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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Let’s solve the problem of evil > Gospel of Suffering and Compelling Knowledge.... | Forum Quick Jump
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Modes of Thought
Registered Member
Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 817
| Posted 12/18/2001 6:40 AM (GMT -6) |   | I was going to post this on the “newcomer” thread but this got far enough afield to start a new thread, plus I haven't started one for a while. 
[In response to Mephi's recent stuff on the aforementioned thread....] Meph, you are doing GREAT! One thing I would add is that the direction that Mephi is going lines up PERFECTLY with what SK called the "Gospel of Suffering" as well as the intuitions which created a whole culture of martyrdom in the early church (which by the way contributed massively to the success of the preconstantinian church). The notion of a gospel of suffering (as SK uses it in a book by that title) has to do with the passage "Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Matt. 11:28-30)
Ultimately we are not called to comprehend/understand everything but to imitate Christ as the Spirit leads. This will mean taking up heavy burdens and carrying them as though they were light (as Christ did). This is what the word "meekness" describes. A strong and disciplined beast of burden that makes difficult work look easy. Doc did a great sermon on this once upon a time....
Faith hopes and holds that these burdens will indeed be light (in some sense) if God is faithful in leading you to bear them, for in our weakness, God's strength is made perfect. In stark contrast, and I say this as much to myself as anyone, but the American church breeds seriously WHINER Christians. (Just my personal opinion. I happen to know I am a whiner. This is confirmed by Christians I know from India and other places where persecution is life-threatening, not peer-pressure against public prayer).
What happens when, rather than demonstrate the power of God through our meekness and obedience to God in bearing heavy burdens (which God IN us makes light as a witness to the world), we abstract ourselves out of the issue and wonder why this burden exists in the first place? Please note, I am not suggesting that anyone in particular is doing this, only that it seems very possible to do this in America especially.
At the risk of being overly pragmatic (and for the sake of contrast in this discussion) why should we EVER need to go beyond:
1. taking up the burdens God calls us to bear (by sound discernment).
2. trusting that God will use both our faithfulness and the fact that the burden is taken up to further the kingdom in whatever way God sees fit.
After all, if the world is a complex as doc suggests, WHAT on earth do we think we can really actually KNOW beyond this with any degree of certitude? (One of Meph’s concerns.)
Now, as Jacob, Abe, Moses, and Paul all did, we should feel free to go ahead and wrestle with God about the burdens. Argue about them, ask for relief from them, pray for release or strength, rebuke the evil, etc....as the Lord leads. But what of those things (evil or burdens?) that don't get "resolved" in that manner? This will be true of some things in everyone's life--otherwise what would it mean to take up Jesus' yoke and learn from him? And what did Paul mean when he said that (Romans 5:3; 8:16b-17)"we rejoice in our sufferings" and that "we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him."
Not sure where this will all come out, but I offer it for the conversation. We have been dealing with questions of theodicy for MANY threads. I am not offering a "pat answer" at all, but genuinely wondering when the ethical question emerges....how much talk about evil (or burdens?) can go on merely abstractly and still have it be an ethical conversation? A great book entitled "Compelling Knowledge" (Mary Solberg) speaks of three steps in a person's epistemological situation: 1. a person becomes aware of a situation that is not "ideal." 2. a person recognizes their own culpability in the situation (be it direct or indirect) and 3. the knowledge becomes "compelling" when a person lives differently because of 1. and 2. What does it mean that we are CALLED to suffering (as a prerequisite for inheritance?) in Romans 8:17?
I would add the element from Meph above about following the Spirit in all three of these so that #3 above becomes a matter of obedience, not simply a personal sense of conviction or even "guilt". Please note: I am not making any claims about any innocents or guilty parties here (neither does Solberg in the book), just what is said above. There are no innocent victims in the world, but there are things that can be done and people that can do them. The question I want to raise is when does this translate from abstract or head knowledge to compelling knowledge (which results in life-change)? And what does God have to do with this? Are the passages I used above appropriately applied in the manner I have done here? What is the mechanism for getting from abstract theologizing about evil to a life of obedience and suffering "so that we may also be glorified"?
To drag doc into this on my side on at least one level; he often says that the more under attack (burdened?) one feels the more one can be reassured that you are being effective for the kingdom. “You have a higher bounty placed on your head.” But couldn’t it also be that God is calling us to take up Christ’s yoke—the very one which Christ recommends TO the heavy laden? Doesn’t this affirm what is being said above? That our “meekness” is ideally a function of Spirit-led discipline and that we ought to rejoice rather than complain when God uses us to bear heavy burdens as though they were light. This does not at all mean that we “make light” of the burdens themselves! But rather that we handle them with the gracefulness and strength of the Lord, precisely because it is the Lord’s leading (and empowerment) that we do so. God in Christ BORE the evil and sin of the world and asks us to take up Christ’s yoke. What do we do with this stuff? What does it mean for our theodicy? What does it mean for our life? Are they different?
"Christianly understood, truth is obviously not to know the truth but to be the truth. Despite all modern philosophy, there is an infinite difference here..." SK | | Back to Top | | |
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