Mormon Beliefs on human tragedy

When people face tragedies sometimes ask themselves why. Some non-religious people may consider the existence of human tragedy as a proof that God in fact doesn’t exist or doesn’t care about mankind. Religious people who have faith in God and include Him in the explanation of human events may try to explain the occurrence of tragedies in many different ways, sometimes by trying to distinguish between situations that are a consequence of human actions and situations in which God seems to have intervened more directly.

What Mormonism has to say about human tragedy and the purpose of it in people’s lives?

There isn’t any definitive about official statement about this issue in the Mormon Church, but a lot can be said by analyzing the words of prophets, apostles, and other Mormon authors.

According to President Hugh B. Brown, “religious faith gives confidence that human tragedy is not a meaningless sport of physical forces. Life is not what Voltaire called it, "a bad joke"; it is really a school of discipline whose author and teacher is God” (Conference Report, October 1969, Third Day—Morning Meeting, p.107). In other words, human tragedy has a purpose in the eyes of God. It is a refining tool that helps men and women to improve their lives, even if this implies suffering.

The history of Mormonism is full of examples of suffering and tragedy that seem to contradict the belief of a religion that proclaims that “men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25). The same Prophet Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, had to face many tragedies in his life and eventually he was killed at the age of 38. Jesus Christ, the true head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint was absolutely familiar with suffering and he perfectly accepted it as part of His mission.

So, why people need to suffer? Why young innocent children are killed prematurely in a car collision? Or why terrorists could crash planes against the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York a few years ago?

Also, in each of these and other happenings, how much God really caused the event and how much he merely allowed it to occur? Nobody know it for sure.

Mormons believe that God is omnipotent and he has all the power to control our lives, including eliminating all pain and prevent all accidents. However, it is clear that he doesn’t do it all the time. Why?

Free Agency and the Three Stages of Life

Mormonism proclaims that one of the basic laws of the gospel is free agency that fosters eternal development. If God were to force us to be careful and righteous all the time we wouldn’t be able to learn and grow.

Another basic belief in Mormonism is that the plan of Salvation established by God the Father includes three parts or stages. The first stage includes our pre-mortal lives as spirit children with our Heavenly Father (before we were born). The second stage is the one in which we are now, while we live on this earth, and the special purpose of this stage is to be tested and receive physical bodies. The final stage will start after we die, and it will include our resurrection and assignment to a kingdom of glory, based on our works here on the earth.

We believe that the fullness of joy and happiness is only reserved for the last stage and only for those who have obeyed God’s commandments and have qualified for the highest degree of Glory in the Kingdom of God. The Lord said: “for in this world your joy is not full, but in me your joy is full” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:36). We are now in the second stage, and we can’t expect to be free from problems. Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught: “When we tear ourselves free from the entanglements of the world, are we promised a religion of repose or an Eden of ease? No! We are promised tears and trials and toil! But we are also promised final triumph, the mere contemplation of which tingles one’s soul” (Conference report, October 1974, 16).

In conclusion, Mormonism teaches that human tragedy and suffering is part of God’s plan, something that we need to accept with patience and faith, a necessary school master that can teach us many important lessons. At the end, to know whether tragedies come in our lives because of natural forces, evil people, or our sins, is less important than the way we react to them. If we choose to learn from them and use them to get closer to God instead than complain and rebel, we will better off when we will finally meet our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ after our lives on this earth will end.