Friday, November 28, 2008
What makes Christianity stand apart
In answer to the age-old question "why does God allow evil and suffering?" Christianity is the only world religion or faith system where God took on human form and suffered and died so in answer to the Question we may not have the full answer in this life but you could at least say God took part in our own suffering so to speak. Of course this all collapses if you view Jesus Christ as mere man, nice prophet and nothing more but for me the essence of Christianity is what I just said and you can't say this of the other religions. It helps make the Question bearable if not answerable and for a good read along this line read Taylor Caldwell's The Listener. It's almost as if God were saying to the human race since I gave my creatures free will I will allow evil to exist in the world but I, in the Second Person of the Trinity will also partake in the suffering it causes. Pretty profound if you stop to think about it. Now the dogmatic theologian will object that Christ died solely for our sins and to save us, that mine is an errant theology but that's my personal faith as Patrick M might say. Deep thought for the Day.
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A very good Deep Thought, in my opinion. And very good timing with the start of Advent this weekend, and preparing for the birth of our Lord and Savior.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'd rather start with something positive then another chapter in the idiot culture like that poor security guard who was opening the doors of a Wal-Mart on Long Island at 4AM on Black Friday and got trampled to death. You know us social conservatives have been saying for years now there's something wrong with the culture but let me just ratchet this up a notch, there is something seriously weirdly wrong with the culture and you wonder why people are agoraphobic.
ReplyDeleteIn fact I originally wanted to blog about it, devote a special piece to it but words fail. I would have had blogger's block, in a way it's unbloggable.
ReplyDeleteI am with you, when I heard about that death, I was just so disgusted. And then I thought how selfish people are, and ruthless, and now the family of that man are without him because of selfish people. I truly believe it is part of the culture of disrespect for life, which starts with abortion (because the woman's life, or even her convenience, is more important than the baby's) so then we can start justifying all sorts of selfish actions that can even hurt (or kill) someone else, but hey I got the whatever thing was on sale so it's all good.
ReplyDeleteDisgusting.
I wanted to also add to your OP on Jesus' suffering, because I suppose I don't know how awful a death being trampled is, but as far as ways to die, crucifixon is a very nasty way to die. So, Jesus did suffer very much for us.
ReplyDeleteIt boggles my mind what Jesus went through for us, it's hard to comprehend. Jesus' whole solidarity with human suffering, it's part of why I'm a Christian.
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