A Suffering God :: Essays Papers

A Suffering theologyMost battalion in this world have an idea of who or what matinee idol is. Whether they believe in beau ideal or not, they have certain conceptions that they use to define God. Traditionally, due in large part to virtuous theism, people define God mostly by His omnipotence. A make out of people have an image of God being an all-powerful prescript over the entire universe. These ideas come out of a mindset that affirms the greatest being must be the one with all the power. They imagine a being that is so far above the world, that He massnot be bear upon by what public do. They want to continually affirm that He is totally unchanged, unmoving, and compassionless. To uphold this belief denies a good portion of Scripture as well as liturgical tradition within the church. For example, Hosea 11 describes Gods compassion and concern growing for the Israelites in a look that assumes Gods changing emotions (Inbody 145). This power-based concept of God essential ly leads to few of the biggest problems in accepting faith. For example, if God is all-powerful, why does he allow demonic to exist in the world? Furthermore, if God is all-powerful, then how can humans or any creatures have real freedom (Placher xiii)? It seems impossible to conclude these questions by denying that evil and freedom exist. It can be clearly seen and argued that disconsolate things occur in this world, just as every person can understand they have freedom when they act. Classical theism puts an extreme emphasis on Gods omnipotence and seems to make God responsible for the pain and agony in the world. As a result, God ends up getting the unredeemed for the mistakes found in His creation. It becomes necessary, then, to propose a scheme in which God is not so powerful that He is incapable of relating and in which He also remains God. The best track to do this is to change the way one perceives God. This does not mean people are forced to ravage the biblical witn ess of God, but instead to come up with a better way to understand the Bibles language concerning God. as well as often people, especially Christians, jump to conclusions in defining God in terms of power. They overlook one of the main themes of the Bible that is summed up in 1 John 48 God is love. Once people understand that love is the key characteristic of Gods nature, it becomes a great deal easier to produce meaningful conceptions of God.