It is now the end of 2011 and I notice that I have not posted anything for two years. I really ought to address the four questions that I posed in Feb 2009. Today I will respond to the first question: Why did God choose pain? It seems that He has chosen to feel pain Himself, as well as to let His creation feel pain. Why?
First of all, I am assuming that God feels pain. If you read through the Old Testament, you will encounter are many passages where God expresses great anger at what people did (like when the Israelites built and worshiped the golden calf). I assume that some kind of pain provokes the anger. The Scriptures also say that God created mankind in His own image. If we feel pain, then it is likely that he feels pain. Jesus claimed to be "one with the Father", and in the stories of Gethsemane and the crucifixion, it definitely looks like Jesus experienced pain. The evidence is good that God feels pain.
Secondly, I am assuming that God chooses to feel pain. In Gethsemane, Jesus definitely chose to experience pain. I am assuming that since God is all powerful, that He can remake Himself to be anyway He wants to be. If He doesn't want to feel pain, He doesn't have to.
So, why pain? What good is pain? If God is good, and if He chooses pain for Himself and for His creation, then pain must be good for something.
In the human realm, the Merriam-Webster dictionary uses various phrases to describe pain: "localized physical suffering associated with a body disorder", "basic bodily sensation induced by a noxious stimulus...leading to evasive action", "physical discomfort", "acute mental or emotional distress".
Basically pain is feeling bad because something in our environment (which includes our bodies) is bad. I am going to define bad loosely as when something that was created is damaged, when something that is beautiful becomes ugly, something good is lost, or a goal is thwarted. Pain is useful, because it stimulates us to do something when something in our environment is going bad. It is negative feedback. It tells us to move our hand away from a hot pot because the heat is damaging our hand. It tells us to cut back when the scales go over 300.
Pain is the opposite of joy. Joy is the emotion associated with the creation of something we value. Pain is the feeling we get when that which is created is destroyed, damaged, distorted, or lost. But a word study of joy in the scriptures shows that joy frequently follows a season of pain. Why is that? Joy is the feeling associated with the success of creation. Pain is associated with the cost of creation. Whenever something is created, there is a cost--something else is damaged, or something is lost. When a field is planted, the soil is disrupted. When pottery is created, clay is deformed, and hands get dirty. When a meal is prepared, money is spent and tin cans get destroyed. When a room is added to a house, a wall gets damaged. Pain in creation is good, because it limits unbounded creation. A mother with a refrigerator completely covered with a child's art that takes five minutes to create knows that unbounded, low cost creation is not good. Travelers in the eastern part of the US seeing forests strangled by unbounded kudzu know that unlimited creation is not good. Pain in creation controls creation. Thus the amount of joy experienced at success in creation is related to the amount of pain invested in the creation. When we voluntarily experience pain in order to receive a greater joy, that is called an investment. We calculate that the value of the anticipated joy exceeds the negative value of the anticipated pain.
So far we have shown that pain provides beneficial negative feedback--it gives us an incentive to stop destruction and it keeps creation from being unbounded (which ultimately is destructive). When something bad happens, we feel pain, we adjust our behavior, the environment becomes good again, and the pain goes away. It sounds so simple. But what happens when we can't make the environment good again? What happens when the pain does not go away? Is that good? How is that good?
When a person lives a life filled with chronic pain, that person tends to follow one of two paths--the path of hope or the path of despair. One on the path of despair has concluded that the negative value of future pain exceeds the positive value of future joy. That person stops creating, and fills his/her life with cheap pleasures. A person on the path of hope has concluded that the positive value of future joy exceeds the negative value of future pain.
Those who choose God in the midst of a life a pain find the path of hope. On the path of hope they engage in a process character development, where God creates intangible things that are extremely valuable to Him.
James said, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." (James 1.2-4, NIV)
The apostle Peter said, "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." (1 Peter 1.6-7, NIV)
In addition to the character development that takes place in a life full of pain, those who have chosen God find a new source of joy, and the promise of future joy. Peter goes on to say:
Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1.8-9, NIV)
I think about all the people that I have met, whom I greatly admire and respect, and who inspire me. Without exception, they have all become what they are by persevering through a life of pain. We all love stories. At the core of all good stories is a storyline where the hero or heroine encounters pain of some kind, perseveres through it, and triumphs over it. Without pain, there would be no good stories.
"Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (Heb 12.2, NIV)
