dkm3870

On 4/12/2020 at 1:15 PM, thormas said:

I believe you are close but there is a bit more to it. 

Since God is the one who allows all to be and sustains all in existence, in some real way god is responsible for all. 

Man could not be created in perfect relationship (no sin) with God (this would reflect the freedom of man but there is still some issue with it - I don't have the exact argument at the ready but will get it) and man could not be born with the 'immediate' knowledge of God because he would be so overwhelmed that any choice for God would not be our of his freedom but as a consequence of his 'fear and awe' of God.

So........some theologians speak of creation as a 'soul-making' environment. Man is born at what has been called an 'epistemological distance' from God in that he is truly free to decide (no fear or awe) and he is born in a challenging environment in which he grows, meets challenges and overcomes them in his growth into the 'likeness' of God. This is actually a very interesting argument. So God can be said to be 'responsible' because he 'sets' the conditions necessary for the freedom and real growth of man but man and nature 'exercise' that freedom sometimes to the detriment of man.

The whole study of evil is called theodicy and John Hick (philosopher and theologian) speaks eloquently of this. I will get you a book reference but his website is http://www.johnhick.org.uk/jsite/. Hick died a few years ago but this site remains and contains some articles he wrote - check to any articles on evil. 

There are a number of theologians who write on theodicy and I will get a short list for you. I read a number of them earlier this year when a similar topic arose.

 

Thank you for your insights!   I will look up John Hick.  I struggle with deciding how active God  is in the world.  Natural disasters and random accidents happen all the time, so he must not be willing to prevent those.  People are still astonishingly evil to other people, so he apparently is not willing to prevent that.  So how much does God control?  It seems that if he is here, he is "in the background".  Yet there is still much beauty and love in the world when you look for it.  It seems like we need to initiate the connection.  The invitation is always there, but people must accept the invitation and change how they act in order to make this world a better place through our actions towards others and deal with the natural disasters, accidents, and diseases in the best way that we can.  So, I think God works through people, but it has to be voluntary on people's part.  If we accept the invitation to love and live our lives that way, this world will be as good as it can get, given the natural threats.  If we don't, we make the world even more hostile and threatening.  

So, I don't think we should pray to ask God to do this or that for us.  We need to pray for wisdom, courage, and strength to  live a life of love in this otherwise threatening world. 

Your thoughts?

 

 

Thank you for your insights!  I guess where I was going with this is that I can understand man-made evil in this world.  We are "survival" oriented like all other animals and since we are at the top of the food chain, we can choose to harm others to make our own life more comfortable.  But there are natural 

In thinking about why there is pain and suffering in the world, I start by breaking this down into two root causes-

Man-made- God gave us free will so that we can be individuals and not puppets.  This gives man the option work for the good of the community and help others (love), or to be self-centered and hurt others.  This explains that part of pain and suffering in the world.

Nature-made- Natural disasters, diseases, random accidents.  Why does God let these things happen if he is all powerful?

The only answer that I can come up with is that God can change the minds and hearts of people through the life of Jesus and the actions of other people, but is not able/willing to change the laws of physics that control the natural world.  We can do something about the Man-made pain and suffering by following the teachings of Jesus and  showing love to others, but we cannot stop the natural world entirely.  

Are there any published theologians that have proposed a similar view?  Others thoughts on this?

Thank you for your responses.  I look forward to getting into deeper discussions and learning from "the wisdom of the crowd".  

Hello All-

I am a thoughtful, logical Christian.  Technically United Methodist, but more liberal than the leadership of this denomination.  Read a lot of Spong and agree with most of his stuff, but not sure I can live with how remote his God is.  Also reading a lot of Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest- who tracks along with Spong on most things, but for him Christ is everywhere and in everything, just waiting for us to realize it and accept it.  I have been frustrated in trying to find a group to have civil discussions with about theology.  I think we all learn and benefit from open discussion, but A) it is not something most of my family or friends want to talk about and those who are connected to our church only want to talk about "what" God is doing in their lives, not "whether" God is active in their lives.  I am hoping that this is place where I can compare thoughts and insights with others with a similar interest?  Is that the case?