Book Report: Why bad things happen to good people?

Introduction

The question 'why do bad things happen to good people?' It is an old question - 'why do we suffer?' is the question behind it. If God is good and God cares, why do bad things happen to faithful people? In this paper, it will discuss three main themes of the book “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People” by Harold Kushner (Kushner, pp.1-53). The three main themes which will be, discussed are:

Why Do the Righteous Suffer?

What Good, Then, Is Religion?

God Helps Those Who Stop Hurting Themselves

Why Do the Righteous Suffer?

The ethical teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount offer us a useful platform for our enquiry. In the context, of teaching that we are to be about loving all people, including our enemies, Jesus states: your Father in heaven makes his sun rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. In other words, God does not make divisions in the bestowing of the blessings of life according to whether people have been good or bad.

We are the ones who insist on making moral judgments. We are the ones who label people, who dismiss people, and who either look up our noses or down our noses at people. We are the ones who demarcate people according to standards we have set. Thus, when bad things happen to bad people we feel that that justified it is their fault they have put themselves in the situation and that is their problem - they are simply paying the price for their badness.

We get mystified when life does not always play that game on these terms - when something bad happens to someone we admire and who seems to be 'one of us', we begin to ask questions. We look for excuses to justify their change in fortune - maybe so and so wasn't as good as we thought.

Perhaps you may see that there is an initial problem in the premise of the question of why do bad things happen to good people. It is wrong to assume that there can be a straight-forward separation between the good and bad in people in order for God to be able to bestow favor. It is wrong of us to miss the good as we elevate or focus on the bad. it is wrong of us to presume that we are in some lofty place to make such judgments.

Added to that is a significant theological problem in question with regards to our understanding of God's favour. In asking the question are we not implying that God's grace limited in some way? Are we saying that God's kindness, blessing, favor, mercy and love are to be limited only to those who have first done something to deserve it - like be good?

What Good, Then, Is Religion?

Everyone is religious. If your religion is good, you should be as religious as possible. If your religion is against reason, then it ...