher FitzSimons Allison, Guilt, Anger, and God: The Patterns of Our Discontents (New York: Seabury Press, 1972), 85 -86. I will refer to Allison as “FitzSimons Allison” in order to prevent confusion with James Alison.
[3] Britton W. Johnston, “Repenting of Retributionism” in Contagion (Vol 8 Spring 2001), 162-163.
[4] Britton W. Johnston, “Repenting of Retributionism” in Contagion (Vol 8 Spring 2001), 163-164.
[5] Julie J. Exline, “The Flame of Love as a Refining Fire: Gifts of Spiritual Struggle” in Godly Love: Impediments and Possibilities, ed. Matthew T. Lee and Amos Young (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2012), 61.
[6] Julie J. Exline, “The Flame of Love,” 62. Here Exline cites Zornow, George B. Crying Out to God: Prayer in the Midst of Suffering. Unpublished manuscript, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 2001.
[7] Lament towards and protest against God can be seen clearly in rabbinic midrash on Lamentations (Lamentations Rabbah), the prayers of Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev, and the writings of Zvi Kolitz, Elie Wiesel, Jon D. Levenson, David Blumenthal, Martin Buber and Harold Kushner. The following books attest to the tradition: Anson Laytner, Arguing with God: A Jewish Tradition (New Jersey: Jason Aronson, 1990); David G. Roskies, The Literature of Destruction: Jewish Responses to Catastrophe (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 1989).
[8] Margaret Davies, Rhetoric and Reference in the Fourth Gospel (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992), 89.
[9] Joseph Telushkin, Hillel: If Not Now, When?, 158.
DANIEL DeFOREST LONDON 