Perhaps the oldest question in human thought is the question of suffering. It is especially acute for Christianity, a faith that confesses a God that is both omnibenevolent and omnipotent. If God is perfectly good, and all powerful, why is there evil in the world? Given the evil and suffering in God's good creation, how has God acted to deal with it? Does God suffer along with his creation?
These questions, and more, are addressed in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Christian Studies, shipping soon. Below is a table of contents for the issue, and a brief excerpt from Benjamin J. Williams article, "The Audacious Claims of Scripture in a World of Suffering." Subscribe today to ensure you receive your copy of JCS III/3!
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”
Excerpt from "The Audacious Claims of Scripture in a World of Suffering," by Benjamin J. Williams:
Ancient people viewed the cosmos differently than modern observers, but the primary difference is not a scientific one. Most of what can be said about the “heavens above, earth beneath” cosmology of the ancients is not incompatible with the modern expanding universe we imagine any more than a flat map of the United States is incompatible with a globe representing the Earth. Additionally, we might notice that the overall view of the universe as depicted in Hebrew literature and Ancient Near Eastern religions is not dissimilar in many respects.
However, for all the similarities, Hebrew cosmology was fundamentally different from its ancient peers in one telling regard. The first major chasm separating the typical pagan cosmology from the Hebrew cosmology was in its overall tone. When an ancient person imagined his world, what did he think of it? Modern observers typically miss one of the simplest and most important factors for understanding ancient life and its sense of space and story: Ancient life was miserable to an extreme that modern people can barely imagine, and the gods did not care.
Children took the brunt of the ancient world’s hardship. As an example, one study of a Roman tomb complex containing 197 individuals found that nearly 50% of those in the tomb died before reaching adulthood. Research in Jewish epitaphs reveals that the average Roman Jew died before 30 years of age, with even lower figures being discovered for the average Roman in Egypt. Likely less than half of Romans reached the age of five.
And then came the plagues. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius, a plague similar to smallpox swept the Roman Empire, and between a quarter and a third of the population died in a fifteen-year span, including Emperor Aurelius himself. In the Christian catacombs of Rome, researchers have noted that twice as many people died in August and September compared to other months, indicating that contagious fevers and related diseases were likely to blame. In ancient Egypt, April and May were the fatal months due to typhoid spreading along the Nile banks and delta. Nearly two millennia earlier in the 18th century BC, we have letters to the king of Mari indicating that a recent epidemic has made the town of Dunnum a “pile of corpses,” and the whole episode is described as “the devouring of a god.”
Consequently, suffering is the primary disease to be cured in essentially every ancient religion...
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