WATERTOWN Offers of spiritual guidance to military personnel during the novel coronavirus pandemic recently landed two Fort Drum chaplains in a tad bit of hot water.

U.S. Army Maj. Scott Ingram and Capt. Amy Smith, ministers serving on the post, put videos on the Facebook page of the 10th Mountain Division Sustainment Brigade. Eight soldiers stationed at Fort Drum objected to the videos being put on a social media site representing the posts leadership.

Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, called these Facebook posts illicit proselytizing videos; the Fort Drum chaplains have a Facebook page of their own and should have put the videos there, wrote MRFF senior research director Chris Rodda. The civil liberties organization brought the soldiers concerns to the attention of Fort Drum authorities, and commanders there had the videos removed.

This incident amounted to a minor flare-up in our nations long-running debate over church and state issues. But it raises an interesting question thats been posed for millennia: How should we relate to a divine being while enduring a lifetime of pain?

The videos made by the Fort Drum chaplains offered faith-building strategies in response to the coronavirus. One video invited soldiers to ask where God is in the midst of this catastrophe.

Two well-known books from religious authors approach this topic from different perspectives.

Harold Kushner wrote his landmark work When Bad Things Happen to Good People in 1981. He tackled one of religions essential problems: Why doesnt a deity who is all loving and all powerful prevent us from suffering?

Aaron Kushner, the son of this Conservative Jewish rabbi, died when he was 14 of a condition called progeria, in which people appear to age very rapidly. Harold Kushner concluded that God is all loving but not all powerful and cant stop our suffering.

Philip Yancey wrote a true classic in Christian literature in 1977: Where is God When it Hurts? He examined the physiological function of pain as well as what happens to those who cannot experience it in parts of their bodies. He also highlighted people who overcame suffering to transform their lives.

One point Yancey made in his book is that pain serves a vital role for humans. While its very unpleasant, it usually signals that something is wrong and requires our attention. Yancey focused on the suffering that God endured through Jesuss crucifixion and challenged the Christian church to be on the frontline of alleviating pain whenever possible.

Theres a larger question here than why a supreme being doesnt prevent our suffering:

Does God actually cause it?

Theres a sharp difference between whats been responsible for reducing suffering (human endeavor) and the traditional religious understanding of what causes it (divine judgment).

Many people have found the latter to be a major stumbling block to maintaining belief, and this couldnt be overcome.

In his 2008 book, Gods Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question Why We Suffer, biblical scholar Bart Ehrman chronicled his loss of faith due to this issue.

He examined the classical view of suffering, suffering as the consequences of sin, redemptive suffering, whether suffering makes any sense and the apocalyptic views of suffering.

Pointing to God as the cause of our suffering is no longer in vogue these days among many theists.

Weve witnessed some horrific atrocities in recent history, and a deity whos to blame for bringing them about doesnt hold all that much appeal as the object of worship.

People of faith will direct our attention to human behavior that inflicts injury upon others and promote God as the one who wants this eliminated.

But any consideration of a supreme being as the creator and sovereign ruler of everything cannot overlook the fact that physical pain and mental anguish were built into the foundation of the universe. Why?

One train of thought is that pain, tragedy and death are the result of our disobeying God. This, however, suggests that all such suffering is justified.

Is this a defendable position? Did the Jewish victims of the Holocaust during World War II deserve to be systematically exterminated by the Nazis?

And must animals and plants be subject to the consequences of human sin? If some suffering is unjustified, why is it allowed by a just supreme being?

Another response is that God desired our love and gave us free will when creating us, but we must be allowed to use it as we see fit. Its part of human nature to choose sin, and our choices often hurt others.

But dont angels have free will? Christianity teaches that some angels rejected God while others did not.

And what happens to people after they die? Do they retain their free will once they enter heaven? Does the Almighty want us to choose obedience while were alive here on Earth but prefer robotic souls in the afterlife?

This presents the prospect of an environment where living beings choose to remain in Gods service for all eternity.

Therefore, a commitment to perfect love and obedience given freely by non-deities to their creator is not only possible but has been common in the supernatural realm since before our universe came into being, according to the Judeo/Christian narrative.

So what need does a supreme being have of children who will all rebel against the divine will? God already has worshipers who freely choose the path of righteousness.

Why create a new category of individuals who will, by their inherited nature, reject Gods authority leading to their suffering, death and eternal punishment? Its like we were intentionally set up to fail. Couldnt an all-powerful deity have given us a world free of suffering?

The oft-given reply of God couldnt have done this any other way places severe limits on an omnipotent deity, which would prove Kushners assertion. Theists have not successfully overcome this contradiction.

Religious belief grew out of fear and ignorance: Prehistoric humans trembled before that which they didnt understand. They created supernatural agents to explain natural phenomena.

But they became so wedded to these stories that they refused to abandon them even after comprehending many aspects of their surroundings.

This created an interesting conundrum: Few people wanted to consider a world without God, but many couldnt fathom a deity who permitted such pain.

Suffering was inevitable precisely because there was no all-powerful, all-loving supreme being to create a perfect world for us.

If anyone ever wondered what a godless universe would look like, were in it! Regardless of what the Fort Drum chaplains preach, the only hope of relief from suffering that we have is through our own efforts. Make the most of this life because thats all there is.

In my final column in this series, Ill look at whether we fully understand the gods our ancestors invented and how this affects us today.

Jerry Moore is the editorial page editor for the Watertown Daily Times. Readers may call him at 315-661-2369 or send emails to jmoore@wdt.net.

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Jerry Moore: The painful reality of life | A Second Opinion | nny360.com - NNY360