There is pain and suffering all over the world. Even at this very moment, people are facing death and torture, but the question is if God is all kind then why is there suffering? Who or what is the cause of this pain? How can it be stopped? Through this section of the coursework, I will discuss the answers behind these questions from the perspectives of the two religions, Christianity and Islam. According to Christianity, God is wholly good, he does not create evil nor is he evil. It states in Genesis that God created all things in the universe 'and it was good'. So if God is all good, then where does evil come from? The teaching on suffering in Christianity goes back to the beginning when Adam and Eve were created by God. Humans were given the one thing above every other living creature in the universe, and that was the power of free will. God had explicitly told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge but they were not able to comply with this one basic rule. They were tempted to eat from the tree by Satan, the devil, an archangel that was kicked out of heaven due to his rebellion against God. This incident 'The Fall' is used by all Christians as a good lesson on the origins of evil and suffering. Literalist Christians believe that this incident did happen sometime long ago but liberalist Christians, for example Baptists, believe that this was not actually a real incident in time, but only a myth that is used to teach humans of the consequences of disobedience. Now due to this one event, Christians believe that all humans are born with 'Original Sin', meaning it is human nature to be sinful. 'The Fall' was a punishme... ... middle of paper ... ...But if we go deeper into the intention of this suffering, we can see that even the punishment suffering is done so that the wrong doers will humble and follow the sirat-al-mustakeem (straight path) and so really the reason for all suffering according to Islam is to help become a better Muslim. So to summarise, according to Islam, the reason for suffering is due to the test from Allah, the reason why all humans are on earth. Shaytan may be the evil one who tempts people to perform sins but he has been given the right to lead astray humans by Allah for the same reason of the test. So let us get back to our question posed at the beginning of this coursework. If God is all kind then why is there suffering? Well according to Islam, Allah does not need to be evil to cause suffering because it is all done for a good reason.
suffering hurts man spirit is does more good then constant happiness and power. We have to beat
After reviewing the work of David Hume, the idea of a God existing in a world filled with so much pain and suffering is not so hard to understand. Humes’ work highlights some interesting points which allowed me to reach the conclusion that suffering is perhaps a part of God’s divine plan for humans. Our morals and values allow us to operate and live our daily lives in conjunction with a set of standards that help us to better understand our world around us and essentially allows us to better prepare for the potential life after life. For each and every day we get closer to our impending deaths and possibly closer to meeting the grand orchestrator of our universe.
Kusher gets straight to the point in the first few pages of his book. We, as humans, assume that we deserve what we get. Somewhere along the way we have sinned and deserve what happens. We focus the attention on ourselves so we can keep viewing God as a righteous judge. God is simply being like a caring parent in hopes we can see he only means well, and hopes one way we can see why he would cause such pain. Kushner believes that maybe God is not the cause of our suffering, but that God is there to help.
1 Peter 3:13-17 begins the third main section of 1 Peter with the theme being: God’s grace in suffering. In a world that is hostile to Christianity and to Christ Peter is admonishing his readers that the fear of the Lord conquers every other fear. In the course of life these readers faced crises, and could be tempted to give into fears and make wrong decisions but Peter is instructing to “sanctify Christ as Lord” in their hearts and they never need to fear men or circumstances. “The enemies of believers can hurt us, but never harm us. Only we can harm ourselves if we fail to trust God” (Wiersbe. 413). Peter is stating that, in a general sense, people are less likely to be persecuted when they are doing good, however, even if a believer is persecuted
People can’t even be bothered to give up one hour a week and go to
Islam and Christianity both come from a common foundation as religions of peace, both of these religious traditions share the foundational element of peace of their beliefs. In both the sacred texts of Islam and Christianity peace is a virtue and is seen more as a sense of wellbeing than just the absence of conflict and violence. Overall peace is found in unity with God, for Christians and Muslims are taught to live a life a life of peace with others, not only in their own communities but the entire of human society. The Qur’an in Islam and the New Testament in Christianity are respectively the principal sacred texts for these religious traditions. The Qur’an and the New Testament both express the importance of peace and peacemaking as evident in Jesus’ Beatitudes “Blessed are the peacemakers”. The search for inner peace is the core message of the Qur’an and the New Testament and the adherents of both traditions are taught that inner peace will come through faithfully devoting yourself to God.
Suffering is an individual's basic affective experience of pain or distress, often as a result of one’s physical, emotional or spiritual circumstance (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy 2006). Suffering can be classified as physical; for example pain caused by a dislocated knee, emotional; for example one’s grief over the death of a loved one, or spiritual; which is described as the state of being separated from the blissful nature of your divine self (soul). To suffer physically or emotionally is often unavoidable; however it can be argued that spiritual liberation...
The problem of evil proves contradiction in religious philosophy, that a perfect God may or may not exist (Pecornio, 1). If a perfect God exists, why would he put evil into our world and promote suffering? Some philosophers have argued that this suffering is consequence for our own sins. If you willingly choose a path of evil, then evil will present itself onto you. An example of this would be that if you know smoking is bad and can cause lung cancer, and you still choose to smoke, you “deserve” the evil consequence of getting lung cancer (Beebe, 1). The problem of evil pinpoints two types of evil: moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil is a type of evil that is caused by mankind itself, such as murder, abuse, and sexual...
(Migliore 128) This view paints God as the punisher to both the wicked and the righteous, and that suffering is the result of one’s own actions. This argument sees the relationship between sin and suffering far too simply. Although, there is some Biblical support for this view in the old testament, it does not mirror the character of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
As the foundation of this question focuses on the danger of compassion fatigue, I will answer accordingly but first I would like to address some aspects on the theology of suffering. The theology of suffering has been in question since the beginning of doctrine. Theologian believes that God uses suffering as a tool to draw His children closer to glorify his purpose. In Habakkuk 1:3 (New Word Translation), the ancient prophet Habakkuk also questioned God as to why he tolerated so much oppression and violence. Like many, I find myself questioning the purpose for the infliction of pain and hardship to achieve one’s holy-predesigned purpose. Is it necessary and do I have the right to question?
Suffering can be defined as an experience of discomfort suffered by a person during his life. The New York Times published an article entitled what suffering does, by David Brooks (2014). In this article, Brooks explains how suffering plays an important role in our pursuit of happiness. He explains firstly that happiness is found through experiences and then, suffering can also be a motivation in our pursuit of happiness. In other words, suffering is a fearful but necessary gift to acquire happiness. This paper is related to motivation and emotion, two keys words to the pursuit of happiness (King, 2010).
+Analysing outcomes of the test and summarize it with some theories of need and motivation.
Why would God allow so much suffering in this world? If what He created was very good (Gen 1:31), why do we experience pain? Furthermore, since there is...
Christianity and Islam are the two largest religions in the world, founded upon the principal belief that there is one God who created the world. Nevertheless, both ideologies have their own accounts that have contradicted each other since their beginnings. As time changed these religious sects have undergone a numerous number of events that question their validity and have led to controversy in recent years.