The Problem of Pain
Mar. 18th, 2007 12:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackofallgeeksSo, last night after eating corn beef and having some Guinness with friends, I came home to work on a bit of my research. Very randomly I got an IM from an here-again-gone-again friend of mine (really more of a friend of a friend) from high school, Ryan. We had a pretty good conversation talking about a whole bunch of stuff starting with girls and ending somewhere around religion.
Along the religion side of things, Ryan made some comment like "unless you believe in an afterlife without physical bodies" to which I replied "no, I believe in the resurrection of the body," which is a line straight from the Apostle's Creed. And with all the disbelief and incredulity one can muster through IM, he said, "are you serious?" Yeah, I said, it's a Catholic thing. I was a little shocked myself that he would have to ask me if I meant what I'd said, though in hindsight I don't think Ryan really knows me well at all.
That's not the point of the post, though, just the set up. We went from there to talking about how he doesn't believe in the resurrection of the body because he doesn't want an old decrepit body hanging on him for all eternity which itself touched ever so lightly on the meaning of pain. Essentially, he made a comment about pain being completely unnecessary, that "there's no reason for it whatsoever," which lead to me saying I disagreed fundamentally and that I didn't care to argue the topic of pain. So we moved on.
The topic of pain is a difficult one to argue. Generally speaking, no body likes pain. It's not a pleasant experience, particularly in the form of physical injury. There are other kinds of pain though, such as emotional pain, and the same holds true for them. That having been said, I'm generally of the opinion that even if pain isn't always pleasant, it is often useful. In one capacity, it tells you when you're doing something wrong -- you don't touch a stove because it'll burn you, and hunger pains let you know when you're well due for some food. So right there I dispute Ryan's claim that there's no reason for it at all.
I think it goes beyond that, though. Pain is a good warning, but I think it can also be a good teacher. There are things, I think, that you can't learn without being in pain, or ministering to someone in pain. Having to rely on someone else when you're dreadfully ill or hurt gives you a particular experience that you couldn't have if you were well. Having to wait on someone who is sick or hurt is similar. Shared pain draws people together.
Pain also gives us the opportunity to act beyond ourselves, which is generally considered noble. To give up one's own pleasure for the sake of another is one thing; to actively take on pain for the sake of another is something more. Pain and loss give value to sacrifice.
Ryan seemed to be against the resurrection of the body because he didn't believe in the possibility of some 'ideal form', not in the sense of something beyond what we can be in this life, but rather the peak of what we could be. He said that he'd be "pissed" if he got to Heaven (or wherever) and found out that God could have just made it easier on him. He was OK with growing old and dying if that was the way things worked, and that was the end of it. He didn't say it, but it seems to me he sees no value in growing old, in the experiences that this bring, and in the lessons that an old man can learn that he never would have being young and healthy. But further, what of all the lessons the young can't learn with out the old? What of the things one learns having suffered the loss of a loved one? All of these have value, I think, because they are opportunities to better ourselves and those around us.
But really, these are just a few half-formed ideas.
Along the religion side of things, Ryan made some comment like "unless you believe in an afterlife without physical bodies" to which I replied "no, I believe in the resurrection of the body," which is a line straight from the Apostle's Creed. And with all the disbelief and incredulity one can muster through IM, he said, "are you serious?" Yeah, I said, it's a Catholic thing. I was a little shocked myself that he would have to ask me if I meant what I'd said, though in hindsight I don't think Ryan really knows me well at all.
That's not the point of the post, though, just the set up. We went from there to talking about how he doesn't believe in the resurrection of the body because he doesn't want an old decrepit body hanging on him for all eternity which itself touched ever so lightly on the meaning of pain. Essentially, he made a comment about pain being completely unnecessary, that "there's no reason for it whatsoever," which lead to me saying I disagreed fundamentally and that I didn't care to argue the topic of pain. So we moved on.
The topic of pain is a difficult one to argue. Generally speaking, no body likes pain. It's not a pleasant experience, particularly in the form of physical injury. There are other kinds of pain though, such as emotional pain, and the same holds true for them. That having been said, I'm generally of the opinion that even if pain isn't always pleasant, it is often useful. In one capacity, it tells you when you're doing something wrong -- you don't touch a stove because it'll burn you, and hunger pains let you know when you're well due for some food. So right there I dispute Ryan's claim that there's no reason for it at all.
I think it goes beyond that, though. Pain is a good warning, but I think it can also be a good teacher. There are things, I think, that you can't learn without being in pain, or ministering to someone in pain. Having to rely on someone else when you're dreadfully ill or hurt gives you a particular experience that you couldn't have if you were well. Having to wait on someone who is sick or hurt is similar. Shared pain draws people together.
Pain also gives us the opportunity to act beyond ourselves, which is generally considered noble. To give up one's own pleasure for the sake of another is one thing; to actively take on pain for the sake of another is something more. Pain and loss give value to sacrifice.
Ryan seemed to be against the resurrection of the body because he didn't believe in the possibility of some 'ideal form', not in the sense of something beyond what we can be in this life, but rather the peak of what we could be. He said that he'd be "pissed" if he got to Heaven (or wherever) and found out that God could have just made it easier on him. He was OK with growing old and dying if that was the way things worked, and that was the end of it. He didn't say it, but it seems to me he sees no value in growing old, in the experiences that this bring, and in the lessons that an old man can learn that he never would have being young and healthy. But further, what of all the lessons the young can't learn with out the old? What of the things one learns having suffered the loss of a loved one? All of these have value, I think, because they are opportunities to better ourselves and those around us.
But really, these are just a few half-formed ideas.
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-18 08:17 pm (UTC)One line of response to the problems of theodicy is very much like what you are saying: G-d allows pain because it's the only way we can learn, etc. Even bracketing religion, with the world more or less as it is, I think it'd be hard to deny the value of pain. A life free of pain in something like the actual world would either mean that you were dangerously sheltered or dangerously numb.
But if you're asking a question less like, "is there a point to pain in this world?" and more like "why ought this world contain pain at all?" I don't think the answer works as well. There doesn't seem to be any conceptual connection between pain and learning, and the kinds of experience that one gets through pain are chiefly useful if you know you're going to have to deal with others in pain (e.g., the ability to understand pain would have little value if no one else ever underwent it). So I think it's much easier to think that, were one creating the best possible world from the ground up, pain would have no place in it (and, hence, why I think the line of argument you've sketched won't do as a theodicy, though it serves well as an understanding of pain-as-it-is).
no subject
Date: 2007-03-18 08:37 pm (UTC)Note, though, that I don't use "impractical" as a disparaging term. Simply to differentiate between "what is" and "what isn't but might be."
no subject
Date: 2007-03-18 08:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-22 06:27 am (UTC)