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Impassibility
Kenneth Surin (1982) writes that God is considered by some within orthodox Christian theology to be unable to experience pain or sorrow.
However, others concede that concluding God is impassible is a questionable view within traditional thought. Surin thinks that perhaps God limits his omnipotence by identifying with human suffering. Surin (1982: 97).
I conclude that God suffers but cannot alter his essential infinite and immutable nature.
Statically my PhD questionnaire survey results showed:
Question 17: God cannot suffer.
Seventy-two (33.8%) respondents chose ‘D’, while 78 (36.6%) respondents preferred ‘DS’. Therefore 70.4% of respondents reason that God suffers in some way. It can be deduced that many of these persons would assume God suffers simultaneously with his creation when they experience the problem of evil.
SURIN, KENNETH (1982) ‘The Impassibility of God and the Problem of Evil’, in Scottish Journal of Theology, Volume 35, Number 1, pp. 97-115. Edinburgh, Scottish Academic Press.
SURIN, KENNETH (1986) Theology and the Problem of Evil, Oxford, Basil Blackwell Ltd.
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Prince Charles is driving around his mother's Scottish estate when he
ReplyDeleteaccidentally runs over her favorite dog, a Corgi, crushing it to a pulp.
He gets out of his Range Rover and sits down on the grass, totally
distraught.
The whole world is against him and now his mother will go ballistic.
Suddenly he notices a lamp, half-buried in the ground. He digs it up,
polishes it, and immediately a Genie appears. "You have freed me from
a thousand of years of imprisonment", says the Genie. “As a reward I
shall grant you one wish."
"Well," says the Prince, "I have all the material things I need, but
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They walk over to the splattered remains of the dog. "Do you think you
could bring this dog back to life for me?", the Prince asks.
The Genie carefully looks at the remains and shakes his head. "This
body is too far gone for even me to bring it back to life. Is there
something else you would like?"
The Prince thinks for a moment, then reaches into his pocket and takes out
two photos.
"I was once married to this beautiful woman called Diana," says Prince Charles, showing the Genie the first photo.
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do you think you can make Camilla as beautiful as Diana?"
The Genie studies the two photographs and after a few moments says,
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Dancing on roller skates
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No Prayer is Too Small for Our Lord to Handle
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ReplyDeleteIt depends on his will.
HOW MOSES GOT THE 10 COMMANDMENTS
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The Arabs asked, 'What are Commandments?'
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'Can you give us an example?'
'Thou shall not kill.'
'Not kill? We're not interested..'
So He went to the Blacks and said, 'I have Commandments.'
The Blacks wanted an example, and the Lord said,
'Honour thy Father and Mother.'
'Father? We don't know who our fathers are.
We're not interested.'
Then He went to the Mexicans and said,
'I have Commandments.'
The Mexicans also wanted an example, and the Lord said 'Thou shall not steal.'
'Not steal? We're not interested.'
Then He went to the French and said,
'I have Commandments.'
The French too wanted an example and the Lord said, 'Thou shall not commit adultery.'
'Sacre bleu!!! Not commit adultery? We're not interested.'
Finally, He went to the Jews and said,
'I have Commandments..'
'Commandments?' They said, 'How much are they?'
'They're free.'
'We'll take 10.'
There. That should upset just about everybody.....
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Old Dr. Carver still made house calls. One afternoon, he was called to the Tuttle house. Mrs. Tuttle was in terrible pain. The doctor came out of the bedroom a minute after he’d gone in and asked Mr. Tuttle, "Do you have a hammer"?
ReplyDeleteA puzzled Mr. Tuttle went to the garage and returned with a hammer. The doctor thanked him and went back into the bedroom. A moment later, he came out and asked,
"Do you have a chisel"?
Mr. Tuttle complied with the request. In the next ten minutes, Dr. Carver asked for and received a pair of pliers, a screwdriver and a hacksaw.
The last request got to Mr. Tuttle. He asked, "What are you doing to my wife"? "Not a thing," replied old doc Carver. "I can’t get my medical bag open."
