Pain

Ok, i wrote this for one my classes, thought some of you might be interested

The Ethics of Justices Pain Removal

As the Worthing saga ends, Justice ends pain, for the small village of flat harbor. The Day of pain was over. It would not be as it was before. Justice played no tricks on memory, and death itself she would not hinder, but the pain was at an end in Flat Harbor, and would be as long as she lived.[1] But was she right to do this, to remove pain from everyone? To answer this we have to look a bit deeper into the subject of pain, what causes it, and whether it is good or not.

As we look at pain we find there are basically four causes. First off, Nature. This is basically the effects that natural law has on our bodies, if we step on a nail we are going to get hurt, if we jump of a cliff we are going to die. These aren't punishments for our heinous crime of *gasp* stepping on a nail, they are merely the results of an action. While God could quite easily make the nail turn soft as rubber when people step on it, the same properties that make stepping on the nail painful (its sharp, and doesn't bend easily) also make it possible to build a house with the same nail. If every time something was going to cause another pain God changed its natural properties, our free will would be torn away, and the laws of nature couldnt exist.

Second, Mankind. After the fall, man became evil. Due to this and having free will its only natural to assume that peoples free wills would eventually collide in a painful way. Once again, God could stop this pain, either changing the physical properties of an object intended to harm, or removing all desire to harm others, but both of these would again remove free will from society.

Third, the devil. He, like men, has a free will and is evil. And his will collides with ours and Gods in the same way.

Forth, God's punishment for sin. This is by far the hardest to explain; there are several analogies the bible uses to explain mans relationship with God. In Jeremiah we see the example of the potter and the clay. If we imagine for a second a sentient wad of clay, its imaginable that it would be pained by the constant remaking process, annoyed and frustrated that just when it was getting set in its ways some giant hand smashed it again, forcing it to work through the process of becoming something lovely again. Next, we can draw the analogy of a man to his dog. A man doesn't own a dog for the dog to love him; he owns it to love the dog, but the dog naturally has some things that make it less lovable. The way it smells and acts can at times make it hard for the man to love it. So what does the man do? He gives the dog baths, trains it to obey, and other such stuff. The dog might not appreciate any of this, might find it painful at times during his training, but it is necessary to make the dog lovable. We arent created to love God, but for God to love us. He loves us as we are, but that doesnt mean he wants us to stay that way. God desires for us to be Christ like, and pain is sometimes required to do this.

People often wonder how God, being so merciful, can allow pain. The say, "Sure Ive sinned, but hasn't everyone?" they don't understand, we can't be justified by the faults of others, "We are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.[2]" People think of sin like a sunburn, everyone gets one occasionally but with time it will go away and people won't even realize it was there, or maybe they'll see it faded to a tan, and think how strong you must be to have made it through that sin. If people grasped what their sin actually was, understood how it must look to God, they wouldn't wonder why there's so much pain, they'd wonder why there is so little. But people are so wrapped up in there facade of kindness and the wishy-washy political correct terms that they don't realize that there is much more to loving others than being kind. When we look back at the middle ages, one of the cruelest times in history, do we think, "Im sure God will over look their cruelness, I mean they had chastity and courage like no other generation." No, we are horrified by the cruelties committed, just as they, looking on us, would be horrified by our lack of courage and chastity. This horrification must only be a fraction of what God feels when he sees our sins. Pain is Gods way of shaping us into what He wants us to be, making us aware of our sins.

Another good thing about pain is it lets us see our good deeds for what they are. For example, if the doctor tells you that you have to eat carrots every day, at first youre like, Stupid carrots I hate eating um. But as you eat them, you start liking them and you eat them all the time, you enjoy eating them, it gives you pleasure. At that point are you eating carrots to obey your doctor? Who knows, its probably more likely that you just like eating carrots now. Its the same way with Gods rules at times, we get to the point were we like doing things the right way, we like fulfilling our call, but when we get there are we using the call as a means to an end(pleasing God), or an end in itself? We dont know, but as long as there is pain involved in our obeying, in our pleasing God, then we know that we arent doing it for us, but for Him.

Do I mean to say that we should seek pain? Not at all, Im not in the least trying to say that pain in itself helps you do anything, pain is good and totally healthy as a means to an end, but as an end itself it doesnt accomplish anything, in fact I would even call it a sin. Things like cutting, self-injury, eating disorders, and causing pain to yourself whether mentally or physically is wrong. God doesnt desire for us to be in pain, but it is sometimes necessary to get his point across, God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain.[3] Its not the pain thats a good thing; it's what we learn from it.

So pain, while being useful for good, isnt in itself a good or healthy thing. The Bible tells us to Not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act. (Proverbs 3:27) so we know that it was right for Justice to remove pain from each person, as individuals, just as it is right for doctors or anyone to remove pain from an individual. It is right to help people through their painful experiences, through their troubles; in fact I feel that sitting back and watching idly-by is wrong.

Now, are things that are good for each individual good for society as a whole? The movie Bruce Almighty gave an interesting look at how this would turn out. In the movie, Bruce - given the powers of God says yes to everyones prayers. If everyone got what they wanted, what was good for them, society would collapse, as the mass riots and chaos in Bruce Almighty showed. The story of John Tinker is another excellent example of why this is. In the story, he came to the town of Worthing and would heal everyone. But during one winter he couldnt keep up with all the healings, and was eventually killed because of this. He hadnt stopped healing, he had tried to save as many as he could. While the individuals that had been saved were grateful for this, the society as a whole didnt think he had done enough, they werent grateful for the lives he had saved. Now you may say he was killed because he didnt heal the whole society, but this isnt true. He had healed the whole society before, therefore, the peoples expectation was for him to heal the whole town again, if he had never healed anyone, and then came during the hard winter they wouldve been grateful, even if he hadnt saved everyone.

Removing pain from a society as a whole removes our ability to make choices. In nearly all decisions the result is either painful or not, if we eliminate one of these possibilities we force people down a path they didnt want to take. The other path may be better, but if God wanted robots he would have made us that way. Love and pain and beauty. They all seem to go together like one little tidy confusing package.[4] We cant have one without the other, if we only experienced good, then one of two things would happen. Life would become like a communistic society of emotions, everything is equally good, but some things are more equally good then others, or happiness would just be an empty blah feeling, the same old thing all the time.

Lessons learned by pain are some of the best and most important lessons, not because of the pain, but what we learned from it. No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.[5] Christ suffered pain more than most people ever will, and only when He had made it through the pain did He complete His goal. Without His death, there wouldve been no resurrection. Without pain, our lifes goals would never be completed, or they would lose their sweetness after completion. Life is filled with pain, but if we struggle through it - push through the cocoon that holds us in we will emerge all the more beautiful because of it.

Bibliography

http://www.quotationspage.com

The Bible NIV

The Worthing Saga - Orson Scott Card First Edition December 1990, Copy write 1990 by Orson Scott Card

The Problem of Pain C.S. Lewis Harper Collin Edition 2001, Copy write 1940 by C.S. Lewis

Conversations with Rachel, Misha, and Gabbie

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[1] The Worthing Saga Page 270

[2] The NIV Romans 3:24

[3]The Problem of Pain C.S. Lewis, Page 91

[4]Henry Bromel, Northern Exposure, The Big Kiss, 1991

[5] William Penn