Job's Suffering and Human Dignity

[A reflection written to a friend who was in an ongoing conversation with an agnostic about the problem of suffering, written about three years ago.  Below is a refracted and refocused version.]

There are many good explanations of why God allows suffering.  But in my heart of hearts, I do not know nor understand why God allows suffering.  Why did a just man like Job suffer?  And even more puzzling for christians, for the perfect man, Jesus?  Instead, I want to share some thoughts on what suffering may reveal about our dignity as people.

God allowed satan to inflict suffering to Job, but the one thing that satan was absolutely not permitted to do was to take away Job's life.  Why did God draw the line there?  God can surely raise Job from death.  I think the prohibition is more than just about preserving the life of Job.  It provides a glimpse of Job's true dignity and worth as a person created by God.

Perhaps our human dignity is fully in tact in the midst of suffering. Perhaps, our human dignity shines through more clearly in suffering.  Perhaps it is this revelation of who we are in God in a time of suffering that makes suffering a hard to look at but powerful sign to love.  A burning sign of God's love and human love.

And maybe this sign leads us to a slightly different path to the cross.  Where we stand with John and Mary and experience their love for a son, a friend, a man.

"Life is not only happiness and games: it is pain, temptation, and failure. And yet in all this it is beautiful if it is supported by love and possesses a hope that transcends the present moment. If we cannot show a picture of life in which even pain, hardship and death are meaningful and belong to a larger whole, then we cannot rehabilitate human existence.”
—Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)

From his book “A Turning Point for Europe?”