ABSTRACT
Where does suffering come from? Why do we suffer? If deities are all-powerful and loving, why do they condone the suffering of the innocent? Responses to such questions have been reached using philosophical and religious insights, but recent scientific inquiry offers up helpful understandings as well, understandings that are important to include in any full consideration of the suffering phenomenon. This chapter lifts up some of these science-based understandings. It is organized
into six sections. The first presents a primer on the scientific concepts that are drawn upon in considering suffering from a biological perspective. The second offers a scenario for the origins of suffering in the context of the origins and evolution of life, and proposes a minimalist concept – biological suffering – that applies to all of life. The third considers which organisms also undergo experienced suffering, with attention to the uncertainties that attend the project of defining experience. The remaining three sections offer naturalistic perspectives on the relationship between suffering and physical, social, and psychological pain, topics that are given more humanistic/religious perspectives in other chapters of this volume.
