The Philosophy of Suffering

Suffering appears to be an unavoidable part of life. It comes to us all at one time or another, in some form or another. It is something we all instinctively try to avoid. We exercise all our talents to avoid or minimise it. Some may even sacrifice their lives in order to avoid it or escape from it.

In its nature suffering is a disorder of the smooth flow of life. It has two elements, the actual disorder and our emotional reaction to it. It comes in many forms and may, like disease, be acute or chronic.
It can involve primarily the mind or the body – the mind in the form of acute or chronic anxiety and the body in the form of pain and/or variable disability.

It can appear at different ages. In adolescence, the subject may suffer from varying degrees of disorientation due to confusion as to the meaning of life and his/her role in it. This involves the effort to find one’s true and full identity, one’s relationship to peers and to authority, and the effort needed to determine one’s station in life – one’s future occupation, profession or vocation.
In adult life, the subject may suffer from one or more of a myriad of serious misfortunes, which can include major or minor illnesses or complaints, loneliness following loss of a spouse or separation from family members, disruption of family life, accidents, loss of employment, actions of criminals and drug or alcohol dependency.

In life we experience a variable mix of opposites. There is joy/sorrow. Good/evil. Light/darkness. Sunshine/storm. Peace/war. Plenty/famine. Tranquility/disturbance. Health/disease. Love/hatred. Strength/weakness.
We experience this mix of opposites because we are imperfect people living in an imperfect world with limited control over our own actions, over the thinking and actions of other people or over the activities of the natural world we inhabit. Even God is limited in His control over us because He cannot interfere with the Free Will he gave us.

So what are we to do about our sufferings? Catholic theology tells us that when we cannot eliminate our sufferings we can modify and minimize our emotional reaction to our sufferings by sanctifying them. We sanctify them by accepting them, by consciously uniting them to the sufferings of Christ, by carrying them patiently as Christ carried His cross. In this way, useless suffering can be replaced by meaningful suffering, suffering that will magnify our merit in God’s eyes and earn us a greater reward in the next life where we can expect that all the positives of this life will be ours to enjoy with none of its negatives.