Passion or The Human Problem

The problem of evil arises in the context of theodicy. In certain times and under certain circumstances, theodicy is necessary and laudable. Those with a simple but ardent faith do not perceive the problem of evil and never think of blaming God; the mystics, who are at the other end of the spectrum, arrive at the same conclusion but by much experience. Neither of these polar stands rests on analysis. Intellectual approaches, focused on the real world, produce the problem in the first place; hence theodicy, which is an intellectual tool, is applicable in order to deal with the seeming contradiction of a good and all-powerful God and a world bristling with evil. Another kind of problem, however, remains after theodicy has done its work. It is the human problem. How to explain suffering?

Passion is one of those wonderfully ambiguous words. Its basic meaning is “suffering”; this becomes obvious when we consider that “passivity” comes from the same root. The common understanding of passion today is that it is a powerful sexual attraction and, by extension, attraction to anything else (“a passionate stamp collector.”) According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the sexual passion is a relatively new use of the root, dating to the sixteenth century. In Roman times passion was plain suffering, hence in Catholicism people speak of the “passion of Jesus,” meaning his crucifixion. Behind the Latin stands the Greek equivalent, pathos, with the same meaning.

Ponder for a moment the interestingly problematical relationships between freedom, evil, and suffering. Suffering is linked with evil (is evil) in that it is bad; suffering is involuntary when physical evil is its cause (to use Leibniz’s categories of kinds of evil); it arises from injury, disease, or the destruction of valuable properties by natural disasters; but passion in the sexual sense is also physical: we suffer our hormones. Sin is evil because it is the free choice of a lesser good; this is what Leibniz calls moral evil. The problem is especially visible in this category. We suffer whether we sin or we restrain ourselves. If we use our will to overcome temptation, we suffer the loss of something we desire; if we yield, we may achieve a lesser good but lose a higher, and suffering will be a consequence. We suffer physical evil without using choice; we suffer when we do use choice. We can’t win!

The problematical character of our state is made even more plain when we consider that gladly willing what is good is painless; the only time free will actually raises its ugly head is when we want something we shouldn’t. At that point, and only at that point, does the freedom of the will actually matter, and when we then exercise it rightly, we will suffer the loss of something we want—even if it’s nothing more than simple peace and quiet. Real decision-making is always painful—because it only matters when it is!

The human problem is that we find ourselves between the rock and the hard place. But this paradoxical situation actually has a catch. When we suffer gladly, whether it is involuntary pain or the pain imposed by our own right choices, a transformation takes place within us that is very difficult to describe but quite real. It is also cumulative. We change. Something takes place within us. We grow. The converse is also true. If, on the whole, we avoid pain at any cost and live for the moment, if we harden our conscience so that the echoes of the collateral damage we cause are less obvious and audible, we also diminish. That process is also cumulative. Here I’m talking about obvious truths readily observable in every possible category of activity, be it the neglect of body, maintenance, relationships, economies, you name it.

One interesting upshot of such a contemplation is that it produces an alternative model of reality as well. One that I’ve suggested a number of times before is that an order of the soul may have become voluntarily entangled in matter, drawn by its appetite for new experience. But another one is that the dimension in which we find ourselves is meant to serve development—the development of a higher form of that which we are. This is the model of life on earth as a school of hard knocks. The hard knocks will temper us and raise us to a higher level in a spiraling course of development—or, conversely, cause us to slide downward. We may be participating in this process voluntarily, as the Mazdean religion teaches, for example; or we may be here for correction, which is compatible with the Christian view. But, in any case, we must be prepared for the assaults of passion—be they pleasurable or just plain suffering.