This is my third post about how and whether spiritual practice can help a terminal cancer patient deal with suffering. Following my posts on Stoicism and Buddhism, this one is about Christianity.
That is, Christianity, as I understand it. The religion has 2.7 billion adherents, and the diversity of their beliefs defies summary. Tens–hundreds?--of millions of Christians will disagree with what I say here.
Buddhism and Stoicism seek to reduce suffering by changing your mind. Stoics want to change your views about our true interests so you do not suffer when you lose illusory goods. Buddhism wants you to change your metaphysics: how you understand the basic stuff of the world. Seeing the illusory nature of the self and the objects it desires will free you from the suffering occasioned by death and loss.
Christianity seeks to relieve suffering by providing hope. But hope for what?
One answer is that it provides the hope of resurrection and eternal life, provided, as St Paul wrote,
you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Romans 10:9)
If our cancer sufferer does not believe in God, this religion has nothing to offer. If she can entertain the idea that a loving God created spacetime and everything in it–and can recreate (“resurrect”) it–then we have something to discuss.
St Paul’s verse, however, is often misread to suggest salvation fulfills a contract: you confess your belief in God and—ding!—God gives you a new life after you die. This transaction compensates us so richly for our suffering and death that we can disregard them. On this view, Christianity abolishes suffering.
The above misreadings raise many questions, including “Believing in a proposition is all it takes?” and “Why is God so needy as to require your belief?”
How should we read St Paul?
First, what does ‘saved’ mean? God wants us to be happy and flourish. We can flourish by renewing our lives, by joining a community–communion–of others committed to love and truth (John, chapters 15-17).
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. (John 15:11-12)
We are not saved alone but as part of a community. A cancer patient can join Jesus’s disciples—that is, the Church—which, broken and flawed, is nevertheless the body of Christ. Pursuing the path laid out in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, chapters 5-7) and the Gospels, he can live in a way that allows him to taste the new life. As strange as it sounds, he can thrive even at the end of his life. His salvation will be complete when God renews our bodies and all of creation at the end of time.
What does it mean “to believe”? St Paul’s “belief” is more than intellectual assent to a proposition. He said, “Believe in your heart.” We are not merely affirming a sentence but wholeheartedly committing ourselves to a community and its way of love. This is conversion or renewal of life. Again, our conversion is not a service for which God compensates us. “Purity of heart,” wrote Søren Kierkegaard, “is to will one thing.” Our single-minded engagement in a life of love and truth is salvation.
Does salvation eliminate suffering? No. God suffers. God is omniscient and compassionate and experiences everything we suffer. Hence, we have life–creation–because God suffered so that we could live. This is what we see in the crucifixion. We participate in the body of Christ by sharing Jesus’s sacrifice. Openness to others’ pain will cause us to suffer; in this, we join Jesus.
This means our suffering can sometimes benefit us. A life of love and truth requires compassion toward others’ suffering. Opening ourselves to others’ experiences is a fundamental step in the way of love. We respond to the crucifixion with empathy for Jesus’s pain and thanksgiving for God’s gift of creation. This becomes a grace–God's unmerited favour or love towards humanity–powering our conversion. But nothing can teach us more about the suffering of others than our suffering. Like Buddhism, Christianity has many traditions of contemplation and prayer that can open us and teachings on virtue to educate our hearts.
In summary, Christianity offers a suffering patient hope for redemption and, for some, redemption through suffering. A suffering patient can begin this life today by conforming herself to the community of love.
Will this work for a cancer patient? It’s a big ask; none of this is easy to accept. Kierkegaard argued that religious belief is more than intellectual assent to propositions: commitment requires a “leap.” (Kierkegaard never used the phrase “leap of faith” that is often attributed to him.) Beliefs such as the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ and the resurrection defy rational understanding. They can only be apprehended through faith.
I agree, although I regret it if the term “leap” suggests you can choose to be wholeheartedly committed. My commitment results from my awareness of God, disclosed to me through grace. Commitment is my response to God, not a choice.