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A question that bothers me about the issue of human suffering:

שו”תCategory: faithA question that bothers me about the issue of human suffering:
asked 8 years ago

Assuming that God fits the concept of ‘good’, how could he have a world mixed with evil?
My question is not about the potential evil that humans are given the choice to do, but about the very creation of suffering?


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0 Answers
מיכי Staff answered 8 years ago
I don’t really understand the question. What does it mean to create suffering? To create our nerves that feel pain? What is “suffering”? And is it intentional to create it?

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שי זילברשטיין replied 8 years ago

Yes, why was the possibility of suffering created by the creation of the nervous system?

מיכי Staff replied 8 years ago

Because without nerves we would not feel pain and we would not be able to treat the source of the pain. And lest you ask why a nervous system was not created without causing pain, I will answer as I answered Elijah on Mount Carmel several times in Hai Atara: It is possible that there is no system of laws at all that would do everything like the laws in our world without suffering, and I will.

שי זילברשטיין replied 8 years ago

It is still not clear to me why it was not possible to create a nervous system that does not produce suffering in times of distress, but only a warning without suffering?

מיכי Staff replied 8 years ago

It's not clear to me either. But the burden of proof that such a thing can be created lies with the one who makes the problem. Without him showing that it is possible, there is no problem.

שי זילברשטיין replied 8 years ago

I didn't understand what made you think that it was impossible to create a world without suffering.

דפנה אברהם replied 8 years ago

This does not only concern human suffering but the laws of nature in general. You assume that it is possible to create a system of laws or, in fact, a complete physics, that would do everything that current physics does, only without the suffering. In particular, regarding the nervous system, you want it to do everything as it does today, only without the pain. Who told you that there is such a system of laws/physics? Without showing that there is such a system, that is the question.
You can of course suggest that G-d leave the world exactly as it is today and intervene every time something undesirable happens (like suffering or pain). But then de facto the world has no system of laws and it operates in a chaotic manner. My assumption is that G-d wants it to operate according to fixed laws. I have already explained several times why this could be important to Him.

שי זילברשטיין replied 8 years ago

Ostensibly, I can propose a nervous system without suffering, in which at a moment of threat to existence (for example, a wound) there will be a warning not through pain but through the understanding that "organ x needs to be taken care of."
I do not see suffering as a necessity in order to maintain existence.

מיכי Staff replied 8 years ago

In high-tech terms, I'm telling you that you're mixing up characterization and implementation. You characterize the system, meaning you say what it should do. That's not the question. We all know that. The question is whether it is realizable, meaning whether there is a system that can be built that implements these characterizations. Give a program that contains all the necessary laws of nature and their implementation (the new person in these laws), and we'll see if it really does everything except the parts you wanted to filter out.
This is similar to someone who proposes to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by having us all behave well and not violently and get to know each other and live in peace. Really great, isn't it? Or alternatively, someone invents a flying washing machine that takes the clothes to be washed and folds them on its own. Is that realizable? Sure. Just make a flying washing machine that takes the clothes to be washed and folds them. What's the problem?!
[Beyond that, remember that the nervous system has a lot of functions beyond alerting, and the moment you change something in it, you don't know what else will be damaged]

שי זילברשטיין replied 8 years ago

The last response is a bit profound for me.
I will try to formulate my question mathematically (something I hate to do, but it seems I have no choice…):
Assumption 1: God is good.
Assumption 2: Man is created to fulfill the good.
Assumption 3: ‘Good’ refers to ’pleasure’.
Conclusion: Man created by God will enjoy without suffering.
Dissolution: There is a man who suffers.
Solution: It is not possible to create a system without faults.
Problem: Where does this basic assumption come from?

א"ח replied 8 years ago

We found that “it must be settled urgently”, but we did not find that “it must be made difficult urgently”. The one making the difficult decision has the burden of proof that there is an appropriate system.

In the evening of Purim Shoshan עח

By formulating the response mathematically, a formulation that caused you suffering, you paved the way to the solution to your question. ‘Good’ is not pleasure. ‘To be good’ means to be true and moral,

The pinnacle of goodness is the ability to withstand all tests and trials, and to maintain a good personality in all situations of life, both in situations of abundance and well-being and in situations of stress and anguish.

The ability to maintain the purity of personality in situations of stress, strengthens a person to successfully cope with even the much more difficult trial: to maintain the purity of personality even in the trials of wealth and honor.

We did not come to this world to sit in peace and enjoy life. We came here on a mission: to cultivate our personality, both private and general. We have been given a perfect soul by force, and our role is to put our good abilities into practice, and dealing with pressures and difficulties helps us in this task.

Best regards, Sh”t Levinger

מיכי Staff replied 8 years ago

AH answered nicely (and I've already explained it several times). Read my words again, they're not complicated. Everything has already been answered.

שי זילברשטיין replied 8 years ago

Well, I'm a complete novice in logic, so I apologize for the digging…
There's something I don't understand about the Rabbi's argument:
Is the Rabbi claiming that it's impossible to create a world system without suffering, or does he have no need to think so?
If the Rabbi believes that it's impossible to create a system without suffering, what made the Rabbi think so?

(By the way, Rabbi, is there any expectation of the release of the book on the Rabbi's theology?)

מיכי Staff replied 8 years ago

Shai, there is no need to understand philosophy just by reading. Everything you keep asking has already been answered before. I will answer one last time and will not continue any further.
I claim that the burden of proof is on those who claim that such a system exists. As A”H wrote: We find that it is necessary to settle with difficulty and not to make it difficult with difficulty. To make it difficult, you need to show that such a system exists, and you did not show it.
I explained that what you proposed is a characterization of the system and not its implementation (this is not done in practice), and I gave examples for this.

There is no expectation for now. In tests.

משה replied 8 years ago

Perhaps in the goodness of Rabbi Bain's mind, he will update the notebooks here on the site to the new version and do a favor to the learners and the contented alike. That way, instead of waiting for the book to be published, and it is known that there are many obstacles if it is a book that can bring about a legacy.

שי זילברשטיין replied 8 years ago

Maybe I should change the direction of the question:
If the Creator of the world is ‘good’ how do we explain the experience of suffering on the part of man?
The subject man can suffer experientially, seemingly this poignant question cannot be solved by answering that it is not possible to create the experiencing man without suffering, just as it would be possible to create suffering if it were possible to create man without suffering…

י.ד. replied 8 years ago

You have a lot of demands on the Creator.

שי זילברשטיין replied 8 years ago

Right…

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