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The Suffering of God
This seems like a good follow-up post from what Greg posted yesterday. Charisma posted this reflection on the problem of evil and the suffering of God. It’s a great summary of our thinking about what accounts for the kind of world we see where tragedies like Newtown occur.
From the article:
C. S. Lewis sagely observed, “Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself … Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata–of creatures that work like machines–would hardly be worth creating.”
Put another way, love cannot be coerced; it must be freely chosen.
Related Reading
What Happened on the Cross?
Since the time of Anselm (11th century), and especially since the Reformation in the 16th century, the tendency of the Western church has been to focus almost all of its attention on the anthropological dimension of the atonement, usually to the neglect of the cosmic dimension that is central to the NT. In the standard…
If God Can’t Control, How Can I Trust Him?
Question: If God can’t always answer our prayers for healing, for example (and I completely understand why—free will etc), then HOW can he promise to bring good out of the bad things that happen? Surely he is powerless to do that too? And if he can bring good why can’t he therefore heal in the…
Grieving and Comfort
Henning Mühlinghaus via Compfight Ben Witherington posted this heartfelt reflection on the sudden death of his young daughter. Theology can sometimes be a relatively benign part of your life until something like this strikes without warning. That’s where things really begin to matter. This reminded us of Jessica Kelley’s reflections on the death of her son…
Classical Theism’s Unnecessary Paradoxes
The traditional view of God that is embraced by most—what is called “classical theology”—works from the assumption that God’s essential divine nature is atemporal, immutable, and impassible. The Church Fathers fought to articulate and defend the absolute distinction between the Creator and creation and they did this—in a variety of ways—by defining God’s eternal nature…
Doubt as a Companion to Faith
A true and living faith is never a destination; it’s a journey. And to move forward on this journey we need doubt. Faith is not based on certainty. Think of it this way. We often cling to certainty-seeking faith like one might a map as if the map itself is actually the territory. But our…
Interview with Drew Marshall
Greg was interviewed by Drew Marshall on Saturday, November 2, on the topic of his new book Benefit of the Doubt, and we thought you might like to listen to what he had to say. You can find the interview here. Enjoy!
