The Problem of Suffering and Evil

A brief essay in which I dodge the question by referring you to three specialists...

The Problem of Suffering and Evil

So far in my series on “Getting Unstuck,” I have dealt only with “First-World problems:” that depressing feeling of ennui and emptiness that plagues you after you’re fed and clothed and sheltered from the elements and all that, but find yourself living in an unnatural cultural environment that is inimical of your basic psychological needs as a human being. Think of the sullen expressions on the faces of apes and big cats languishing in cages at low-budget zoos; but replace the animals with people and the cages with cubicles, and you’ve pretty much got the same dynamic. But although such psychological distress is very real, it nonetheless feels so abstract as to be almost imaginary when contrasted with more dire and tangible forms of suffering, like chronic pain from serious illness or injury, relentless pangs of hunger during a famine, imminent threats of catastrophic violence in a war zone, etc. So how do you get “unstuck,” if you’re facing these sta…