The philosophy lecturer David Bain comments on these issues on the BBC website. And my first thought was, what right has somebody who spends all his time boring us silly while sitting in perspex boxes over the Thames, to tell us what God will and won't allow? And then I realised I was thinking of David Blaine. And then I noticed that Mr Blaine has been working to raise donations for the relief of Haiti. So I feel we should forget the perspex-box showing off. Well done, that man.
And then I thought, well Prof Bain is at Glasgow university. So when it comes to speaking on the pointlessness of human life and unnecessary suffering, he's probably in the right place. I myself remember that wander I had around the Gorbals a few years ago. And I remember that guy who had his shins broken in that mugging incident while I was there. That will teach him to pick on a defenceless archdruid.
But I believe there are a number of ways of looking at the issue of suffering in the universe. And I pick a few thoughts here. We will never know the truth until the Great Day when we stand in the Kingdom of Tea Lights, when we put down our pebbles in awe before the Rock. But still:
THE ENEMY
The only mention of the Enemy that Prof Bain makes is in the context of Pat Robertson's (ibid) comments. Yet the idea of an evil active agent in the world has been a component of many if not most religious "Weltanschauungen". We think of the Serpent in the Garden of Eden; of Melkor at the foundation of Tolkien's world, bringing his dark music into the song of creation. Of Loki, of Seth or of Angra Mainyu, or - within our own Husborne Crawley - of Drayton Parslow himself. They could represent a theological and spiritual reality; the evil principle; or the personification of the freedom of creation. Either way, the story is that a god who creates a free spiritual as well as physical creation, has allowed that free spiritual creation to affect the physical one.
THE ANTAGONIST
The reference to Tolkien makes me wonder. Consider - no story is complete without an antagonist. Where would Tess of the D'Urbevilles be without the evil Angel Clare ruining her life? What would Emma be like without Mr Wodehouse's interference and trouble-making and selfishness? How can Bridget Jones finally find Mr Darcy without having a Daniel Cleaver to deal with? How can Kirsty be funny unless the Guy down the chip shop swears he's Elvis?
Even those stories that have no human (or, in the case of Disney's Robin Hood, leonine) antagonist have an enemy or challenge to confront - a mountain, or a sea to navigate, or a desert to cross.
In short - a story that goes "Cinderella was a girl whose sisters loved her. One day she met Prince Charming and they got married and lived happily ever after" - is not going to sell. We have to have the ugly sisters, the wicked witch and the dodgy uncle or nobody is going to progress.
So on a one-life-span scale there are individual senseless horrors - but on a universal one, is humanity at one side of a great war - the challenge of a story whose end could be a million, or a billion - or a trillion - years in the making? Because it is only through the poisoned apple that Snow White gets to marry the Prince; through Mr Wickham's elopement with Lydia that Elizabeth Bennet gets her man. (I leave aside poor Tess, who runs off with the villain to Stonehenge and is subsequently hanged).
THE STORY
Maybe that's the pre-condition of a universe that has freedom - itself, as well as for its inhabitants. Maybe it's got to take part in a story. Maybe there's got to be an enemy - for now. Maybe when stars must die for us to be made, then destruction as well as creation; suffering as well as pleasure; will always be a part of it. Maybe the One who made this all is somehow greater, wilder, and more dangerous than we like to think. We've seen the Father Christmas looking down on us all and just wanting everything to be well, and wondered why he doesn't live up to the billing that "we " gave him. Maybe that's not the way it was in the first place. Perhaps the struggle is part of the game; the suffering is part of the story; and the Creator has to share in that struggle and that senselessness and that pain before the story reaches the end and we can all live happily ever after.
TEA LIGHTS
Or - we can light a tea light, turn up the Enya and pretend that bad things don't happen to good people. That Haitians deserve it, and God is good and all's for the best in this best of all worlds.
Some appropriate links:
http://www.msf.org.uk/
http://www.christianaid.org.uk/emergencies/current/haiti-earthquake-appeal/index.aspx?gclid=CJnqq4 Ssp8CFRth4woddRDpLw
