Cause = prior: how it came to be
Purpose = after, end goal (telos): why it exists

Buddha taught that to live is to suffer:

• Buddhist view: suffering has a cause (karma and desire) but no purpose

• Christian view: suffering has a cause (Satan) and an ultimate purpose (to teach lesson and make us stronger)

In book of Job God allowed Satan to cause Job to suffer (how it happened) because God had a purpose for it all: to test Job’s faith (why it happened)

an aside: The entire book of Job (and some other stories in the Bible) could be a parable told to instruct us regarding God’s activity, our response, etc. It need not be seen as historically, literally true to teach such lessons. If it is true, it is not in the Bible because it is true but because it does teach a lesson. There are many true events which are not recorded in the Bible because they did not teach important lessons. What is in the Bible is there because it teaches us something, whether it is true to fact or not is beside the point.

Exercise:

• Write down the one most horrible thing that has happened to you or your family (something in the past, not current)

• Now list all the things that would be different about your or your family’s life if that thing had not happened. Bad things, good things or just different (neither good nor bad).

Is there anything so horrible that absolutely nothing good comes out of it in the long run?

Tell Taoist story: good or bad? Who knows? (horse runs away, more horses come back, son breaks leg, son is not taken into the army…)

• relativity of good and evil: is there really any total and absolute good or evil?

• good comes out of bad, bad comes out of good

• what is good for one may not be good for another and vice versa

• what is bad for now might not be bad later and vice versa

• evil as the absence of good

• good and evil as relative and subjective judgments of the human mind (non-absolutes):

• "If someone steals your car is that good or bad?" - bad for you, good for the thief

• "Is a "B" a good grade or a bad grade?" - good for a "C" student, bad for an "A" student

• "Is a Hamburger good?" - for you, yes, but not for the cow

• suffering as a test or lesson (e.g., book of Job)

• evil created by Satan or God? (c.f., Job)

Isaiah 45:7: "I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I am the Lord that doeth all these things."

• without evil we would not know and appreciate what is good

• Karma: karmic retribution ("what goes around comes around," "as ye sow, so shall ye reap"): why bad things happen to good people? They did bad things in a past life

How do we learn to live with suffering and even make the best of it?

Video: Rabbi Harold Kushner:

• Two kinds of tragedy:

• Natural tragedy (earthquakes, storms, floods, etc.) - remains unexplained)

• Tragedy caused by lack of human moral choices (Kushner’s focus)

• The good deed, freely chosen, is worth allowing evil choices rather than forced goodness - that we might "choose to be good rather than have to be good"

• Bad is really bad - not for some ultimate good reason (as some might argue)

• good and evil as two sides of one coin - goodness is not possible without evil as well

• It’s not the "best of all possible worlds", but it’s "good enough" -" (51% goodness is enough to sustain a universe)

• Integrity is more important than perfection

• God does not care about theology (thought); God cares about our actions (typical of Jewish understanding)

• Focus on experience of God rather than on understanding God (i.e., belief) (cf, Job does not understand God’s action but maintains his trust in and relationship with God)