Br.

Harvey Bermudez, CRM

Christian Anthropology
March 14, 2018

Sidney Callahan’s
CREATED FOR JOY: A CHRISTIAN VIEW OF SUFFERING

In the beginning when God created humanity, He let men and women share in His own

life, glory and eternal bliss. Our first parents go around the garden of Eden, walking with God and

conversing with Him personally. In the beginning was eternal life, in the beginning there is joy,

and the human person is created for joy. This joy was attained through one’s own personal

experience of God, not to mention man’s/woman’s beholding the very face of God himself.

But unfortunately, the evil one, Satan, tempted our first parents with his cunningness.

Giving up into the lure of the devil, our first parents was cursed, and they were banished from the

glorious garden of Eden. Scriptures tells us that the first human persons’ bliss was replaced by toil

and hard work to live. Thus, the joy of seeing God face to face was taken away from them. Adam

and Eve, our first parents felt suffering and eternal life was replaced with eternal death.

Suffering has been one of the most talked about topic in life. Christians and non-Christians

alike has all the questions and answers about suffering. Why is there suffering in the world? If God

is good, why is there suffering? If God truly exists, why does he not prevent sufferings in the

world? Why does not God intervene to stop suffering already underway? Is the all-knowing God

somehow capricious in luring us in our freedom to act, and hence to suffer? These are just some

questions which the world asks about how and why there is suffering.

Sidney Callahan, an author, lecturer, college professor and licensed psychologist offers in

her book: Created for Joy: A Christian View of Suffering, answers to the questions raised by the
world about suffering. A woman who has experienced not so ordinary pains and suffering in her

life that she dedicated the book to an infant and a child. The infant would be her fourth son who

died of a sudden death syndrome when not yet two months old. Thirty-five years later, came the

healing joy of the birth of her granddaughter. Yet, joy and sorrow once more intermingled when

her daughter, the mother of her granddaughter, died of an undetected blood clot.1 The book, though

it is rich with theological and psychological insights, was borne out of her own experience of

sufferings and how she faced suffering in a fresh new way of viewing this phenomenon of life.

She started out the book with the meaning of suffering, what it is and why it exists. In the

first chapter of her book, she categorizes the experience of suffering into different views and

perceptions (e.g. Suffering as a mystery, Suffering and empathy, Joy and Suffering, etc.). Sidney

Callahan said that for many decades already suffering was viewed as a plan of God to teach us

something or to make us stronger in our faith in God. She also mentioned several Catholic beliefs

and traditions regarding why there is suffering:

“Testimonies to the value of suffering were buttressed by selected scriptural texts

and other readings from tradition. Suffering was assumed to be God’s just punishment for
sin or granted as a privileged imitation of Christ’s sacrificial death, or some combination
of the two. In any case, pain sent from God should be seen as in accord with God’s plan.
The Genesis story of the fall of Adam and Eve was understood as the explanation of the
advent of all the death and suffering in the world. […] God’s goodness was also shown
through His punishments of those He loves […] the good father makes it clear that he
chastises and disciplines the son he loves. Spare the rod, spoil the child.”2

This testimonies and theological positions, she confirmed by quoting one of the well-

known and renown author which talks about suffering: C.S. Lewis, which according to her wrote

a book about the topic of suffering after the Second World War. The author was very influential

1
Sidney Callahan, Created for Joy: A Christian View of Suffering (New York: The Crossroad, 2007) 1-7.
2
Ibid., 24.
with regards to Catholic doctrine that even she herself was convinced about his thoughts.3 C.S.

Lewis believes and wrote that pains and suffering which human beings experience must be

accepted as God’s way of molding us into more finer individuals. Happiness and the like causes

laxity in the part of an individual, leading us to forgetfulness about God, that is why God sends

sufferings in our lives to remind us that God truly exists and waits for us into healing conversions

into his loving presence: “Suffering is ultimately a merciful gift, because it turns many souls away

from sin and indifference and works to save them from the far more dreadful moments of eternal

damnation. God deploys suffering as His instrument to perfect us. Pain now prevents eternal pain

later.”4

Callahan also mentions some popular assumptions about Suffering in God’s plan. Suffering

