God and suffering

I was going through some of my old collection of readings and came across extracts from Harold Kushner's book When Bad Things Happen to Good People.

The background to this book is well known. Reading the book ,then, I found it quite engaging. What kept me reading the book was that it was not offering some pious suggestions but presenting possible rational explanations and also a theological outlook. That was gripping. Or else I would have read it may be only for spiritual reading - I don't read books for spiritual reading, so I'd have never read the book itself!

Here's one of the foremost arguments by Kushner, in defence of God and as a possible rationale for suffering and evil - once again, a little pious but certainly not irrational!

At any given moment, life may seem unfair and innocent people may appear to be suffering. But if we wait long enough, we believe, we will see the righteousness of God’s plan emerge. If you plant grass seed and a palm tree seed on the same day, the grass will start to sprout sooner. At that point, a person who knew nothing about nature might predict that the grass would ultimately grow to be higher and stronger than the palm tree, since it was growing faster. But the experienced observer would know that eventually the grass would wither and the palm tree grow tall and straight and last for more than a generation. … in the long run they will see the wicked wither...