The question of why bad things happen to good people is not a new one. It is a question that people of all faiths and cultures have grappled with since the beginning of time.
Before we can even attempt to offer an explanation, I have a question to ask you:
WHY NOT?
Why do we feel that it is wrong for good people to suffer? Who says that bad things shouldn’t happen to good people?
A Source
The Rambam (Maimonides) lists 13 Essential Principles of Faith. These include concepts such as “God is the Creator and Ruler of all things … ” and “God is One”.
Principle #11 is a statement of reward and punishment: God rewards those who fulfill His commandments and punishes those who violate His commandments.
Based on this idea of reward and punishment, we are bothered when we see good people suffering or bad people prospering.
If we believe in Divine reward and punishment, how can we explain the pain of the righteous and prosperity of the wicked that we see in this world?
Error in Logic
The truth is, that there is a basic flaw in the question itself.
We are equating good with reward and bad with punishment. This is faulty reasoning, because good is not always synonymous with reward and bad is not always the same as punishment.
To make things even more confusing, what we perceive as good is not always really beneficial, and what we view as bad may actually be laying a foundation for something wonderful!
Example
Mr. R wins the lottery. This seems to be pretty good! Feeling that he has endless funds, he assumes an upper-class lifestyle. The problem is that Mr. R doesn’t know much about finances. In a short while, the money is all gone.
Mr. R is not just back where he started; he is in a much worse position now. Having tasted the life of luxury, he finds himself dreaming of all the things he can no longer afford, or buying them anyway and falling into debt. His desires are unfulfilled and he feels depressed.
Maybe winning the lottery wasn’t really so great for Mr. R after all …
Example
Mrs. J worked at the same job for 15 years until she was laid off. This was the worst thing that she could have imagined. She felt crushed and defeated. After all her hard work, she was not even appreciated.
To make matters worse, Mrs. J really counted on her paycheck to cover significant expenses like mortgage and groceries. Now she did not know what to do.
Unable to find another job in her field, Mrs. J began her own business revolving around her hobby, gardening. She was passionate and creative. People loved her services.
Before long, Mrs. J had a thriving business, doing what she loved most.
Knowing the end of the story, how bad was losing that boring job?
See Jumping to Conclusions: How Sure Are You? for more about the way we see things.
Do Bad Things Only Happen to Good People?
Bad things actually happen to all people, righteous and wicked.
If you view bad as punishment, you may not be terribly bothered by the wicked getting “punished”. (Notice that no one ever asks: “Why do bad things happen to bad people?”)
The reality is that there are a number of different reasons that bad things happen, and also several reasons why good things occur - to ALL people.
Stay tuned! We will explore some of these possibilities in the upcoming posts!
Why do you think that bad things happen to good people and that good things happen to bad people?
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