The Problem of Pain

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Freud had a preoccupation with death and suffering. He lived with great personal pain and during a time in history of war and death. From the burning of his books to the murder of his sister and dispersal of his family from their homes, Freud experienced the effects of human depravity by the efforts of Nazi ideology. His preoccupation with death and suffering was justifiable be, but he needed a rationale for why this problem of pain existed, and how men should to respond to it. Through personal struggle with pain, Freud examined his own psyche. He had a dichotomous desire for his own death. One the one hand he wished for immortality, but on the other hand he wished for an end to suffering through death. He chose to reject beliefs of heaven, hell, paradise and immortality on the basis that these ideas were only childhood fantasies. Freud found it preferable to esteem the work of thought as an end. Seeking comfort through “child-hood fantasy” was not an option, according to him. He said that he could not “face the idea of life without work. What would one do when ideas fail...,” and that it would be “impossible not to shudder at the thought.” His rejection of a real God caused his understanding of how and why the problem of pain existed to be limited to the realm of human invention. Freud theorized that guilt was at the heart of antisemitism. He wrote, “Moses and Monotheism” for this very purpose. According to his theory, Christianity was invented in order to relieve the unbearable guilt that the world experienced. Judaism, however, rejected this solution for the relief of guilt and consequently the world “repays Judaism with eternal hatred.” Despite his determined conclusions derived from thought, Freud did state t...

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...rds reveal that the god he believed in was similar to the gnostic depiction of YAHWEH. Neither man seemed to have been able to grasp hope from their worldviews, which is diametrically opposed to the view of God that the Bible depicts. The existence of suffering and death is not evidence of a “sadistic” god, but rather evidence of a loving God who allows men the free will to create or destroy.2 God is not a cosmic rapist who forces his creatures to love him, and He did not create robotic entities incapable of real love. Rather, God has subjected the world to futility causing men to see the evidence of existence apart from Him.3 Men see the human condition and are compelled to seek God for explanation and hope, and ultimately to cry out to Him for salvation. Yeshua is the master builder who can empathize with us, and has enabled a plan of hope to restore mankind.

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