Suffering and God

[PairTheBoard]

I brought up this topic some time back and thought I'd revisit it. It's the age old objection to what Sullivan describes as the "preposterous" belief in a Loving God. How could a Loving God create a world with so much suffering in it. My response here does not give a completely logically satisfying answer. I don't think anyone will ever come up with such an answer. My response is also not the traditional one given by Chrisianity. However, it does involve Christianity.

In Great Mystery, this is the Best of all Possible Worlds. This is not "logical" because it appeals to a Great Mystery beyond objective evidence. It's also not very satisfying because being the "Best" doesn't mean it's "Good". Why was it "worth it" for a Loving God to create this "Best" of all possible worlds, if this is not a "Good" world? Maybe the answer is in the Great Mystery.

But here's my thought. If God created this World in spite of the suffering it involves, because it's the Best and because it is Good, then it's only Fair that God participate in the suffering of his creation. If he is willing to be with us, and suffer with us then I figure that's at least Fair. I can give him the benefit of the doubt on the Why cloaked in the Great Mystery.

I'm not talking about just suffering the way a Mother suffers when her child suffers, although there's that too. I'm talking about suffering the way a comrade in arms suffers with his brother in the fox hole. I don't just want God to Know with his ominscience what it means to suffer. I want him to feel it. I want him to experience it exactly as we do. Not just some other worldly simulation of the experience. I want God to feel the pain, the anguish, the agony, the grief, the heartache, the sorrow, the torment, the torture, the wretchedness, the misery. Whenever one of my brothers or sisters in my human family is going through such suffering I want to know that God is there with her, feeling exactly what she feels.

You might say I'm being unreasonable. Sorry, but that's how I feel. If in God's great Wisdom he created this Best of Good worlds in which we go through such suffering, then if he is really a loving God the least he can do is go through it with us. That may still not be completely satisfying, but at least it's Fair. I can live with it and give the benefit of the doubt to the rest of the Great Mystery.

Now you might ask, is there a Religion that points to such a God. And I would say, yes. That is the Truth beyond objective evidence I see in the statement of Christ on the Cross. Islam and Judaism have no such image of God. But the fundamental symbol of Christianity, the one exihibited in most every Christian Church, the one most meditated on, the one presented by Christian Proslytizers to show their God, is Christ on the Cross. A statement of a Suffering God. A symbolic statement of the Truth beyond objective evidence that I'm insisting on above.

There are those here who will argue that that's not logically enough. I don't claim it is. There are those here who will say that's heresy, not supported scripturally, and not "Real" Christianity. I reply, we no longer have to answer to the Inquisition; French, Spanish, German, Yours, or anybody else's. Take a look at Sullivan's view of Christianity in the Harris-Sullivan debate. Christianity is still alive because it's living in people. All kinds of people with all kinds of views on it.

PairTheBoard

[Subfallen]

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There are those here who will argue that that's not logical enough.

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Not me. Logic be damned, reason and sanity demand an anthropomorphic God if He is to exist. As you say, a God so human that we can imagine Him to feel the seared nerves of His burned martyrs and the broken hearts of His orphaned innocents. If Jesus wept for Lazarus, what sort of God could not weep for an entire world dead to Him?

[Subfallen]

One thing I don't understand though. If you're quite certain that this world is God's Best of All Possible Worlds---how can you simultaneously be so confident that the next world will be better?

Won't it probably be much worse, since we'll have a whole eternity to [censored] things up?

[PairTheBoard]

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One thing I don't understand though. If you're quite certain that this world is God's Best of All Possible Worlds---how can you simultaneously be so confident that the next world will be better?

Won't it probably be much worse, since we'll have a whole eternity to [censored] things up?

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Maybe because if it weren't for this world the next world would not be the next world.

PairTheBoard