Faith & Spirit Quote by Ernest Holmes

Holmes is trying to sever the oldest, stickiest theological reflex: the idea that pain is a divine messaging system. In one clean sentence, he refuses both of suffering’s most socially convenient explanations - punishment for wrongdoing and “character-building” pedagogy. That matters because those explanations don’t just interpret misery; they police it. They let communities keep their moral order intact by turning another person’s illness, poverty, or grief into evidence that the cosmos is still running a fair, disciplined classroom.

As a New Thought theologian, Holmes is writing from a metaphysical tradition that emphasizes a lawful, impersonal spiritual reality rather than an intervening God handing out consequences. The subtext is pastoral and political at once: stop blaming the afflicted, stop recruiting God as your alibi, stop narrating random catastrophe as deserved. The phrasing “imposed suffering” is doing heavy work. It rejects an active, managerial deity and shifts the focus from divine intention to human response: if suffering isn’t assigned, it isn’t legible as a moral verdict.

There’s also a quiet rebuke of a certain pious cruelty. “To teach them a lesson” can sound compassionate, even optimistic, but it often functions as spiritual gaslighting - a way to tidy up someone else’s chaos with a neat moral. Holmes’ refusal doesn’t eliminate meaning; it strips meaning of its scapegoat. Whatever growth comes from hardship is framed as something people wrest from experience, not something God inflicts to make a point.