Suffering As Transformative: Some Reflections on Depression and Free Will

Abstract

Central to Hick’s theodicy is the belief that suffering can be transformative. In addition to its expression in theodicy, this idea is found in a non-aetiological form in a number of religious traditions and spiritualities. For example, an episode of (what we would call) mental or physical illness is a condition of the Siberian shaman’s vocation, since it provides the sufferer with the capacity for inspiration, insight, and other powers associated with being a shaman.¹ Again, Jewish discussions of yissurn shel ahavah (chastisements of love) sometimes involve the idea that affliction can promote personal growth, whether (as in the case of the Maharal) by breaking our attachment to the material or (as in the case of the Ran) by freeing us from the snares of wild imagination. ² However, where the idea is found in non-aetiological contexts, it does not tend to attract philosophical evaluation, perhaps in part because of the elusiveness that derives from its pervasiveness. This is problematic because, although in some forms a potentially transformative view of suffering can reflect a realistic attitude towards the world and provide therapeutic conceptual resources for the subject to respond to her experiences, in other forms it can be sentimental and unrealistic, philosophically or theologically incoherent, pastorally insensitive, or even debilitating and destructive.