In dealing with theodicy, a scriptural data set that needs to be taken into account is Jesus’s healings. The reason for this is that with these healings, we get Jesus’s own reaction to human suffering. Some accounts portray the motivation as ‘pity’ (e.g. Luke 7:13 with Jesus rising the only son of a woman from the dead, Matthew 14:14 with the healing of sick people in the crowd, Matthew 20:34 with his healing of the blind man). The word used for being moved pity is σπλαγχνίζομαι bascially means being moved as to one’s inward parts, kind of like how one might say “that hit me in gut”.
So what are we to make of these accounts? I think there are a few things we can say:
- Sickness, death, disabilities, demon influence, etc etc, are seen as in themselves bad and worthy of being reversed.
- Jesus’s miraculous reversal of these ailments assumes that they are, in themselves, evil, often the result of wicked spirits, and not a part of a divine plan (we’ll talk about one exception later).
- Jesus’s being moved to pity by this suffering implies that his healing of these ailments is a result of his being emotionally distressed by them, or at least his being distressed accompanies the healing, there is no indication that the healings are done for larger purposes that don’t involve his distress over suffering.
- These healings are supernatural interventions, i.e. they are not part of the “natural” course of things, rather they are interventions into the world.
The implications on theodicy here are that it does not seem that Jesus viewed suffering as anything which could be redeemed, it was unreservedly bad and something to be reversed; it played no part in God’s larger purpose, it was not in any way ordanied by God. Now there an important and notable exception: John 9:1–4:
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him (ἵνα φανερωθῇ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ). We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.
Now this seems to be a case of an individual suffering for a larger divine purpose, is this the only reading though? Perhaps it is the correct reading, although all it would tell us is that this is the case for this particular instance, there would be no reason to apply it to the rest of the healings, not only that but the purpose itself under that interpretation would be the reversal of the blindness and the display of God’s healing power, no other purpose can be taken from the text. However, there are other readings; as Boyd points out[1], the word ἵνα in this construction, need not imply that the blindness is for the purpose of revealing, but rather that the blindness will promt revealing. A good example of this use of ἵνα is in 2 Corinthians 8:7:
Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you (ἵνα καὶ) to excel also in this generous undertaking.
Here the ἵνα is not explaining the purpose of the Corinthian’s excelling in evertyhing, or the purpose of Paul and his companions’ love for them; but rather, the ἵνα serves as a promt, i.e. this, should lead to that. We can take the ἵνα φανερωθῇ τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν αὐτῷ in John 9:1–4 the same way: this man was born blind, and this will lead to the revealing of the works of God in him. This explains quite well the following, which is the imperitive of them working these works at that particular time i.e. we have to do it, so let’s do it.
This also makes sense of the context of this being a response to speculations of this blindness being the result of sin. Jesus may not be providing another explanation, but rather saying that the blindness ought to promt a desire to heal, not an attempt to justify the blindness by claiming it was due to some sin. This would bring John 9:1–4 in line with Luke 13:1–5, where Jesus responds to similar speculations about the justification of suffering and death being sin, his response there is that individual sin is not the cause of individual death, but rather all will die who do not repent. It would also bring it inline with John 20:20–21 which may suggest that the blindness had a demonic cause (especially when compared with Mark 3:20–30, where the issue is that Beelzabub cannot expell Beelzabub, the point being in relation to John 20:20–21 that the reason a demon cannot open blind people’s eyes is that blindess has a demonic cause). Thus, the more “Calvinist” reading actually has Jesus more or less agreeing with the assumptions of the disciples—that this man’s blindness is justified—only his justification would by that this man suffered all those years so that he could be healed and people could see it. The “ἵνα as an imperative” reading has Jesus providing an alternative model that is actually in line with the rest of the gospel accounts of Jesus’s attitude towards sickness and suffering. It also makes sennse of the imperative nature of verse 4.
The demonic cause is also a very important aspect to Jesus’s miraculous action. There are clearly many instances of Jesus working as an excorcist to expel demons; however, there are passages that seem to imply that wicked spirits were causing illness (Mark 9:17–20; Luke 13:11). Look at these spirit caused illnesses, along with the instances we think of in the gospels as more akin to our idea of demon possession, it becomes clear that it doesn’t make sense to build a strong barrier between the two. Demon possessed people suffer physical consequences (being thrown on the ground, convulsing), and so do those who are sick because of a demon—the modern distinction is largely, and I believe falsely, due to a sharp distinction between what can be ascribed to spirits and what can be ascribed to purely physical mechanisms. Why I think this is a false distinction is something I may bring up in a later post.
The important thing to notice here is that these illnesses, and problems have a cause which is contrary to God, i.e. these are spirits who are no agents of God, but enemies of God. This may seem obvious, but it rarely impacts theodicy, and I think it should. If evil has a redeeming purpose, any redeeming purpose which justifies it, then these demons—who Jesus sees as the enemy to be opposed—are in agents of redemtion, although they are given the thankless and not so glamerous task of being the necessary “bad guys”, the heel, as it were. However, nowhere does Jesus, or anyone in the New Testament (or any of the earliest Christian literature) say that the suffering caused by wicked spirits are actually willed by God.
It would be prudent to take the assumptions of the demonic cause of suffering in these instances at face value. The assumption being that this suffering is in opposition to the Kingdom of God, and is only to be reversed. The reversal of the suffering is supernatural in that Jesus is imposing on the individual to rid him of his illness and stop any further effects of the illness, he never suggests that these illnesses may cause a greater good and thus should run their course. We should also take very seriously the asssumption that suffering is largely the result of wicked spirits (this could be true even if one can fully account for the sickness in biological terms).
[1] Gregory Boyd, God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict, 231–234
Musing on Theology 