I don’t know of a single sin that doesn’t come from a desire for something good.
Arguable. But good rhetoric. Being tickled in the pleasure centre covers a multitude of evil. Including revenge, hatred; the hormonal psychic exultation of abuse of power in violence, sexual violence, cruelty, over the ‘other’, the dehumanized, the objectified. Even theft, robbery will give a rush with lasting satisfaction. Even guilt and shame can do that.
My will has got nothing to do with it.
it is a matter of perspective, expectations and pragmatism.
I fnd joy where I can and accept pain, suffering and disapointment with stoicism. I have had my fair share of knocks but throughout them my faith has sustained me. God does not remove hardship it is more of a mental assistance, something my Father taught me in his long survival after two strokes. His ability to stil have a life while his body slowly gave up on him was somethng that had to be seen to be beleved.
Richard
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Aye, stoicism is essential. And ones will works despite and because of everything. I will if I want, I will if I don’t want, if I want. I do not want to know what I know. But I have to.
[And well done your Dad, inspiring]
Eden would be a much better place to live, despite its own limitations. Ignorance is bliss…
Unfortunately sentience comes with the price of knowledge.
Richard
And the purchase of beauty, art, music; culture, the life of the mind, the meeting of minds, love.
(And well done your Dad, inspiring).
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Google AI produced this answer:
”The Eastern Orthodox “solution” to the problem of evil focuses on evil as a privation of good and an outcome of free will, rather than a substance created by God. Instead of offering a logical justification (theodicy), Orthodoxy emphasizes the mystery of evil and calls believers to a practical response of active love, prayer, and striving against personal sin to alleviate suffering and resist evil’s influence. The ultimate answer is found in the resurrected Christ, who “trampled down death by death” and offers hope for the final defeat of evil.”
Elsewhere, I attempted using ChatGPT to list as many categories and causes of suffering as possible and solicited public amendments and corrections. [See Post #8 (November 6) of
Categories and Causes of Suffering.
Comparative Table: My Map of Suffering vs. Eastern Orthodox View
| # | Category | Your Map of Suffering (Descriptive) | Eastern Orthodox View (Interpretive Lens) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Natural / Environmental | Suffering from the basic dynamics of a physical world: tectonics, weather, energy flows. A genuinely stable, law-like world requires forces that can harm. | Nature is created good but not yet glorified. Earthquakes, storms, etc. are the “unfinished” side of a dynamic creation that is still groaning toward its final transfiguration (Rom 8:21–22). Not evil “things,” but an unperfected good. |
| 2 | Biological | Life’s mechanisms—growth, reproduction, mutation, adaptation—also permit breakdown: disease, decay, aging, defects. The same processes that enable life enable illness. | Biological corruption is phthora (corruptibility): organisms not yet fully united to divine life. Disease and decay are symptoms of a world needing healing, not designed maladies. Christ’s healings are signs of restored creation. |
| 3 | Accidental / Contingent | Contingent harms (falls, crashes, random injuries) arise in a world of consistent physical laws and finite beings. Real causal structure + finitude → accidents. | Creation operates by rational logoi in the Logos. Accidents reflect finite creatures navigating a stable order, not chaos. Contingency is intrinsic to creaturehood, not a bug in the system. |
| 4 | Human-Caused (Moral / Systemic) | Violence, injustice, oppression, exploitation come from the misuse of genuine human agency. The same freedom that makes love possible makes cruelty possible. | Moral evil flows from a disordered will and broken desires—freedom misaligned with God. Humanity is made for communion; systemic and personal harms are distortions of that vocation. |
| 5 | Psychological / Existential | Our depth of mind (self-awareness, memory, imagination, conscience) gives rise both to art, science, love and to anxiety, despair, guilt, dread, loneliness. | Existential pain is the ache of estrangement from God. Self-awareness without communion becomes anxiety; conscience without healing becomes crushing guilt. These wounds signal our capacity and longing for God. |
| 6 | Spiritual / Moral (Hiddenness, Direction) | A world where the transcendent is not coercively obvious allows seeking, moral growth, reflection, and non-coerced commitment. Hiddenness protects real development. | God practices kenosis (self-emptying): a humble, veiled presence that allows freedom and love rather than forced belief. Spiritual confusion is the arena of purification, repentance, and deepening encounter. |
| 7 | Vicarious / Compassionate | Empathic suffering (grief, pain for others) is inseparable from deep attachment. The capacity to love intensely brings the capacity to hurt intensely. | This is Christ-like suffering: sym-pathy (suffering-with) participates in divine compassion. Grief over others is not a defect but a share in God’s own love and sorrow over the world. |
| 8 | Metaphysical / Ontological | Finitude and mortality produce the sense that everything passes. Our ability to imagine “more” than we can reach creates metaphysical ache. | Death is “the last enemy,” not the intended final state. The ache of finitude is the crack through which longing for resurrection enters. Mortality becomes the battleground where Christ’s victory over death is manifest. |
Logically? No.
But in the Big Bang theory of General Relativity? Yes.
How? And how is General Relativity a subset, or superset, of the BB? The outworking of the BB is dependent on its prevenience of course.
Forgive me, but there is a distinct spiritual bias in this list.
The rationalle for suffering can be much more pragmatic and physically logical.
Without it there is no life or freedom. To remove suffering would be to take full control of every creature and Natural action. We would be automatons and so would the whole of creation. it is as simple as that. Eden (paradise) is an impossible pipe dream for this world as it stands now.
Richard
The point of the table wasn’t to argue for a theodicy or for an Edenic world. It was simply a conceptual map—listing categories of suffering and comparing that structure with George’s summary of Eastern Orthodox thought.
I wasn’t proposing a world without suffering. And you mention “spiritual bias” in the list, but didn’t identify which categories you think are biased or what a correction would look like.