…..Doc’s Daily Chuckle (pkaine@roadrunner.com) by way of “Christian Voices” (ChristianVoices@att.net)
That We May Be One
ReplyDeleteI had never taken the Lord’s triumph over the demons seriously before, not until I read the WRF Statement. That’s the kind of message of Christian faith we’ll always need, one that pushes us back to the Word.
It gets you thinking. What else could there be in the Bible, that we casually ignore? Look at this from John 17, what Jesus prays for: I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Unity of believers, that’s clear enough, but could it really mean what it says?
In my Iowa home town there used to be an AP Associate Presbyterian church, of only four in the whole country. Now it’s part of the Reformed Presbyterian Covenanter church. How did that happen? Those Covies wanted to live in a country with Jesus in the Constitution, and until that happened they weren’t free to vote, they believed. But those AP Seceders could tell the difference between Jesus as head of the church and as head of the country, and very gradually won the Covies over, and now they’re one! Way to go!
That’s a beginning, but there is further to go. Why is it so hard to agree together? There’s a mean word that I don’t want to ever use, cultic. It means: there’s something very special about us and we’re not about to give it up, and you wouldn’t understand anyway. What if I sweeten that up to BC, ‘borderline cultic?’
I wish Martin Luther hadn’t drawn that line across the table and said, ‘you have another spirit.’ That was because he thought the Reformed people there in Marburg said that Jesus is there in the Supper in the wrong way. Come on, Martin, restrain yourself, all of us just agreed on sixteen things, doesn’t that open the door to working together and still talking? Hate to say it, Martin—but I think you’re BC.
I remember when premillennial was a Fundamental of the faith. You had to be totally sure that the world couldn’t get better until Jesus came back.Westminster Seminary couldn’t belong to the Philadelphia Fundamentalists since only some WTS people believed that. Clearly BC. There was a subdivision of that, pre-tribulation: nothing really bad will ever happen to us since Jesus will take us up before that happens. I was mid-trib and got prayed for. BC.
I’m comfortable in Anglican worship. I can still wear a tie to church, but where did I put it? It’s Eucharist, and I’m welcome! What’s the priest doing up there, mixing up something with his back turned to me? BC? No, not really, just something I need to understand.
ReplyDeleteWe’ve all been getting around more. Beer at an American church meeting? Of course not. But in Germany, well, noch ein dunkles bitte. There are OK kinds of cultural differences. Not BC at all.
Have you heard, some Roman Catholics and some Lutherans now agree on what the Bible teaches on justification! Better read it yourself, I haven’t figured it out yet: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_31101999_cath-luth-joint-declaration_en.html
That’s complicated, the RCs haven’t scrubbed the Council of Trent, and the Lutherans aren’t taking back Augsburg, but they say they have ‘a common understanding’ of things in the Bible. Maybe we can talk again? Maybe do some things together? BC going away? Hard to imagine but let’s think about it.
This one isn’t global, a long way from it, but it brings so much sadness into my heart that it feels that way. Westminster Seminary ’retired’ Professor Douglas Green because he read Psalm 23 and found there ‘God our Father as the Shepherd of Jesus.’ Heart-breaking BC.
That Jesus asks his Father to unite us, that’s crystal clear, isn’t it? How can that happen? How shall we pray and work for that? How should we learn the way? We can look again at Philippians 2: So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Isn’t it striking how often we can read that and be moved by it and hardly get around to asking, what would it be like to be ‘of one mind?’ It’s so easy to take that to mean ‘of the same love for Jesus’ or ‘to share a passion for the inner city’ or ‘to participate in repentance together.’ But theology is something else, isn’t it?
ReplyDeleteDo we seriously believe that we can do godly theology with cold hearts? That we can keep apart what we believe from what we know the Lord is calling us to do? Why would we think that? Historians would tell us to look at Schleiermacher and his intent to be an even better Pietist than he had known with the Moravians, leading to almost total abandonment of the clear teaching of Scripture. Doesn’t that example show conclusively, that inevitably when we look at our hearts we will look away from our heads? That passion for Jesus Christ is theologically misleading?
Our own history may show the same thing. Jonathan Edwards taught us more about our ‘religious affections’ than anyone else ever has. But then didn’t all of his closest disciples fall into the abyss of the ‘New England theology,’ looking to their feelings way too much? Isn’t religious emotion ‘confused thinking’ and to be avoided?
