The Problem of Pain
by Shane Clifton
The title of my presentation today is “the problem of pain”, which, in the context of disability, is
problematic. Indeed, whatever we mean by the term disability, it is not principally about pain, which
at its most literal is a medical problem rather than a social one. Worse, to use the word “problem” in
relation to disability assumes that we are talking about something that needs to be fixed, rather than
a community that needs to be recreated.
I hope, though, that you’ll indulge my use of concept of “the problem of pain”, first, since it has a
particular resonance with spinal cord injury, and second, because it touches on a few issues at the
heart of theological engagement with disability; which I’ll get to in due course. But what is the
problem of pain, and what has that got to do with me?
I should start by saying something about myself. In 7 October 2010, two weeks before my 40 th
birthday,…
In his well-known formulation, CS Lewis describes the problem of pain as follows:
If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were
almighty He would be able to do what he wished. But the creatures are not happy.
Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both.
At stake are two areas that I intend to focus on today. The first relate to the pain and happiness of
his creatures, and the second to the goodness and almightiness of God.
Pain and Happiness
The problem of pain isn’t really about pain per se. Pain serves a purpose, which is to warn us of
danger. This is obvious when it comes to spinal cord injury, where half of the trouble of the injury is
the inability to feel certain types of pains (illustration of Kurt). The problem, then, isn’t pain, but
suffering that serves no meaningful purpose.
Spinal cord injury is normally imagined as the loss of all sensation and movement, but in fact normal
sensation is replaced by nerve pain (that feels like burning skin), and the ability to decide what and
when to move is traded for spasm, and uncontrolled bladder and bowel activity. The body still
moves, but just in stupid ways. As you can well imagine, it’s a disability that impacts every aspect of
life; work, recreation, family relationships, and the myriad of social interactions.
I say this because I really want you to feel sorry for me… (Not). While, looking from the outside,
many assume that the paralysed person would be ‘better off dead’, but in fact most people with the
injury want to live (and flourish) – even those with high-level quadriplegia. It’s also the case that
every life involves suffering, which is inevitably incomparable, so that one person’s burden cannot
and should not be weighed against another. The brute fact is that life begins and ends in
dependency (both youth and old age are a form of disability), and at every point in time we are
vulnerable to affliction and death.
Our vulnerability has two fundamental aspects; first, our fragile bodies (including our brain), and
second, our social embeddedness. Like any disability, spinal cord injury is a medical and social
problem. In disability literature there is a tendency to focus on one or the other, but both are
significant. We suffer our bodies and we suffer our fitting into society with these bodies, and in the
context of suffering the inevitable question arises, ‘why, God?’
I spent seven months in hospital, and most weeks I was visited by my friend Professor Neil Ormerod,
and we discussed the problem of pain. While it’s impossible to do justice to those conversations in a
few minutes we have today, I can say that while there is no adequate answer to the question, why
God, there are ways of talking about the problem that at least provide some insight.
Sin
The most common answer to the problem of pain is to note that the cause of the problem isn’t God,
but human sin. It’s a response, though, that needs to be handled with care. It’s true that some
suffering, even some permanent disability, is caused by a person’s own sin, such as a drunk driver
who incurs a spinal cord injury.
Often enough, a person’s suffering is a consequence of someone else’s sin; a drunk makes a
quadriplegic of an innocent person walking along the sidewalk. In this case human sin is the cause of
the disability, but the injured person is still entitled to ask God the question, “why? If you love me,
and are almighty, why, God, didn’t you keep me safe?”
I could give a theological answer. Suffering is a consequence of the fall, and sin, by its very nature,
isn’t fair, except that we’re all sinners, and so whatever happens we get what we deserve. Rubbish!
No one deserves to suffer – no one deserves a disability – no one deserves to suffer the
consequences of another person’s sin, and the gospel promises grace rather than retribution.
In fact, as often as not, disability has nothing to do with sin. My own quadriplegia, for example, is the
product of dumb luck, and the constitution of the human neurological system and spine. I broke my
neck and destroyed my nervous system because I landed badly when jumping a pushbike - an
admittedly regrettable decision, but not a sinful one. I’m a quadriplegic because to be human is to
be fragile, and to run the risk of an injury and even a permanent disability.