in some aspects of belief is of redemptive value when joined with the sufferings in which Christ

has experienced on the way Calvary and pointed out that “an exaggerated focus upon the intrinsic

goodness and automatic benefits of suffering can exists in “folk Catholicism” and in fact go further

than the Protestant stance of C.S. Lewis.”5 For decades of years already, Catholic has been living

with the belief and with awe in suffering especially through the image of crucifixes which are

present in every Catholic churches. These beliefs gave rise to some theological and catechetical

circles about the understanding of the cross of Jesus Christ. The cross seems to manifest and

showcase that punishment has been placed upon an innocent individual to satisfy some cosmic

debt. This view is present in the minds of many today. The faithful leads to exalting suffering and

promoting passivity before injustice, which is in a way or so, incompatible with the Gospel of

Salvation.

3
Ibid., 25.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid., 33.
 Then Callahan inserts the image of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity who,

because of God’s great love for humankind, offered his life in place of us on the crucible of death

to ransom us from our first parents sin and more profoundly from the curse of death and eternal

punishment. Jesus came to bring back what was lost and to return us to that eternal bliss of

salvation in the presence of God. Callahan tries to explain in a fresh new way the purpose of Jesus’

Incarnation by contradicting some of the beliefs that has been the beliefs of many:

“Unfortunately, in such theological versions of how Jesus saves the world—

“soteriologies” to use the technical term—Christians not only have to exalt suffering but
are asked to envision a God so offended by wrongdoing that He plans to exact retribution.
God’s offended honor requires God to inflict pain and suffering upon Christ as a substitute
for fallen humanity, for Jesus is the only one innocent enough to serve as an acceptable
sacrifice to ward off God’s wrath.”6

The belief seems to make God a sadist who likes to inflict pains to individuals especially

with regards to the suffering of his Son, so that the world, might be saved from the vengeance of

God against mankind’s sins and failures. This view of pain and suffering with regards to salvation

leads to the perception that we can attain salvation through imitation of the sacrifice of Christ as

Callahan mentions: “In this particular narrative, Christians can conclude that their primary

religious duty is to imitate Christ by submitting to suffering, passively enduring and acquiescing

in the divine plan.”7 For Callahan, this kind of rationale to suffering leads to the abuse of the cross

because “the call to live, love and work with God to transform the world and end suffering becomes

secondary or totally obscured. When the cross and passion of Christ are misinterpreted, the healing

and teaching of Christ’s ministry becomes separated from his death, and even the resurrection is

obscured and slighted.”8

6
Ibid., 78.
7
Ibid., 79.
8
Ibid.
 Callahan tries to turn away from the traditional justifications of sufferings. Though she

does not intend to exclude the message of the cross in the life of Jesus Christ, she tried to expand

its message of salvation by the presenting that the cross of Christ is not just a consequence of the

provocative life of Jesus bringing that life into consummation. Callahan explains that Jesus’s

readiness for everything that his work and love of God would bring and freely gave over his whole

being for God and his people.

For Callahan, suffering is not the greatest mystery but rather the appearance of joy during

suffering:

“Living in, with, and through Christ makes it possible to become transformed and
to transform the world. Love produces healing, joy, and gladness as fruits of the Christian
life—even while recognizing the full horror of intractable sufferings. Jesus suffers with us
and we suffer with him as we participate in his saving work. At the same time Jesus
rejoices, and we receive the gift of joy. Gladly celebrating the resurrection gives proof of
the presence of the Holy Spirit. Joy, empathy, and love for those who suffer inspire
ceaseless labor to end suffering. The double commands of Christ are given clearly: “take
up your cross,” and “rejoice without ceasing.”9

The heart of the book, Created for Joy is empathy and love. Jesus does not only suffer

because of our sinfulness as human persons. Jesus suffers with us, taking all our pain and distress

from us and inflicting it upon him so that we may testify to his greatest love by which he came

down from heaven and was made incarnate to save us. God so loved the world that he gave his

only Son so that he may continue to give himself for us, and that he may share his suffering with

us and in turn might share with us his own eternal life. There is more to suffering than we can

imagine: It is joy through Jesus Christ.

9
Ibid., 122.