Those examples are instructive and we must learn from them, but learn from them the right things. We must not abandon theological precision in biblical study but must learn to do better in its application. This is clear in the sermons we foster. Are we satisfied with a theological lecture that gives us the meaning of a passage, or do we know that is just not enough? Don’t we gravitate to the sermons that open up our hearts to the truth and show us the way we must go? The ‘application’ of a sermon is another way of speaking of its meaning for our lives, and we will not be godly satisfied without it. [Edwards’ ‘Religious Affections’ requires a much more thorough discussion and I hope to do that very soon].
It’s clear to me that it is at that ‘application’ level that not only preaching but theology itself becomes meaningful. We’ve been forgetting so much of the meaning of our doctrines that they can seem to drive us apart instead of bringing us together. Here are three examples. #1: While trying to dialog on ’infant baptism,’ it helps my students to think about what their message at a baby’s funeral would be.
#2: ‘Election’ can easily be taken to state the unknown character of the plan of God; that can make evangelism look foolish. So what if the emphasis of Romans 7 and 8 itself were utilized, that when we are so discouraged over our lack of growth in godliness, ‘wretched man that I am,’ then election can be seen as a vital and hopeful truth for us, that ‘nothing will separate us from the love of Christ?’ While there are other sides to election, isn’t that the most obvious and helpful, one that we can all agree with?
ReplyDelete#3: Currently we are considering whether gays have a natural disposition that we should not call into question. But don’t we believe that all of us not only do sinful things, but have an underlying sinful nature that gives rise to them? So that the gay tendency is not that unique, but another example of a specific sinful nature, not we all have but very similar to those we all possess. Believing that something is ‘natural’ to us just doesn’t mean that it may not be sinful. Underneath everyone’s living in a way we think of as natural is ungodly idolatry, isn’t that a Christian faith that we all accept?
I hope those illustrations suggest the way ahead for all of us, a way that will show us how to have the one mind that Jesus asks of us. That way would embody godly asking and listening to each other, in every dimension of our lives, not just the ‘rational.’
Why must we listen and ask, to order to gain unity of heart and mind? The call of our Lord Jesus Christ must come first. We may differ on to what extent that is feasible, but never on his calling to us to do what we can.
It is not an exaggeration to say that the future of the gospel now hangs in the balance, at least in the ‘West.’ Os Guinness’s Renaissance makes that especially clear, Fitz Allison’s Trust in an Age of Arrogance too. Christianity is being rejected at its core in favor of generic meaninglessness. ‘Freedom of speech’ is redefined to make virtually anything Christians believe as ‘hate-speech.’ We rely ultimately upon the Lord and his powerful care of us, but it would be foolish at this juncture not to even try to stand together in caring for each other.
ReplyDelete‘Revival’ brings Christians together, as united prayer before revival comes, as joyful expression as it goes on, as thankfulness for the grand outpouring of God’s grace. Yes, some have watered down doctrine in order to make space for more effective methodology, but our knowing that must not be used to diminish the linking of a united understanding of the gospel with the effectiveness of its being heard and believed.
Our unity would help us in many ways, but it is still our Savior’s desire that is most important. He calls us to many apparently impossible ways, and we seek to trust him as we obey. But this one is especially central to Jesus and his gospel for us. As he approached Calvary he knew of his unity with the Father and the Spirit, and that led him to ‘your will be done.’ From his precious unity he went to ours. That is now our calling, as the church around us crumbles away.
We know the dangers, of course we do. We know how BC gives us identity and security and comfort. But we are called to listen, and then to be candid about our remaining discomfort, to do that again and again until we express our Lord Jesus’ prayer for us and come then to His Table together.
Would our common agreement on our ‘spiritual formation’ help? I hope to bring that to you soon.
D. Clair Davis
My colleague figures the work cart that sounds like a train moving on the corporate tile has steel wheels only as in 18th Century. I reason it has hard plastic tires perhaps but is very loud and rubber tires are in order. It can be deafening with the tall ceilings and echoes trying to converse.
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