I had one of those streams of thought this morning during that period of time where you're awake but you're not really awake that led me to this post. I read an intriguing article last week about a cocktail bar in Philadelphia and it's mysterious owner. That was the first thought. The second was about the person who posted the link. The third thought was about what I'd say if we talked. The fourth was that my worldview and this particular blogger's are polar opposites–he an atheist, me a Christian. The fifth was, your worldview is only good if it works in the reality of your life. And that's the point of this post.
Christianity is a "meta-narrative". It doesn't just explain that there is a savior, but it also explains why one was necessary to begin with. It doesn't settle at just explaining your particular situation, but it actually provides an all-encompassing, overarching view as to why things are the way that they are. This is the point that is missed by many people, I think, as they easily write off Christianity as just another crutch or religious expression or whatever. Everyone consciously or unconsciously understands the world within the framework of some meta-narrative, even when they don't know what it is or they can't explain it.
The key to the meta-narrative is it's consistency. I heard the story (one of many) of a person who, after a particularly devastating storm in which many people were left homeless, didn't feel like it was his obligation to help anyone because he had already helped so many people already, and really he was super busy. Somewhat ironically, if you asked him what the most important thing about humanity was, this person would almost certainly say "helping others". His actions demonstrated, however, that while he may have thought this was true in the moment, it wasn't actually his meta-narrative. For him to believe that sometimes he needed to help others, but other times he didn't, meant that there was no consistency in his "helping others". The only consistency was that helping others was totally random. In other words, his actual meta-narrative was "chaos" or "randomness". Such is the reality of much of the post-modern, relativistic world.
The consistency of the meta-narrative is what gives it "legs" when it comes into contact with the reality of our every day lives. It can speak to the particular realities that I find myself in. If a meta-narrative can't satisfactorily explain the common, every day life that you live, if it has no traction in reality, then I see no value in it. It strikes me that this is quite similar to the scientific method of testing: develop a hypothesis, test the hypothesis. If it doesn't work, find a new hypothesis. Obviously that's a simplistic view of both the scientific method and the means of testing a meta-narrative, but it serves the point. Much of the time the way that we know that what we believe about the world actually makes any sense is when we are confronted with a confusing or difficult situation in our lives and realize that we actually have an explanation.
Hence, the reality of suffering as per the title of this post. Over the past few weeks and months the reality of suffering in peoples' lives has become clear and present for me. In times past it was suffering or evil itself that was used as a denial of God's existence. Philosophers have stopped drawing from that well, however, as the shortcomings of the argument have become evident. For one, you can't even define evil unless you can define good, and "ultimate evil", or evil that is always evil, only exists if there is a corresponding "ultimate good". Using the argument of suffering and evil to deny God, then, leaves you in a bit of a predicament. If there is no God, then there is no ultimate evil. If no evil, then suffering is totally random and as a result, it is totally meaningless. And that leads to the second problem with this line of thought.
There is more to us as humans than just our material being. Somehow, we love, we have emotion, we have a will, we have a spirit, we have an internal light; there is something that gets snuffed out at death and it is more than just our material ceasing to function. I've seen skeptics claim that death is like a "light switch being flipped off", but why the analogy to light? If the body is just material, then it is more like shutting your car off than it is the disappearance of light, yet anyone who has ever been at someones bedside when they passed knows that there is an indefinable "snuffing" that goes out; something more than just material decay has taken place. All of this is just to point out that if all we are trying to define is the material reality of suffering, that is, accept that it happens and deal with it as a reality of our physical being, it leaves a gaping hole in our understanding. Namely, whether or not life has any meaning at all.
To remove God from the equation of evil and suffering is to ultimately remove any meaning from our lives, whatsoever. No one denies that the reality of evil and suffering in light of a sovereign and loving God is a difficult truth to rectify in our minds; if you watch a friend go through suffering or tragedy and you act like you understand why it is happening to them, you are not an intellectual, you are a jerk. The Christian, however, has a view towards suffering that not only explains it's existence, but it also allows for the possibility of meaning within it and hopes for it's complete eradication. Thus, there is more to it than simply "suffering for sufferings sake". There is meaning not just in my suffering, but in my very existence. There is no such explanation of suffering if God is removed, other than just to say that it's all random. And if it's all random, then you are just a pawn in a deterministic universe; you literally do not matter.
Thus we come back to whether or not your meta-narrative can speak to your situation, right now, "boots on the ground". The Christian endures suffering because even when it doesn't seem to have any reasonable explanation of why it would happen to me, there is still the possibility of meaning in it. We do not enjoy suffering, like some sort of spiritual masochists, but we can wrap our minds around the reality of it's existence. And then, even when the world is closing in, we can cling to a God who is bigger than the world. We are loved, even when life sucks. There is hope, even when it's dark. And then the promise of the good news of Jesus: someday, suffering will be eradicated once and for all.