User:Vejlefjord/Sandbox-Two

God’s suffering as God’s vindication
P. T. Forsyth wrote The Justification of God, while the first world war was killing ten million and wounding another twenty million from around the world. In the face of such evil, Forsyth found philosophical theodicies lacking because human reason cannot justify God. Only God can justify himself in a world like this and he did so in the Cross of his Son. By the Cross, God justified himself by undergoing suffering and affliction that exceeded all that humans undergo. Forsyth called this “God’s own theodicy” in contrast to human theodicies. “God’s own theodicy” provides no philosphical answers to why God’s creation includes suffering. But, through God’s own theodicy, “we have Him.” God’s own theodicy is a theodicy that enables a right relationship with God in spite of unanswered questions.

Forsyth understands “God’s own theodicy” as enabling a right relationship with God rather than a philosophical justification of God in spite of the evil of suffering. This distinction correlates with the two connotations of the word theodicy. Theodicy derives from the Greek words theos and dikē. Theos is translated “God.” Dikē can be translated as either (a) just (and its derivatives justice, justified) or (b) right (and its derivatives righteousness, righteoused). Righteoused is an obsolete verb meaning “made righteous.” A theodicy designed to justify connotes rational arguments. A theodicy designed to righteous connotes relationship because in the Bible righteousness is primarily a relational term.

Karl Barth viewed the evil of human suffering as ultimately in the “control of divine providence.” Given this view, Barth deemed it impossible for humans to devise a theodicy that establishes "the idea of the goodness of God." For Barth (as for Forsyth) only the crucifixion could establish the goodness of God. In the crucifixion, God bears and suffers what humanity suffers. This suffering by God Himself makes human theodicies anticlimactic. Barth found a “twofold justification” in the crucifixion: the justification of sinful humanity and also “the justification in which God justifies Himself.”

Charles Williams also interpreted the Cross as justifying (righteousing) God in the sense of making a relationship with God “tolerable.” For Williams, without the Cross, a God who maintains a world tormented by sin and suffering so revolts a sense of justice as to be intolerable. However, the Cross makes a relationship tolerable because God made Himself subject to suffering. Williams wrote this view of the Cross during the destruction of World War II.

For N. A. Berdyaev, conceiving of God as only omnipotent renders theodicy impossible. However, a theodicy lies in “Christ as the God-Man.” In the crucifixion, God submits Himself to human sufferings. This is not an intellectual theodicy, but rather a theodicy based on deed. An “unsuffering” God would “remain in bliss” while his creation suffered.

Kenneth Surin also finds a theodicy in the biblical portrayals of God as suffering. “A God of salvation would be justified in creating a world which contained so much pain and suffering only if he were prepared to share the burden of pain and suffering with his creatures.”

In his autobiography, Peter Abelard, confessed his belief that suffering happens in accordance with the divine ordering. He accepted his own afflictions as punishment, but he rebelled against the God who afflicted the weak and innocent. Helen Waddell addressed this problem in her historical novel Peter Abelard. Abelard and his friend, Thibault, came upon a rabbit caught in a trap. Looking at the rabbit, Abelard asked, “Thibault, do you think there is a God at all? Whatever has come to me, I earned it. But what did this one do?” Thibault replied, “I know, only—I think God is in it too.” Abelard asked, "then, Thibault, you think that all the pain of the world, was Christ's cross?" "God's cross," answered Thibault, "and it goes on." Abelard responded, "O God, if it were true. Thibault, it must be. At least, there is something at the back of it that is true. And if we could find it—it would bring back the whole world."