494 - Problems of Suffering In Religions of the World

Problems of Suffering In Religions of the World
By John Bowker
318 pp. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1970. $9.50.

This is an important and impressive book. Not only does it give one a significant exposure to the major religions of the world from a particular perspective but, it also enhances one's understanding, of suffering within one's own religious tradition-be it Christianity, Judaism, or whatever. The types of reaction to suffering of a particular faith over the centuries, including contemporary ones, are carefully presented by substantial and judiciously selected quotations from primary texts with lucid and penetrating remarks by the author.

A major theme of the work is that there is not a single problem of suffering (as the plural in the title suggests), but that suffering occurs differently as a problem in each religion. In the philosophy of religion, the problem of evil is usually regarded merely as a matter of dealing with the apparent contradiction between the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, all-good God and the existence of evil. This is indeed a problem, and it occurs in this form in Christianity. But even in Christianity this formulation misses much of the particular way suffering is regarded. For example, as Bowker shows, suffering is primarily a practical rather than a speculative problem, and even though explanations of evil's origin may be sought, the primary response to suffering has been to regard it as something over which Christ won a clear and triumphant victory by his resurrection. ". . . Christianity has not depended for its survival on its explanation either of the origin of suffering or of the existence of evil in connection with a God who is believed to be both omnipotent and loving" (p. 68). With Judaism, suffering is usually accepted quite simply as one of the facts of existence. The problem in biblical Judaism is, "Why do the wicked prosper, while those who try to keep faith with God suffer?" (p. 9). With a religion such as Buddhism, the origin and escape from suffering is the basis of all that it has to say; the "Problem of evil" of philosophy of religion courses and textbooks looks very alien indeed in such a context. All this is not to deny, any more than the author does, that the traditional problem of evil is significant, but it is only to indicate that it is but one problem, and even it might be seriously affected by a careful look at the many different ways suffering is regarded as a problem and different ways various religions have responded to it.

Besides considering five major living faiths, Bowker includes a chapter on Marxism, with a long section on the Chinese variety. This seems very sensible, despite the vexing question of whether Marxism is a religion, since Marx's theories grew directly from an awareness of suffer-

495 - Problems of Suffering In Religions of the World

ing, and like the response of the various religions to suffering, his response was primarily a practical one, namely, a concern for action to remove it.

The book is generally well written and not technical. It retains much of the flavor of the original oral presentation of the core of the material as classroom lectures. Because so much material is presented, one tends to find it difficult to keep the various responses to suffering clear in one's mind. Nonetheless, it would make a superb text for classroom use and, on the whole, it is a masterful treatment of the subject.

Diogenes Allen
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey