The Problem of Pain

Although this essay will begin with a very poorly written overview of the Christian “Problem of Pain” it will eventually become a discussion of the agnostic “problem of pain.” It is partly a continuation and further clarification of my other essays on suicide.

Christianity, I think, does a pretty lousy job of dealing with pain. Clive Staples Lewis wrote what is regarded as the best apologist argument defending Christianity from “The Problem of Pain.” But even Lewis’s creative meandering doesn’t really work for me. The line of reasoning argued by someone (not Lewis) and reiterated by an endless stream of meanderers is:

Christianity proposes that God is almighty, all-knowing, all-good. Yet, I or someone close to me feels pain. Therefore, does not God have to be either not all-good or not almighty, and Christianity be wrong?

I have more than enough problems with Christianity, but this isn’t really a home-run attack on Christianity for me. Lewis touches on an argument that actually might fall in the same ballpark as my own:

“The possibility of solving [the problem of pain] depends on showing that the terms 'good' and 'almighty', and perhaps also the term 'happy', are equivocal: for it must be admitted from the outset that if the popular meanings attached to these words are the best, or the only possible, meaning, then the argument is unanswerable.”

Basically, what I think it comes down to is that the popular “Problem of Pain” argument comes down to this, always unstated popular belief:

“Happy is Good. Pain is Bad.” As Lakoff is quick to point out, we also believe that “Happy is Up” and “Pain is Down.” When someone gets “high” they are using substances to produce a sense of happiness, although the term can be more general to include more forums of intoxication than just happiness.

Just to play “Defend Christianity,” I ask, “Where in the Bible does it say that Happy is Good and that Pain is Bad?”

Jesus certainly didn’t like pain. “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (NKJ).

The case of Jesus underscores the problem I have with Christianity. When a Christian experiences pain, they feel like God has abandoned them. A Christian might think: Since God is all-good, if I am feeling pain, I must have done something bad. At this point, one response might be: So, God must not love me. So, on top of feeling pain, they also feel abandoned.

What Would [did] Jesus Do to respond to pain?

He felt abandoned and alone, and then he died.

Since he was being crucified at the time, this is wholly understandable. But, for someone trying to use Jesus as a model for their own life, this leaves an awful large hole. Jesus presents no model other than death for coping with pain.

Jesus too felt pain. And Jesus too was pissed at God about it.

Again, I think it’s simple to ignore the problem of pain. Either accept that Jesus isn’t all-good or almighty. One might consider Joseph Rowlandson’s arguments as one response, the one that I like to summarize as, “God is a Gangsta.” God need not be all-good or almighty to be worshipped. If he’s evil, he might even require more worshipping than otherwise. Suppose God couldn’t grant you a million dollars, but could only grant you $77. That’s still $77 more than you’d have without prayer. Who needs an all-mighty God, so long as he’s able to do something or other?

But as many will insist, “Joseph Rowlandson’s God is not My God.” Many people, if they love God, will find a way to forgive him for putting them in pain.

But, there’s still an easier way to solve the problem. (Two, if you count, “God doesn’t exist, so it’s not a problem.”) That is, to accept that if it is indeed true that “pain is bad” it is not bad in some sort of moral, or absolute, or universal way. Pain is bad because you don’t like it. Pain is not bad because it means that you’re “losing” or because you’re “wrong” or because you’re “evil” or anything else. Pain is bad because it hurts.

I don’t think pain is bad because it means God doesn’t love you, and any Christian who would argue such I would find despicable.

Of course, one argument about pain that Christians make is that, no matter what pain you experience in life, in the afterlife you will be blessed with eternal happiness. That sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. But, if when I die everything will be super great forever, why don’t I go off myself right now?

Well, a Christian (Catholics at least, I can’t claim that all denominations will agree) responds that, “Oh no, that’s cheating. If you off yourself you go to Hell. And I would not be exaggerating to say that Hell is less than spectacular.”
The bottom line is that most good Christians will find some way of using the afterlife as an explanation for why someone should cope with pain.

How then does an atheist or anyone else deal with the problem of pain?

The problem of pain is very different for an atheist than it is for a Christian. There is no added fear that God doesn’t love you when you’re in pain. God doesn’t exist, and thus doesn’t care whether you’re in pain or not. Pain is a problem because it hurts.

Pain is moreso a problem, because if our cosmogonic center is indeed the body itself, then why live in the face of pain? Sure, usually death is not the most expedient answers. A lot of the time changing our behavior, or using an aspirin or some other drug can relieve pain. But why live when there’s a lot of pain? When pain begins to seem unbearable?

