Now almost twenty years ago, the tragic death of a college friend from cancer shortly after the birth of his first child was the catalyst for my period of deconstruction. Inexplicable suffering in the world had always vexed me--childhood diseases, natural disasters killing thousands--but my friend's death was scalding salt water on life's "open wound."
A few months later I read Lewis's A Grief Observed for the first time in years. Like Lewis, I never felt as if I questioned God's existence, but I certainly questioned what kind of God he was, and I could claim nothing more than an agnostic view of a number of faith claims people in my tradition proudly confessed.
Although I tend to recoil from the "God's ways are not our ways" response to tragedy and suffering, when it came to theodicy, I eventually reached the point where I conceded I would never find an intellectually and emotionally satisfactory answer to pain.
I recall an old post from Richard that still resonates with me a lot in which he said--and I'm paraphrasing--Jesus's teachings offer no explanation for suffering in the world, but they do tell us how we should respond to it.
While I don't agree with your division of Christians into those who make life harder and those who make life easier because I think we all do both, intentionally and unintentionally, I think that a drop more of grace on my part is far better than anything else I can do about the suffering of others. Thank you for this.
I’m sad and happy as I read this: It’s lovely and it is right, it’s wrong and confused. Everything is worldview defense, I suppose. Everyone seeks some safe harbor. Seeds seek some nurtured loam. Matter coalesces and bonds, passions fulminate and explode. We’ve levelled the mountains and filled in the holes, to the bitter winds never ceasing. Our roots are exposed.
Language, symbols and relations they roil and boil—the soil is turned over. A bit of humility and eccentricity to try to take cover. Everyone cleaves out a sojourner’s home. Is it cool? Are we on the fashionable margins? Is it real? Does it feel? Does it work? Have we gotten past our immaturity still?
Are we building? Are we breaking? Is the all hard work worth taking? Is it rest? A distraction? Am I now a part of the unfair equality faction?
We’ve been loved by the fundamentalist. We’ve been burned by progressive hate. Humbled by rubes and humiliated by new saints. Narratives are like roads on a map ever changing. Washed our feet in the new storm that was raging.
It’s all good. It’s all okay. And if we’re all ‘post’ something, let it be post-posthaste.
‘The open wound of life’ - that’s a very evocative description of how ‘the problem of pain’ (chiefly that of others) seems to me - it’s a wound I’ve been tending for thirty and more years. At times it threatens to kill my faith altogether; at other times it almost closes over - but then something happens, or a fresh idea strikes me, and rips it open again. So thank you for writing. Currently I’m pondering Thomas Jay Oord’s ‘The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence’, and wondering whether his ideas ‘let God off the hook’ (of responsibility for suffering). It’s a quite different angle from which to approach the problem, and it’s taking quite a bit of effort to work out whether it fits other aspects of the ‘theological framework’ with which I try to make sense of my faith.
Dr Beck, thank you. At first I identified with one obsessio, that of belonging, but then your courageous sharing made me realize that I also resonate with the same heartfelt kinship with suffering, especially of the innocent: children and creatures (I have been know to apologize to the roach as I step on it). Is it possible to walk in two worlds at once? Or perhaps, as one finds its epiphania, another obsessio comes to the forefront.
Now almost twenty years ago, the tragic death of a college friend from cancer shortly after the birth of his first child was the catalyst for my period of deconstruction. Inexplicable suffering in the world had always vexed me--childhood diseases, natural disasters killing thousands--but my friend's death was scalding salt water on life's "open wound."
A few months later I read Lewis's A Grief Observed for the first time in years. Like Lewis, I never felt as if I questioned God's existence, but I certainly questioned what kind of God he was, and I could claim nothing more than an agnostic view of a number of faith claims people in my tradition proudly confessed.
Although I tend to recoil from the "God's ways are not our ways" response to tragedy and suffering, when it came to theodicy, I eventually reached the point where I conceded I would never find an intellectually and emotionally satisfactory answer to pain.
I recall an old post from Richard that still resonates with me a lot in which he said--and I'm paraphrasing--Jesus's teachings offer no explanation for suffering in the world, but they do tell us how we should respond to it.
Dear Dr Beck,
I always find your posts and books helpful and insightful. Thank you for them.
On this matter I have found the book of David Bentley Hart about the 2004 Tsunami in the Indian Ocean really helpful. I dare to recommend it to you.
Thank you again and please keep writing
Kind regards
Graham Allan ,
Nelson ,New Zealand
While I don't agree with your division of Christians into those who make life harder and those who make life easier because I think we all do both, intentionally and unintentionally, I think that a drop more of grace on my part is far better than anything else I can do about the suffering of others. Thank you for this.
I’m sad and happy as I read this: It’s lovely and it is right, it’s wrong and confused. Everything is worldview defense, I suppose. Everyone seeks some safe harbor. Seeds seek some nurtured loam. Matter coalesces and bonds, passions fulminate and explode. We’ve levelled the mountains and filled in the holes, to the bitter winds never ceasing. Our roots are exposed.
Language, symbols and relations they roil and boil—the soil is turned over. A bit of humility and eccentricity to try to take cover. Everyone cleaves out a sojourner’s home. Is it cool? Are we on the fashionable margins? Is it real? Does it feel? Does it work? Have we gotten past our immaturity still?
Are we building? Are we breaking? Is the all hard work worth taking? Is it rest? A distraction? Am I now a part of the unfair equality faction?
We’ve been loved by the fundamentalist. We’ve been burned by progressive hate. Humbled by rubes and humiliated by new saints. Narratives are like roads on a map ever changing. Washed our feet in the new storm that was raging.
It’s all good. It’s all okay. And if we’re all ‘post’ something, let it be post-posthaste.
‘The open wound of life’ - that’s a very evocative description of how ‘the problem of pain’ (chiefly that of others) seems to me - it’s a wound I’ve been tending for thirty and more years. At times it threatens to kill my faith altogether; at other times it almost closes over - but then something happens, or a fresh idea strikes me, and rips it open again. So thank you for writing. Currently I’m pondering Thomas Jay Oord’s ‘The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence’, and wondering whether his ideas ‘let God off the hook’ (of responsibility for suffering). It’s a quite different angle from which to approach the problem, and it’s taking quite a bit of effort to work out whether it fits other aspects of the ‘theological framework’ with which I try to make sense of my faith.
Dr Beck, thank you. At first I identified with one obsessio, that of belonging, but then your courageous sharing made me realize that I also resonate with the same heartfelt kinship with suffering, especially of the innocent: children and creatures (I have been know to apologize to the roach as I step on it). Is it possible to walk in two worlds at once? Or perhaps, as one finds its epiphania, another obsessio comes to the forefront.