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Shvoong Home>Social Sciences>Anthropology>When Bad Things Happen to Good People Summary

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Book Summary   by:Shirley     Original Author: Harold S. Kushner
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Rabbi Harold Kushner makes the point in this book that every serious discussion of religion boils down to the problem of suffering.  If God exists, why do bad things happen to good people?  Why do bad things happen at all? The author starts by explaining that his book grew out of the pain of watching his son, Aaron, die of old age when he was just 14.  When Aaron was only three, he was diagnosed with progeria, a rare condition in which a child ages very rapidly.  On hearing the diagnosis, the author’s natural reaction was anger and bewilderment.  He had always believed that God was good, kind, and just, but how could a good, kind or just God treat a child this way? In order to come up with an explanation of suffering which satisfies both honest observation of reality and faith in a good God, Rabbi Kushner starts by assessing the explanations for suffering which he grew up with and encountered when trying to deal with Aaron’s illness and death, all of which failed to satisfy.  He notes that most explanations serve more to excuse God than explain the suffering; moreover, experience proves them false.  A baby who wanders out of sight for a moment and drowns in the family pool does not learn from the experience; he dies.  Not all people who are tested by God past the test; some are crushed.
  God does not make all things right in the end for those who serve him; sometimes good people die before God can make things right.  Sometimes the righteous suffer and the wicked continue to flourish. In place of the explanations which he dismisses, Rabbi Kushner offers the suggestion that God is limited by what He can do by the laws of nature, by human nature, and by human freedom.  God does not cause our misfortunes as punishment for sin or to test us; instead God is as outraged by our misfortunes as we are because God is indeed good, kind and just.  The author further suggests that perhaps God permits misfortune because, by refraining from intervention by miracle, God is leaving room for human beings to act. Instead of asking why bad things happen, Rabbi Kushner quotes Dorothee Soelle who said that why is the wrong question to ask about suffering.  The correct question is, in fact, what we can do about our suffering to confer meaning upon it, to create good from the evil we must each endure.
Published: June 03, 2005   
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