One of the most frequent arguments I come across is that “Nothingness is a relief.” I can agree with some of the political stakes of such an argument, so far as it argues for the right of someone to die, but on the other hand, I have to disagree.

As I have previously argued, “Nothingness is not peaceful. Nothingness is not a relief. Nothingness is just nothingness.”

I am asserting that nothingness is itself, A is A. That's what it is by definition. To assert that "Nothingness is a relief" is to alter the definition, and the burden of proof would lie on whoever alters the definition.

It is true that we simply do not know what happens after we die, so I cannot prove that nothingness is not a relief in the same way that I cannot prove that heaven or hell do or do not exist. Even if I am incorrect and we do not experience nothingness, there is still no guarantee that death would result in relief. If there is something other than nothingness, it just as easily can be far worse than what we already experience, something that what in our lives we called "unbearable pain" seem like nothing at all.

No one can prove what the case of experience after death is. To do so would be to prove that you have some experience that you not only could know of outside of your physiological condition, but also can remember it when you "return" to life. If you could do so, you would prove what occurs naturally after death and no meaningful debate would really be possible on the subject.

But, again, what we do know is what happens to the body. The body does not enter into "relief" after death. The body decays. I do not find the process of decomposition something I would call "peace." I would say it is far more violent than any "unbearable pain" we experience in life.

Yet I would agree that nothingness is also not unhappiness or struggle. A is A.

Now, does that mean that, since nothingness is not unhappiness, that it is a relief? Again, I don't see how you can call it that if you cannot be aware of the relief you are feeling.

How would you characterize what you felt before you were born--not even while you were in the womb, but before humanity existed at all. Was that peaceful for you? I have no recollection of anything that happened before I came into existence. So, indeed, unhappiness and struggle were not a part of that experience. And if I were in "unbearable pain" I too would likely seek any means to escape that pain. But that does not make my decision to do so strictly rational.

Rational is not synonymous with happy or right or good. It is simply the capacity to understand the relationship between the phenomenon of life.

Pain is not the theoretical worst of all possible things. I do not like pain, I try to avoid pain, but when I am in pain, I struggle to subdue the pain, I strive to live. However, the pain I have experienced thus far I would not call "unbearable" even though it sometimes felt.

If I am in pain, and in one bottle is a single aspirin and in the other bottle is a hundred million dollars, I might very well go for the hundred million dollars if I can subdue my desire to end the pain at least for a short while. I have the means to cope with some pain.

If I am in unbearable pain, by definition, I will always go for the single aspirin, no matter how much I can do with that hundred million dollars--maybe even find a way to make my unbearable pain not so unbearable? If I go for the money, it might not even be a rational decision but mere chance, derived from the inability of my mind, suffering from unbearable pain, to make a distinction. But when the aspirin is in effect, I will realize that I should have gone with the hundred million. I will, while I am lucid, be able to recognize what the rational decision was. After all, even if all I do is buy two aspirins, that is still a 100% increase over what I would have gotten if I only chose the single aspirin.

Suicide is, and always should be, an option. And there is nothing wrong with that. I don’t want to encourage suicide, but I also cannot discourage it as though there was strictly a right or wrong answer, even if anyone I met was thinking about it I would almost certainly discourage them.

But I also disagree with the sentiment that “unendurable pain is to be in a losing position to nothingness.” Nothingness is not really a “draw” just as death is not “losing.” I would not call someone in pain a “loser” nor would I call someone dying a “loser.” Life is not a game of chess, suicide is not conceding defeat. In a game of chess, when the game is over you get up and walk away and whoever won generally laughs at whoever lost and calls them a loser. If life has no “winner,” then life too can have no “losers” or “draws.”

Pain is not “good” or “bad” in the same way that suicide is not.

We simply do not know what happens after we die.

We can only go on what evidence there is, and there is none.

We do not see the manifestation of pain or agony after death, but we bury our bodies, or burn them. But we do not watch the bodies burn, usually. Nor do we watch the slow decomposition of the body after it has been buried. There is no consciousness, there is no mind there to interact with and say that there is pain, to cry or to scream. But the body is destroyed nonetheless.

Suppose you have been unconscious due to lack of oxygen to the brain or chemicals. You usually won’t recall the experience being violent or painful. Some imagine death to be like that. I do not look forward to such an existence. But, should it become inevitable, nor would I run from it for long.