What you tell yourself it means
The interpretation is not decoration on top of the state. It is part of the machinery, and there is research on which interpretations go with people doing worse.
What the research says
Ano GG, Vasconcelles EB (2005). Religious coping and psychological adjustment to stress: a meta-analysis. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 61(4), 461 to 480 doi
Ways of coping that framed difficulty as punishment or as being abandoned by God went with worse psychological adjustment. Ways that did not, went with better. The honest limits are real: most of the studies pooled were snapshots rather than follow ups, so which came first is not established, and the samples were mostly Christian and American.