What is the Meaning of Suffering? | Prof. Eleonore Stump

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2019

⏱️ 70 minutes

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Summary

This lecture was given at University College Dublin on 8 October 2019.

Eleonore Stump is the Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University, where she has taught since 1992. She is also Honorary Professor at Wuhan University and at the Logos Institute, St. Andrews, and she is a Professorial Fellow at Australian Catholic University. She has published extensively in philosophy of religion, contemporary metaphysics, and medieval philosophy. Her books include her major study Aquinas (Routledge, 2003), her extensive treatment of the problem of evil, Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering (Oxford, 2010), and her far-reaching examination of human redemption, Atonement (Oxford, 2018). She has given the Gifford Lectures (Aberdeen, 2003), the Wilde lectures (Oxford, 2006), the Stewart lectures (Princeton, 2009) and the Stanton lectures (Cambridge, 2018). She is past president of the Society of Christian Philosophers, the American Catholic Philosophical Association, and the American Philosophical Association, Central Division; and she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	And the title of my talk is suffering and flourishing.
0:05.0	Although we sometimes praise a person who suffers for not sinking under his suffering,
0:13.0	we still suppose that the sufferer is to be ranked more among life's losers than among life's winners.
0:21.6	Even if we think of a person who stands under his suffering as heroic,
0:26.6	we tend to think of whatever happens in his life as happening in spite of the suffering
0:32.6	if it's anything good at all.
0:35.6	And in general, we are inclined to find perverse
0:38.3	anything that values suffering itself.
0:41.3	On the contrary, anything that undermines
0:45.3	mental or physical thriving strikes us as lamentable.
0:51.3	The current disability rights movement is an exception to this rule.
0:57.0	Like the Gay Pride Movement, the Disability Rights Movement wants to celebrate what other people
1:03.0	have generally pitied or disrespected as the suffering of misfortune.
1:09.0	The Disability Rights Movement wants other people to see
1:12.6	that those with disabilities are not among life's losers.
1:17.6	They're not even among life's heroic overcomers of the tragic.
1:22.6	Instead, the Disability Rights Movement holds disability pride parades.
1:29.4	Here's an excerpt from a text by Sarah Triano, the founder of the Chicago Disability Pride Parade.
1:36.5	She says, the sad sack, the brave overcomer, the incapable.
1:44.1	These are worn outout stereotypes the prayed refutes by giving us a time and
1:49.7	space to celebrate ourselves as we are. We want to show the world the incredible joy that exists in our lives.
1:58.2	We are part of the richness and diversity of this country of the world.
	...

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