The Journal of Christian Studies volume III, issue 3 will be shipping to subscribers soon! The issue is focused on the question of suffering. Below is the editor's note and a list of contributors. If you haven't subscribed to JCS yet, be sure to do so today to ensure you receive your copy!
The problem of evil and suffering is one of a few conundrums that seems truly universal, common to all humanity, the philosophical and non-philosophical alike; the question is both intellectual and eminently practical. All the great religions of the world and the important philosophical schools throughout history have faced and addressed the problem of evil and suffering.
As David Hume’s character Philo put it, quoting the ancient philosopher Epicurus: “Is he [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?” The latent argument here is that the following three propositions cannot co-exist: 1) God is omnibenevolent; 2) God is omnipotent; 3) There is evil in the world. At least one proposition has to go. This line of reasoning is very old.
Non-Christian theists usually solve the problem by denying one of those attributes of God (usually omnipotence). Atheists, in the spirit of Epicurus and Hume, still use the argument to deny not just God’s omnipotence or omnibenevolence but the whole reality of God. Of course, the atheistic argument assumes that there is such a thing as good and evil, a difficult premise to maintain for an atheistic worldview. Boethius, probably channeling Plato, understood this inconsistency well: “If there is a God whence comes evil? But whence good, if there is not?”
At any rate, these questions that have plagued ancient pagan philosophers and their heirs also troubled early Christians and elicited various responses. In the early third century, Tertullian claimed that Marcion “languishes (as also now many people, and especially heretics) over the question of evil—‘whence evil?’”—and he does so from an “enormity of curiosity.” But the question certainly was not peculiar to Marcion, other heretics, or their “many” contemporaries, and it persists even among the least curious.
Defenses of traditional theism against arguments from evil, as well as full-blown theodicies (positive accounts or explanations of why God allows suffering and evil), have been offered throughout Christian history. For instance, Enlightenment-era believers like G. W. Leibniz claimed that evil is accompanied by a greater good and that ours is “the best of all possible worlds,” and Alexander Pope said, “What is, is right.” Such strategies have been less than convincing to people like Voltaire or Dostoyevsky’s Ivan Karamazov. But opponents of Christianity have not thought of anything that Christians have not already considered. The modern turn, as C. S. Lewis suggested, is that man has become the judge, and “God is in the dock,” as it were, on trial.
In this intellectual context, our question for this issue of the Journal of Christian Studies is not so much about answering the philosophical question or offering a philosophical theodicy. Our topic concerns a specifically Christian theology of suffering. What does the Bible (Old and New Testament) teach about suffering? What insights do the Jewish and Christian traditions contribute? What wisdom do biblical, philosophical, historical, and sociological perspectives impart? How should Christians think about suffering? How do these insights help us deal with suffering and comfort those who suffer?
Ultimately, the Christian faith embraces as a central tenet that suffering is preparation for glory, a principle symbolized and actualized in the cross of Jesus Christ. To such voluntary suffering Jesus has called his disciples, leading from self-centeredness to spiritual maturity.
Keith D. Stanglin
Editor
Table of Contents
Johnny Galloway (JD Candidate, William and Mary Law School), “‘You Did It to Me’:
Christ’s Presence in ‘the Least of These’”
Matthew Porter (McLennan Community College), “As in the Past, O Lord, Abide with Me:
A Theology of Remembrance in Psalm 77”
Eli Randolph (Student, Master of Theological Studies, University of Notre Dame), “Impassibility, Divine Suffering, and Theodicy: Ancient Answers to Contemporary Concerns”
Jerome Van Kuiken (Oklahoma Wesleyan University), “A Nicene Theology of Suffering”
Benjamin J. Williams (Senior Minister, Central Church of Christ), “The Audacious Claims of Scripture in a World of Suffering”
Alicia Williamson (Harding University), “Divine Suffering and Passibility:
The Active Suffering of an Impassible God”
John Young (Turner School of Theology), “‘Things We Deplore May Be Best for Those We Love’: The Funeral Sermons of T. B. Larimore”
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