05. Why Does Humanity Suffer?
Greed breeds cruelty.
This is one of the central teachings of Essentialism, and it shapes how I understand the biblical account of humanity’s suffering.
In Essentialism, Greed is not simply wanting something.
Wanting food, shelter, security, comfort, pleasure, or the opportunity to improve our lives is not inherently greedy.
Greed is the desire to take more than needed for status or to lord over another, coupled with a lack of personal responsibility for the pain that causes.
It is not merely excess.
It is excess joined to domination and irresponsibility.
And in my reading of Genesis, Greed is central to what happened in the Garden of Eden.
Adam and Eve were not presented as people lacking everything they needed.
They lived in a place of abundance.
Yet they reached for something they had been told not to take.
And when confronted, they shifted responsibility.
The problem was not simply that they wanted something.
It was that they grasped beyond what had been given and failed to take responsibility for what followed.
This is a pattern humanity continues to repeat.
We want something.
We convince ourselves that having it will make us more important, secure, powerful, or complete.
We disregard the harm required to obtain it.
And when confronted with that harm, we find someone else to blame.
Greed breeds cruelty.
And cruelty creates suffering.
In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve experience consequences that affect their work, relationships, and daily lives.
Adam’s labor becomes painful and difficult.
Eve experiences increased suffering in childbearing and a troubled relationship with male authority.
I understand these consequences as more than isolated punishments.
They establish patterns that humanity continues to experience and reproduce.
Consider Adam’s labor.
The problem is not simply that work becomes difficult.
It is also the possibility that Greed prevents us from recognizing when we have enough.
We can work endlessly, accumulate more than we need, and still fear that we are falling behind.
We can possess abundance and remain dissatisfied because someone else has more.
We can sacrifice our health, relationships, and happiness in pursuit of status.
And we can convince ourselves that this endless pursuit is simply what responsible people do.
Consider Eve’s relationship to male authority.
Across generations, women have been taught to seek approval from men, surrender their judgment, and measure their worth through relationships that may not serve their well-being.
Within my Christian Essentialist understanding, this becomes especially troubling when approval from another person replaces the work of seeing ourselves through the Lens.
The problem is not that relationships are inherently harmful.
It is that domination and dependence can become so familiar that people mistake them for the natural order of things.
These patterns spread.
They change.
They become embedded in families, communities, economies, governments, and religious institutions.
I think of them as an infection.
An infection does not have to remain identical to its original form to continue causing harm.
It can spread into new environments and produce new symptoms.
That is how I understand the development of oppressive systems.
White supremacy, for example, was not present as a named social system at the Fall.
It developed through particular human histories, institutions, choices, and justifications.
But within my theological interpretation, it belongs to the expanding infrastructure of domination that grows when Greed and cruelty become normalized.
The same is true of systems that exploit poverty, deny dignity, or demand obedience as the price of belonging.
They are not inevitable expressions of human nature.
They are things people have built, maintained, and defended.
And what people have built can be challenged and changed.
This is important because not all suffering is punishment.
People experience illness, grief, accidents, violence, deprivation, and injustice.
A person suffering under an oppressive system is not necessarily being punished by God.
They may be suffering because other people have made harmful choices.
They may be experiencing the consequences of institutions that prioritize power over human well-being.
Or they may be enduring difficulties that are simply part of living in a vulnerable world.
We must not use theology to blame people for the suffering inflicted upon them.
Doing so would violate Empathy and Truth.
Within Christian Essentialism, I also distinguish divine punishment from the trouble that follows when people live outside the Lens.
Punishment may have a particular purpose and an ending.
But patterns of cruelty, denial, fear, and Greed can continue producing consequences long after a formal punishment has ended.
Those patterns may persist in relationships, institutions, and even in how people understand their spiritual existence.
The reverse is also possible.
Peace cultivated through the Lens can become part of how we experience life now and how we understand the life to come.
This is why I pay attention to the endings of biblical punishments.
Jeremiah 25:11–12 describes a period of exile followed by judgment against Babylon.
Numbers 14 describes consequences for a generation’s refusal to trust and proceed.
Lamentations 3:31–33 speaks of God’s compassion and His unwillingness to afflict people for its own sake.
And 1 Corinthians 15:22–28 looks toward the defeat of death itself.
These passages contribute to my understanding that punishment is not meant to become an endlessly expanding system.
Christian traditions differ in how they interpret biblical passages concerning everlasting punishment, judgment, and restoration. I recognize those differences.
But my theological reading emphasizes God’s work of bringing punishment to its appointed conclusion.
I understand the Apocalypse as the ending of the great infrastructure of punishment that began with the Fall.
And I understand Jubilee as the movement toward restoration.
Jubilee is not simply a celebration.
It is the ending of punishment, the cancellation of debts, the return of what has been taken, and the liberation of those who have been bound.
It asks us to stop treating suffering as something people must endure forever to prove that justice has been served.
It also asks us to examine the systems that continue manufacturing suffering after the original offense has passed.
Punishment can end even when consequences remain.
And ending punishment does not mean pretending that harm never happened.
It means recognizing that continued suffering is not always necessary, useful, or just.
Essentialism addresses this problem both internally and externally.
Internally, we examine the Greed, shame, guilt, fear, and powerlessness that influence our decisions.
Externally, we examine the relationships and institutions that turn those forces into systems of cruelty.
We ask who benefits.
We ask who suffers.
We ask who is refusing responsibility.
And we ask what must change so that people can begin living differently.
Humanity suffers for many reasons.
But much of the suffering we create for one another begins when we decide that our status, power, or desires matter more than the pain required to preserve them.
Greed breeds cruelty.
The Lens teaches us how to recognize that cruelty, refuse to reproduce it, and begin the work of healing.