Update
Volume 16, Number 2 (September 2000)

The wonderful title of a new book aptly expresses the goal of its contents. Pain Seeking Understanding, edited by Margaret E. Mohrmann and Mark J. Hanson (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1999) is neither a book on theodicy per se, nor a how-to book for sufferers or caregivers. Instead, it probes an area between these concerns--the relation between theological convictions and the practical demands of medical care. It is therefore an example of "medical theodicy," or, as David Larson nicely puts it, "theodicy with a clinical edge."

This book contains essays by twelve different scholars, including physicians, theologians, philosophers, and ethicists. Part 1, "Clinical Perspectives," looks at the ways specific individuals come to terms with suffering. The authors argue that sufferers seek a meaning that is practical rather than theoretical, partial rather than comprehensive. A medical theodicy, then, is "practical, experiential, and paradoxical." Rather than reconciling abstract propositions about God, it seeks to make things of form and beauty out of lived anxiety and pain.

Part 2, "Theological Views," presents some contrasting theological-philosophical approaches to suffering. Does traditional theodicy have practical value? Daniel P. Sulmasy says yes, and construes suffering as an inescapable experience of human finitude. Wendy Farley says no. "Suffering does not require explanation so much as redemption." Accordingly, compassion is theodicy's ultimate work. We should be present to one another in our suffering just as God is radically present to us. Elliot N. Dorff discusses the Jewish emphasis on the body as integral to the person and the important practice of visiting the sick. Per Anderson, drawing on Reinhold Niebuhr's so-called "serenity prayer," argues that we can help people accept and find meaning in things that cannot be changed, contra the attitude that pervasive technology engenders.

Part 3 examines several diverse issues--the "secular problem of evil" the fact that all of us, religious or not, face the twin obligations of relieving the suffering of others and fulfilling our own potential as persons; the response of Christian faith to genetic testing, with its fatalistic overtones; and the need for bioethics to turn from medicine's traditional attempt to eliminate suffering and take up the challenge of finding meaning in suffering.

This is a valuable collection of essays, primarily because it emphasizes the problem of suffering. Over the years philosophers and theologians have devoted their attention largely to the problem of evil as a logical conundrum, while health-care givers have devoted their attention to the problem of pain, and relief of physical discomfort. Both concerns broach, but do not directly address, the experience of suffering as a threat to personal meaning, and that is precisely the concern of this book. Among its central features are the following. First, it acknowledges the complexity of the problem. Suffering is inevitable and inexplicable. It admits of no easy solutions. Second, in calling for a practical theodicy, and doing theodicy, the collection values theodicy--the traditional attempt to locate suffering within a framework of cosmic meaning. Although the collection challenges traditional theodicy in various ways, it does not reject the enterprise out of hand. If suffering is more than pain, a distinction made more than once in this collection, then theodicy's attempt to find meaning in suffering, itself "represent[s] a kind of relief from suffering." Third, it draws on the reflections of various thinkers, religious and non-religious, clinicians as well as philosophers and theologians. Fourth, the discussion substantiates the "postmodern" insight that meaning lies in the realm of the individual and the particular, rather than the general, and finds natural expression in narrative rather than discursive forms of speech.

Although the book has many of the virtues of a symposium, it also has some of its characteristic shortcomings. The general theme is practical theodicy, but it is not clear that this is the concern of all the essays. The last three pieces in particular seem to go in different directions. In addition, the different essays place varying demands on the reader. Some are highly readable, while others contain tightly constructed arguments.

In all, the book is an important contribution to the ongoing quest for greater understanding of and more effective ways to respond to suffering. I'm glad I read it, I recommend it, and I'll use it in my classes.

Volume 16, Number 2 (September 2000)

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