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Naming the Silences: God, Medicine, and the Problem of Suffering.

Stanley Hauerwas.

Wm B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 1990.

ISBN: 0567040410.

Naming the Silences examines suffering, childhood illness and death, theodicy, medicine, and Christian consolation. Hauerwas does not attempt to explain suffering through a conventional theodicy, that is, by offering a rational account of how evil can coexist with an omnipotent and benevolent God.

Instead, he argues that the demand for an explanation may itself be misguided. The task is not to make suffering intellectually acceptable but to name it truthfully within a community shaped by Christian practices, narratives, and hope.

A major theme is modern medicine’s tendency to function as a substitute religious hope. Medicine can heal, relieve suffering, and extend life, but Hauerwas criticizes the expectation that technological progress will finally overcome disease, mortality, or the tragedy of a child’s death.

In this sense, medicine can become a noisy way of avoiding the silence and helplessness exposed by suffering. His criticism is not a rejection of medical care. Rather, he challenges medicine when it exceeds its proper vocation and becomes a cultural promise of salvation.

The question is how medicine can serve the sick without pretending that every form of suffering can be eliminated or that death represents merely a technical failure.

For Hauerwas, Christian faith does not answer suffering primarily with an abstract explanation. It forms people capable of truthful lament, compassionate presence, and faithful action. The Christian response is therefore ecclesial and practical: believers learn how to suffer with one another through the story of Jesus Christ, whose crucifixion and resurrection redefine vulnerability, death, and hope.

The book’s distinctive claim is that suffering does not automatically disprove God’s existence. Hauerwas argues that the usual problem of suffering often assumes that faith in God must first be justified by a theory capable of explaining every instance of evil.

He instead asks what kind of God Christians confess and what kind of community can speak truthfully in the presence of suffering.

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Coram Deo — before the face of God. This blog reflects on Scripture, world events, science, music, psychology, and the human mind — always through the lens of Christian faith. All of life is lived before the face of God.