When I was a kid, I foolishly prayed for pain, knowing “that the testing of [my] faith produces endurance,” leading to perfection and completion (James 1:2-4). Feeling blessed like Job, I wanted to prove myself, but I realize now that only fools pray for pain. Nonetheless, he is a fool who has never experienced true anguish. Instead, I should have prayed for wisdom, understanding that God may pour it down from heaven in the form of pain. This juxtaposition of a loving and all-powerful Creator with the presence of evil perplexes theologians and philosophers alike, but Robert Farrar Capon suggests that “If God seems to be in no hurry to make the problem of evil go away, maybe we shouldn’t be, either … Maybe… evil is where we meet God.” The book of Job is an encouraging testament to the suffering soul, but anyone who would seek out Job’s pain for himself is beyond ascetic. He is morbid, wretched, and dangerously deluded. Suffering accomplished by internal motivation bears no goodness or …show more content…
The former, when armed hastily, dissolves hastily, but the latter produces increasing dependence on the Lord. To this point, I’ve argued that there is meaning in all suffering—not only when we can’t understand it, but especially when we can’t understand it. However, not all suffering is impermanent, and if anguish is everlasting, it cannot produce the goodness which makes it somewhat bearable. This morning I attended Jonathan Storment’s lecture on apologetics. His concept of eternal damnation intrigued me: “The fires of hell are started by the hands of men,” he said. Gehenna (Jesus’s word for “hell”) refers to the place where Hebrews sacrificed their children to idols, and judgement day will come when those in Gehenna are no longer allowed back into Jerusalem. God denies them His presence because they are incapable of giving up their autonomy, incapable of surrendering their sinfulness to embrace His
He wants to see whether we are capable of overcoming our base instincts... We have no right to despair. And if He punishes us mercilessly, it is a sign that He loves us that much more…” (Wiesel 45) Akiba Drumer’s unshakable faith in God undoubtedly shows the toughness of the human spirit.
The USS Congress, Cumberland, Minnesota, and the Monitor all battle it out overseas with the CSS Merrimack and Beaufort. Each ship only has only one goal in mind, to send the other ship and all of their crew down to their watery graves. In this seemingly endless battle the question on everyone’s mind is: does suffering come from God, as a form of punishment or testing, or does it arise from and within man, when man tires to be like God? Afloat in Virginia, upon the USS Congress everything is still and quiet. The crew is talking about their surroundings, talking about the sweet breeze and looking at the stars above.
Yet, this idea has been demolished, for why would God, the man who sees all, knows all, so greatly punish innocent people. Their hope is consumed by this raging beast. One sees hope as a “desire for something good in the future” (Piper). For how much more could one take. Only soon, would they be less than
Jonathan Edwards depicts God as a wrathful, harsh and aggressive deity. His sermon emphasizes on the importance of salvation and remorse. Reflecting Puritan ideals, he expresses Gods vision of humans. How people are instinctive sinners and God is the only one able to determine those worthy of salvation. His stated principles construe the main pillar of their religion, predestination.
He has already endured such suffering that reliance upon the consistent nature of evil has become his only
And if God is God, why is He letting us suffer?” (1) The lifelong quest for answers to these questions shaped his theology
Over the years, opinions on God have changed. Some people believed that God is terrifying and vengeful while others disagreed saying that He is loving and accepting of all. Jonathan Edwards was a Calvinist, who argued that unless one never sins, he or she is most likely doomed to hell. Edwards believed that humans are powerless in comparison to the power of God. In “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards, the author achieves his purpose of arguing that in order to be saved from an afterlife in hell, one must ask for forgiveness and accept Christ, through the uses of intense imagery, a terrifying tone, and understandable metaphors.
In the Old Testament, there is not a Hebrew word for hell but there are references to death. Grave, pits death and Sheol are a bit vague with still giving an underworld feel. Within the New Testament the Greek word “Gehenna” is where the word Hell comes from. Gehenna in Jesus’s day was a dump. Bell makes a case about the description of Hell (fire, gnashing of teeth, and torment) are about the town garbage pile.
In this book, Hick holds the position that God allows for certain kinds of suffering to allow for the possibility of overcoming for his creation. In other words, God allows for pain and suffering. Furthermore, the allowance of pain, according to Hick, allows for the process of “soul-making”. By the way of an indeterminate future and the possibility of pain, humans are left with the choice as to how much unnecessary suffering they are willing to restrict. By the way of making these allowances, however, Hick’s God seems to have limited Himself to not understanding the world in its entirety and, therefore, engaging with the world in a temporal way that is at least very conceptually similar to that of process
The Book of Job provides an example of how people should praise God by illustrating a blameless, responsible, and fearing man who will always turn away from evil. Therefore, this book presents the same man tortured by outside forces lacking the possibility to acquire help from family and friends. Throughout the reading in particular (14:11) demonstrates how there was a moment of weakness in which Job fails and ask for his death, but after all, he did not commit sin and endured waiting for his torment to banish. In addition, the book reveals how men turned against a man in need and instead judged him without understanding the sources causing his disgrace. However, the book provides a comparison in how humans behave by providing vivid examples of characters who showed behaviors illustrating how humanity functions.
The ultimate answers to man's questions about pain, suffering of the innocent, and death are found in Christ's Passion, Death and Resurrection (n. 12). The truth communicated by Christ is the absolutely valid source of the meaning of human life (n. 12). All human creatures, not just philosophers, have the right to receive the truth about their existence and destiny (n. 38). By the revelation of Jesus, God the Father has made the truth available to every man and woman. Jesus Christ is not only the revelation of God to man, he is also the revelation of man to himself.
Throughout Harper’s book and Kheiyn’s article, I found five main points that stood out to me in relating to helping me understand why bad things happen to good people. First, God did not create pain and suffering, man has through sin and defiance. Second, although suffering is not good, God uses it to achieve good. The third point tells us that the day will come where your misery will no longer exist and God will judge evil. The fourth states that our suffering does not even compare to what God has in store for his followers.
It is a convenient and comforting respond to unfortunate and even devastating ‘fate’. The pain becomes bearable to those who suffer because it is all part of a bigger plan, it is more than ‘you’. This concept is also built upon an irrational fundamental attitude, “the surrender of self to the ordering power of society.” (54) The problem of theodicy does not end at that.
Question 1: The term “anonymous minister” means that there is an unspoken and close connection between nursing and spirituality. Among all the nurses interviewed, many of them saw their professions as a calling from a higher power. For example on page 78, Catherine who has been a nurse for 25 years states” I see nursing as a spiritual vocation. It is much more than work; I find it a way of serving”.
Thayer states that the word “hell” actually comes from the hebrew word sheol meaning “The place or state of the dead” (44) Not only is the word hell used for the