Hello, My name is Paul Chaloux. Welcome to my website dedicated to answering the question “Why Do All People Suffer?” The question has been asked in a variety of ways through the millennia. During the Jewish exile, the sages wrote the Book of Job, which showed that suffering was not necessarily a punishment and was not easily understood from a human perspective. This problem of evil drove the Buddha out of the palace in search of enlightenment. In 300 BC, the problem was taken up by Epicurus, who described the dilemma that a good and all powerful God would stop evil and suffering but since evil exists, he reasoned that God either couldn’t stop it because he didn’t have the power or wouldn’t because he was not good or maybe God is indifferent to humanity or doesn’t exist at all.
More recently, it has driven dozens of theodicies, where people have developed schemes to explain how evil and God could coexist. The most famous and popular of these was written 40 years ago by Rabbi Harold Kushner titled “When Bad Things Happen to Good People.” It was written in response to Kushner’s son’s death from progeria, a genetic condition that caused him to age prematurely and die in pain at age 14. Confronted with the same choices as Epicurus, Kushner explained to his audience that God exists and is good, but is powerless to aid the sick and oppressed. This was soothing to Kushner and his audience, who felt more at peace knowing that neither they nor God was responsible for their problems.
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This book differs from all that have come before it, because built from Catholic Scripture and Tradition as well as thought from the Great theologians and Church Fathers, it recognizes that Evil does not oppose good, it is the absence of good and that suffering is not evil but an evil detector, God’s gift to mankind to allow us to sense when evil threatens us (more accurately said as "when we lack a required good"). I have gone to great lengths to assure that this theology is trustworthy. The research is meticulously documented. The solution triangulates and is synergistic with all Catholic doctrine and the answers to the existential questions like “What is the nature of God?”, “What is the nature of Man?”, “What is Man’s purpose?”, and “How is God active in our lives?”
While the book was written in the context of the Catholic tradition, its lessons are applicable to people of any faith and no faith because we all suffer and all have the same existential questions to address; Judge for yourself. In the end, truth is truth. If the answers to the existential questions in any theological system are not self- consistent, as is the case with Kushner’s solution, then the proposed solution must be in error. Finally, the book has been thoroughly vetted, first by the faculty of the Catholic University of America when I defended by Doctoral Dissertation. Then by Sophia Press, who hired outside theologians to ensure the thoughts enclosed were orthodox. We delayed publishing the book for 10 weeks while the Church did its own vetting, resulting in Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington Virginia granting the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur, stating the book was free of doctrinal or moral errors and ready for printing (see above left)
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This website is designed to help you come to your own conclusions. Check out the next page to see what is here and how to use it to best effect to understand the concepts of the book and by all means, if you have questions or critiques, use the forum to share and resolve them.
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I hope you find this website useful and that you will share it with others.
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