Many people are born with disabilities, and to say that birth defects (a horrible phrase, by the way)
are a consequence of the fall is not only theological and scientific nonsense, but it’s insulting to both
God and the disabled person. My friend’s daughter has cerebral palsy and is made in the image of
God, and I will run you over with my wheelchair if you tell me she’s a product of the fall.
The point is that talk of disability and sin are best kept separate, unless, that is, we’re talking about
disability as a social phenomenon. It is sinful when a disabled child isn’t afforded access to
appropriate education. It is sinful when people in wheelchairs are excluded from venues. It is sinful
when vital translation services are not offered to the deaf community. Too often, sinful society is
disabling.
Thomas Reynolds, in his excellent book Vulnerable Communion, notes that when his autistic son asks
him “Why did God make me this way?”
I am compelled to inquire into the social conditions and theological premises that bring this
question to his lips. Perhaps in another family, another society, his condition would be seen
as a gift, a strength, and not a liability.1
The Good
The second category of response to the problem of pain is to assert that an experience of suffering,
a disabling condition, is caused or allowed by God to serve a greater good.
Once again, there is some truth here. I’ve met quadriplegics who say that even if they could have
their life over, they wouldn’t change a thing – that their disability has contributed irreplaceably good
and beautiful things to their life. Many in the deaf community have come to a similar conclusion,
understanding their seeming impairment as a gift. Indeed, it’s probably true that any person who’s
lived with a disability for a lengthy period of time would be able to identify some good that’s
resulted from their condition. In my short time of living in this chair I’ve experienced staggering
generosity, deep love, heartfelt compassion, courageous determination, and exemplary care. I’ve
also learnt a few things about myself, and I’ve developed new skills. I have been given opportunities
to write and to speak – and so I’m with you today.
Indeed, depending upon how we respond to it, a case can be made that disability enriches society.
Almost every human virtue arises as a response to hardship, and this is nowhere more obvious than
in inclusive communities. The fruits of the spirit – love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control– are potently manifest in communities enriched by diverse
abilities. This is not because disability provides able-bodied people with the opportunity to be
charitable, or because people with disabilities are especially virtuous, but because virtue is best
worked out in groups where the chaos of diversity reigns.
BUT that good can come from hardship doesn’t justify its troubles, or excuse God. Personally, I can’t
imagine any future blessing sufficient to explain the losses I suffer (e.g. sex). There is a world of
difference between saying God did this to me for a reason, and God can bring good out of hardship.
The former is pious nonsense; the latter is an expression of hope and faith. To tell a victim of abuse
that their suffering was caused by God for some future good is to forget that God explicitly
condemns abuse. But to say to a victim that God can bring good into this situation is an
encouragement – a source of hope.
Fragility, vulnerability, and flourishing
The difficulty with this whole conversation is working out what we mean when we say “God is
sovereign” or “God caused this.” We tend to think of God as some sort of cosmic puppeteer, pulling
the strings of creation in a magical and sometimes scary performance. In fact, Christian theology, in
affirming God as creator, understands God as the ground of nature and natural laws – so that God
works not as a magical puppeteer but in and through natural processes.
This is vital, because it establishes our expectations. In answer to the question, why God, we have to
face up to what it is to be human; to be a creature of the earth – to be born, to grow, to break down,
1
Thomas E. Reynolds, Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality (Grand Rapids, MI:
Brazos, 2008), Kindle location 785.
and to die – to be limited in power, strength, and knowledge – to be fragile and vulnerable – to be
constituted by DNA and imperfect genes, and made up of bones that flex and break, muscles that
tear, blood that spills.
I broke my neck because I’m human, and our necks break when twisted badly, and I landed my
pushbike upside down. To look for a deeper cause of my quadriplegia is silly, since it’s to lose sight of
who and what I am; a 40-year-old male who wishes he’d stayed off his bike, but who is incapable of
going back in time.
