As I read chapter 4, what I saw was the idea that much suffering is caused by the natural laws that consistantly govern the world. That God's greatness is shown by this consistancy and not by miracles. That if God were involved in rescuing the righteous, he would create a world that had no consistancy and that we couldn't handle that. That these "laws" are inanimate and impersonal. They neither "know" or "care" who is righteous. "That the rain falls on the just and the unjust." The question is why did God create a world like that. Chapter 4 seems to say that, in addition to the discussion above, it is because pain is useful and death in this world is better than living forever. I wasn't really satisfied with that answer. I found chapter 5 more persuasive with its discussion of free will. I have long felt that the suffering we face is less important than our reaction to it. Our physical self (animal self according to Kushner) lives in this world of uncaring but consistant rules and good and bad choices, but our spiritual self, our divine self has the free will to respond with either good or bad choices. The challenges we face are the exercise equipment that can strengthen or injure our souls depending on how we choose to react to them.

Free will

I missed last Sunday's meeting, but as I read through the first 3 chapters it kept occuring to me that the concept of free will was missing until I began chapter 4. Now I see Kushner was building the case for free will by discussing in detail all the other reasons we have developed in our culture for why bad things happen if God is a loving God. The greatest gift we could be given is freedom...... and this includes the understanding that our decisions in life have consequences. Having said this, we still experience in life, and in Stephen Ministry, that bad things can still happen even after we have made what we believe are good decisions. The reason good people may suffer is simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time and being affected by someone else's bad decision.

Sunday's Discussion

We had a good discussion Sunday during meditation time. We seemed to agree that it is not God that makes bad things happen to good people. That it is just "the way life is." Amma Susan's sermon was quoted "God doesn't get you into it, but He will get you through it." There was some concern that the book was written by a Jewish Rabbi and was, therefore, not Christian, but as we searched for issues, we found a number of "Christian" points of view in the book. In discussing Chapter 3, we felt that we could hold all three propositions to be true - God is omnipotent, God is just, and some suffering people are good - if we realize that God chose not to control this world in order to give us free will. Much of the suffering in the world, we felt, was due to human error in the exercise of free will. That's what I remember. Let us know your views. +Tom

Whoops! Sorry about the spelling. Should have checked it before posting.
Amma Susan+

First blog

This is my first posting. I love this book. Kushner doesn't pull any punches or retreat into theological platitudes. This age old question had led to a crisis of faith for so many. Our author meats the hard question head-on. I look forward to our "little chats" on this site.
Amma Susan+

Thanks, Fr. Jim, for doing this!

I'm in!!

If this post appears, I think we have it fixed.