Creation Untamed by Terence E. Fretheim

Author:Terence E. Fretheim
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9781441213594
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2010-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

4

Suffering and the God of the Old Testament

To this point in the book, suffering has been an integral part of the conversation. From the messy ways in which God has chosen to work with already-existing creatures in the becoming of the world, the devastating effects of the flood disaster, and the specific hardships that Job undergoes at the “hands” of such creational processes, suffering – both human suffering and animals’ suffering – seems to be integral to the kind of world God has created. Such suffering may not be specifically planned by God, but is not suffering understood by God to be a virtually inevitable part of the becoming of such a beautiful world? At the same time, suffering is a reality that has its roots in factors other than natural disaster. And so this broader understanding of suffering is important to consider so that the suffering from natural disasters is given a broader context. In this chapter we take a closer look at the nature of suffering and its place in God’s world.

Walk up to any person you know or don’t know, and you can be certain that you have one thing in common: you have experienced suffering. And at some level almost everyone has experienced suffering because of natural disasters. In any community you would care to name, there is grief enough from such experiences to freeze the blood. Sometimes the suffering is very evident to all; at other times it is deeply hidden, and we manage to keep our composed facades in place. However much one or another of us has suffered deeply and profoundly, no individual or community has a corner on suffering. At the same time, the word “suffering” can, unfortunately, be “leveled” to refer to everything from a headache to the Holocaust, with few if any distinctions made with respect to severity and impact, whether social or personal. Some differences within the category of suffering are important to develop, and that is one thing I seek to do in this chapter.

Suffering is something we all wonder about, even though the questions are not always or specifically voiced. At the same time, questions about suffering are more pervasive than we might think, both within and without religious communities. The questions of those who experience suffering vary, but God is often the one to whom and about whom the questions about suffering are addressed, directly or indirectly. The title of a recent book by Bart Ehrman, God’s Problem, correctly conveys the idea that suffering is not simply a human problem; it is also God’s problem.1 And, as I have claimed, suffering would be a problem for God even if sin had never entered the picture. But how one articulates that link between God and suffering is a major issue, and many such perspectives have a potentially negative effect on the church’s witness to God.

People all too often assume that the suffering they are experiencing has specifically originated with God. One need only think of the various God questions that were asked in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (or other disasters).

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