Discipline is an aspect of practical theology covered in my MPhil writing, but not significantly in my later PhD work.
2003 The Problem of Evil: Anglican and Baptist Perspectives: MPhil thesis, Bangor University
C.S. Lewis indicated that God used his love in discipline for the betterment of his creatures, and that this could lead to the temporary suffering of people.
Lewis compared a man disciplining a dog to God disciplining human beings. The creature is made better for the purposes of the master through this type of discipline which is often physically and emotionally painful.
Kilby stated concerning this view of Lewis: “If we keep Him at center, it is possible to suppose that pain is His method of training us for better things than we understand.” Kilby (1965: 67).
Lewis noted: “Those Divine demands which sound to our natural ears most like those of a despot and least like those of a lover, in fact marshal us where we should want to go if we knew what we wanted.” Lewis (1940)(1996: 46).
I think there is discipline in love which takes people to places of mental anguish and frustration that are not in the least desirable, even if they knew that things were working for the ultimate good. Nonetheless, God puts people through tough times and they will learn their lessons for the greater good; some will grow closer to God and some will harden in position against God.
People, as sinners, generally want to live lives in which their sinful nature can flourish. Even Christians still, at times, need painful discipline in order to take them from wrong attitudes and actions to right attitude and actions. Since God has our best interests at heart, it is my view that no amount of suffering which God gives an individual diminishes at all the total goodness of God.
Woods mentioned the other side of discipline: Now the dangerous thing about discipline is that, while it is designed to draw us nearer the Lord, it may also drive us away unless we understand why God permits it, or administers it, as it may be the case. Woods (1974)(1982: 44).
Hughes stated that: “Discipline, indeed, as the Latin disciplinia implies, is a process of learning or schooling, and in every generation there are believers who pass through the school and who in doing so find blessing.” Hughes (1990: 529).
With Woods’ idea then, suffering is used by God for our discipline and betterment, and ultimately death leading to resurrection clinches the process. To the secular critic of Christianity though, this may seem like a poor existence as people suffer their entire lives and perish to nonexistence.
HUGHES, P. (1990) A Commentary On The Epistle To The Hebrews, Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
KILBY, Clyde S. (1965) The Christian World of C.S. Lewis, Appleford, Abingdon, Berks, U.K., Marcham Manor Press.
LEWIS, C.S. (1961)(1983) A Grief Observed, London, Faber and Faber.
LEWIS, C.S. (1941)(1990) The Screwtape Letters, Uhrichsville, Ohio, Barbour and Company.
LEWIS, C.S. (1940)(1996) The Problem of Pain, San Francisco, Harper-Collins.
WOODS, B.W. (1974) Christians in Pain, Grand Rapids, Baker Book House.
If God, in a sense, does discipline the unbeliever, toward belief or further non-belief, it is theologically different than discipline in Christ. To clarify my MPhil work from 2003.
ReplyDeleteHebrews 12: 7 NIV
7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.