Courtney McGrailDear Editor, I watched with interest the interview by Gay Byrne with Stephen Fry on the RTÉ series The Meaning of Life. Whatever we think, what he shared in the interview makes it difficult for us to ignore the points he raised.
Fry reserves his harshest comments about God in relation to suffering. Why should he respect a god who creates a world with so much injustice and pain? The trouble with this argument is that the suffering and injustice that he rails against would not disappear if all humanity began to live as if God did not exist. He forgets that much of the evil and suffering in the world is caused by humans and not by God. Many people do not see the concept of a loving God and the existence of suffering as being incompatible. I know of people who would be utterly crushed by suffering had it not been for their Christian faith that has been their salvation.
It is too simplistic and untrue to say that peoples’ faith or religion is just a comfort to ease the pain. While we all need to question the mystery of evil and suffering present in the world, when Christians look towards the man they believe to be also God, they notice something peculiar on his body: the presence of five wounds that he bore out of love for suffering humanity. Because of those wounds and the love of the one who bore them, the God that Christians believe in is far from a ‘totally selfish’ and ‘monstrous’ god that Fry rightly rejects. Because of these wounds we can no longer say that God doesn’t know or understand.
While we may not agree with Stephen Fry we cannot afford to dismiss him. Facing up to his objections with courage can purify our image of God as revealed in Jesus Christ: the God of self-sacrificing love, the love that Fry needs to see more evident in Christians like you and me.
Yours etc.,
Fr Billy Swan,
Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford.