Psalm 9:19

no need for theodicy

For the poor man shall not be forgotten to the end: the patience of the poor shall not perish for ever. (Psalm 9:19 DR)

The seeming prosperity of the wicked over against the suffering of the righteous and the poor is a common theme throughout the Psalms—and for good reason—as such a scenario renders one of the more existentially powerful arguments against the goodness and providence and even existence of God.

The ancient deceiver himself finds it a useful argument, and even tried to use it against God:

And the Lord said to him: Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a simple and upright man, and fearing God, and avoiding evil? And Satan answering, said: Doth Job fear God in vain? Hast not thou made a fence for him, and his house, and all his substance round about, blessed the works of his hands, and his possession hath increased on the earth. But stretch forth thy hand a little, and touch all that he hath, and see if he blesseth thee not to thy face. (Job 1:8-11 DR)

This same argument—albeit in negative form—also furnished the lie that led to the fall of our race:

Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman: Why hath God commanded you, that you should not eat of every tree of paradise? And the woman answered him, saying: Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die. And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:1-5 DR)

Here the devil deceives the woman by means of questioning God’s goodness; not that God hasn’t given mankind good things—that is not in question. However, he sets in Eve’s mind a nagging doubt that God is holding something back, that the goodness that they enjoy in the garden is itself a deception to hide what they could truly possess if only God would give it to them. In this manner God’s command to not eat of the fruit of the tree is characterized as arising from insecurity and thus from jealousy, as if God would lose the thing He has if His creation came to possess it as well. This misplaced envy on the part of Eve—for mankind was alrerady made in the image of God and thus was in this manner already like God—brings about the plunge into Original Sin:

For God created man incorruptible, and to the image of his own likeness he made him. But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world. And they follow him that are of his side. (Wisdom 2:23-25 DR)

The Psalmist elsewhere feels the tug of this argument against righteousness, for if the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer, what is the point of pursuing holiness and goodness?

Behold these are sinners; and yet abounding in the world they have obtained riches. And I said: Then have I in vain justified my heart, and washed my hands among the innocent. And I have been scourged all the day; and my chastisement hath been in the mornings. (Psalm 72:12-14 DR)

The Psalmist struggles mightily with these doubts and insecurities, for on the natural level it seems an unsolvable paradox, for righteousness seems to lead to suffering while wickedness often brings about luxury and prosperity.

The cynical and naturalistic will take refuge in an amoral universe in which goodness and wickedness are merely societal constructs at best meant to smooth out the edges between people and races so as to enable civilization and the niceties thereof. But at bottom there is no ought to these things, merely ways of maximizing pleasure and minimizing suffering. With such a moral construct might equals right, even if we grimace at the historical applications of such a philosophy. Yet within the amoral universe red in tooth and claw there is no ultimate escape from the gaping bottomless maw of meaningless entropy.

But for the Psalmist such a framework is unthinkable, and to the rational mind a sober analysis of more than five seconds shows naturalism to be a silly and unserious philosophy (actually, anti-philosophy) as it has to dismantle rationality in the course of making a rational argument for itself, a self defeating ouroboros. The mind itself as capable of grasping non material universals demonstrates itself to be non-material, and thus the purely naturalistic framework in which the problem is presented is shown to be an insufficient encapsulation of the existential situation.

The Psalmist himself comes to recognize this and finds a transcendent response to the existential dilemma:

If I said: I will speak thus; behold I should condemn the generation of thy children. I studied that I might know this thing, it is a labour in my sight: Until I go into the sanctuary of God, and understand concerning their last ends. (Psalm 72:15-17 DR)

It is this end that the Psalmist brings to mind, both in terms of final result but also in terms of teleology. That is, what is that to which all this is directed and going, what is the purpose of this all? The non-material aspect of human nature demonstrates that man is not intended for a purely material existence, nor can the material world fulfill his end. Rather, as many of the Psalms begin in their superscriptions, that End unto which the Psalms are directed is our Lord Jesus Christ. The Incarnation is not something tacked on to God’s plan but us rather wholly wrapped up in His wise and perfect will, and our Lord sharing in our nature perfects and directs it to its proper end which is Him. St. Paul echoes the Psalmist in noting that:

If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. (1 Corinthians 15:19 DR)

That is, if the problem of the prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous is something that can only be resolved in the temporal outcomes of this life, then the Psalmist is right to despair of being righteous, for it generally will profit him less than being wicked. But since the end of man transcends the temporal goods of this world, the suffering due to being righteous secures a greater good for eternity:

For that which is at present momentary and light of our tribulation, worketh for us above measure exceedingly an eternal weight of glory. (2 Corinthians 4:17 DR)

In this passage the Psalmist speaks of how the poor man shall not be forgotten to the end, which in the Vulgate is in finem both here and for for ever in the second half of the passage. This same in finem is used in the superscription of this Psalm: Unto the end, for the hidden things of the Son. Thus, when the Psalmist speaks of the poor not being forgotten to the end and of their patience not perishing unto the end, he is not speaking only about the perpetuity of eternity but is framing it within our Lord Jesus Christ Who is the end.

That is, the righteous who suffer for the sake of righteousness are suffering for the sake of Christ and in Christ and thus share in Him as His mystical Body the Church. His glorious resurrection from the dead is the firstfruits of the resurrection of the righteous (cf. Colossians 1:18, 1 Corinthians 15:20, Apocalypse 14:4). The sufferings of the righteous are thus not an act of God forgetting or even a theodicy that has to be contrived but are rather the means by which God purifies the righteous to dwell with Him:

Now all chastisement for the present indeed seemeth not to bring with it joy, but sorrow: but afterwards it will yield, to them that are exercised by it, the most peaceable fruit of justice. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and make straight steps with your feet: that no one, halting, may go out of the way; but rather be healed. (Hebrews 12:11-13 DR)

St. Paul offers a fascinating image here of this perseverance in suffering, instructing his readers to lift of their hands which hang down and to keep walking with weak knees, the idea being that the continual exertion of these things strengthens them to do what they ought. In a similar manner suffering can inculcate in the righteous a greater perseverance and growth in holiness, as it is the means by which we exercise virtue in the face of adversity. By imitating the patience in suffering of our Lord and uniting our sufferings with His (cf. Colossians 1:24), the patience of the poor remains steadfast unto the end since it is founded and united in Christ, Who is the end.

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For this animation I had an idea of using some big block text as a matte for some animated textures, and thus I found a nice font to use for such a purpose. I precomposed the three text blocks and used loopFlow to animate the texture in each of them. I did the same in the main composition. I finally added Shadow Studio 3 to the precomps and animated the shaodow direction for a bit of depth and added in some glow and color correction.

Enjoy.

View a higher quality version of this gif here: