Is Suffering Good? – Sr. Elinor Gardner, O.P.

Sr. Elinor Gardner asks whether suffering can be called “good” by engaging Stoic thinkers like Seneca, modern echoes in Nietzsche, and biblical wisdom to show how God can use painful trials to heal and deepen the soul without glorifying evil itself.

This lecture was given on September 11th, 2025, at University of North Texas.

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About the Speakers:

Sister Elinor Gardner, O.P., is Affiliate Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dallas. Prior to arriving at UD, she taught at Aquinas College (Nashville, TN) and at The Catholic University of America, and spent one year assisting in formation at her Congregation’s Novitiate. She has a PhD from Boston College with a doctorate titled “St Thomas Aquinas on the Death Penalty.” Besides the ethical and political philosophy of Aquinas, her other research interests include the Christian anthropology of Robert Spaemann and Edith Stein.

Keywords: Biblical View of Suffering, Discipline of the Lord, Divine Providence and Pain, Healing through Trials, Nietzsche and the Value of Suffering, Seneca on Adversity, Stoicism and Suffering, Suffering and Virtue, Suicide and Stoic Philosophy, Transformation of the Soul in Suffering