One of the problems of modern society, with all of its medical wonders, is the implicit assumption
that we’ll live forever in perfect health. We keep our dead and dying out of sight, we abort babies
that don’t match our ideals of normalcy, we worship a photo-shopped image of beauty, and in
consequence, suffering, disability, and fragility come as a complete and utter shock. We just don’t
know what to do with them.
The Christian equivalent is the Pentecostal faith preacher who assumes that God always rewards
faith with perfect health (whatever that is). This view of faith is not only idiotic, it’s evil, since it
leaves people with disabilities feeling guilty for lack of faith, and worse, unloved by God. In fact, if we
are not careful, prayer for healing can exacerbate the social problem of disability, by highlighting the
fact that disabled people don’t belong.
Don’t misunderstand me. I am all for prayer, which is a wonderful expression of love and
compassion. But we must be careful when and how we pray. Please don’t be shy praying for me; but
rather than focus on healing, pray for my well-being.
Well-being: Fragility and flourishing
In CS Lewis’s statement of the problem of pain, he makes reference to happiness. He’s not talking
about the “here today gone tomorrow” emotion of pleasure, but a deeper concept of happiness,
understood as lifelong flourishing. “If God were good, he would wish to make his creatures perfectly
happy” – i.e. he would wish that they might flourish, and he’d be able to bring that about.
And God is good (I say in hope with faith), and he can help us to flourish. What, then, might this
looks like? I can tell you what it won’t be:
1. the absence of trouble and suffering
2. perfect health, perfect bodies, high IQs
3. clean, tidy, quiet, peaceful (at least not often)
How then might God help us to flourish? Any answer to this question begins with a realistic
understanding of what it is to be human. Life is an adventure story, involving ups and downs and
swings and roundabouts. Its endpoint is always deterioration and death, and so the story of our life
is set in the context of fragility and vulnerability. From this perspective, our goal is not impossible
perfection, but, rather, to tell a meaningful story, or to be a part of a meaningful story. We flourish,
even though we sometimes suffer, because God can invest our life with meaning. How?
1. God instils hope in our hearts – and hope is a powerfully resilient force that helps us cope with
tough times.
2. Jesus provides us the gift of faith, which invests life with meaning and purpose. Where
contemporary society assumes that life with quadriplegia is not worth living (as it does with
Down syndrome and many other disabilities), faith helps us to appreciate that we are made in
God’s image, and have a part to play in his story –the good news of the kingdom, God’s
transforming and gracious rule in all of life. We thus discover meaning in God, in church, in
family life, and in our work.
3. The spirit transforms us, not by eliminating disability, but by helping us make the most of our
ability – whatever that might be. I don’t have time to flesh this out now, but there is an intimate
connection between virtue and well-being. Virtues are habits of character that help us to
succeed, and the virtuous life has an internal reward that transcends external circumstances.
And the fruits of the spirit are transformative virtues. As I’ve suggested elsewhere, “people with
disabilities and long-term sickness are uniquely placed to model virtue (fortitude, perseverance,
resilience, and so forth), precisely because of the challenges that inevitably accompany their
day-to-day experience. In this way, the focus on well-being—the broadest possible conception of
health—gives people with a disability, along with their families and caregivers, a uniquely
important place in the body of Christ. They are capable of modelling faith of the highest order,
not as a worked-up belief in magic, but as the struggle of faithfulness won over the course of a
life, however long or short that might be.”
4. God invites us into unique community. The kingdom of God is a welcoming kingdom, and the
church – the symbol of the kingdom – is intended to be a welcoming community. The church
should be God’s response to the social model of disability.
I will finish on this final point. I started by referencing the problem of pain, and dealing with two
traditional responses; sin and the greater good. If the really disabling sin is the countless ways that
people with disabilities are excluded from full social participation, then not only does God unmask
and judge this sin, but he creates an alternate community. This judgement begins with the church –
that is to say, we have to own our own culpability, and thereafter seek to create a church
community that actively welcomes our diverse abilities, and provides an environment where
everyone can flourish. When this occurs, we will see that God is able to take the medical and social
hardships of disability, and enable people with disabilities, their families, their churches, and the
broader community, to flourish.