A Suffering God :: Essays Papers

A Suffering divinityMost peck in this adult male have an idea of who or what divinity is. Whether they believe in divinity or not, they have certain opinionions that they use to define divinity. Traditionally, due in large part to classical theism, people define immortal more often than not by His omnipotence. A lot of people have an image of God being an all-powerful ruler over the entire universe. These ideas come egress of a mindset that affirms the greatest being must be the peerless with all the power. They imagine a being that is so far preceding(prenominal) the world, that He back endnot be affected by what humans do. They want to continually affirm that He is completely unchanged, unmoving, and compassionless. To uphold this belief denies a unsloped portion of Scripture as well as liturgical impost within the church. For example, Hosea 11 describes Gods compassion and concern maturement for the Israelites in a mode that assumes Gods changing emotions (Inbody 145). This power-based concept of God essentially leads to some of the biggest problems in accepting faith. For example, if God is all-powerful, why does he allow evil to exist in the world? Furthermore, if God is all-powerful, then how can humans or any creatures have sincere freedom (Placher xiii)? It seems impossible to answer these questions by denying that evil and freedom exist. It can be clearly seen and argued that bad 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 suffering in the world. As a result, God ends up getting the blame 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 re primary(prenominal)s God. The best way to do this is to change the way one perceives God. This does not mean p eople are forced to abandon the biblical witness of God, but sort of to come up with a better way to understand the paroles language concerning God. Too 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 distinctive of Gods nature, it becomes much easier to produce meaningful conceptions of God.