If I Were God, I'd End All the Pain, Pt 7 - Are All Your Questions Answered?

So, we've come to the end of reading Dickson's book, "If I Were God, I'd End All the Pain". How did you like the book? At the beginning of the book, Dickson put forward these questions:

"If I were God, I'd end all the pain, so why doesn't HE?
Is he powerless?
Is he not interested in us?
Or is he just plain not there?"

Now that you've read his book, has Dickson answered these questions? Or, more importantly, has this book prompted you to think more deeply about these issues and formulate your own response?

This book has certainly strengthened my own understanding about why God allows suffering in the world. I feel better equiped to be able to answer these questions if I'm asked. Having said that, it's not essential that we have all the answers. What's important is that we have an eagerness to keep asking questions and keep searching to understand God more. Let's encourage each other in growing in our knowledge and understanding of our Great God!

If I Were God, I'd End All the Pain, Pt 7- Chapter 6

God Has Wounds

Of all the ideas and images we have of God, I'm pretty sure that the idea that he has wounds is rarely considered. I know that it's not something that has really come to my mind before. It's an interesting concept, "God himself has wounds." In his final chapter, Dickson puts forward the wounds of God and argues that God suffers; that he is the "Deeply-Moved-Mover".

God has experienced the greatest suffering and misery ever known, which is revealed to us in the Bible. Dickson shows this to us through paralleling Psalm 22 and Mark 15. I found this a truly compelling read. I was struck by the explicit connections that Mark made to Psalm 22 as he wrote his account of Jesus' death. Through crying out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?", Jesus was making a deliberate connection to the suffering poet of Psalm 22. Here, Jesus shares in all people's suffering and pain. He knows what it's like to experience pain and misery. Dickson puts it like this:

"God intentionally enters our pain and misery, getting his hands dirty and even bloody. This is God at his most vulnerable and yet at his most glorious."

What amazes me is that through the death of Jesus on the cross God not only suffered, but that he willingly suffered for us.

If I Were God, I'd End All the Pain, Pt 6 - Chapter 5

The Renewal of All Things

I found the ideas presented in this chapter really interesting, something I never really thought about before.

Firstly, Dickson points out that their is an intimate connection between humanity and creation. So, when "humanity defied the Creator, this had devastating consequences for the creation itself. The physical environment...fell under the spell of our displacement of God." I've never really had that perspective presented to me before and I've never really considered that the actions of man affected creation as well. I like what Dickson says about it here,

"in biblical thought the earth bears the scars...of the traumatic rift that has occurred between us and God...the physical world now contains a measure of frustration and chaos...there is enough disorder evident to remind us that things are not as they should be."

I particularly like those last few words. This makes a lot of sense to me and I feel like I can better understand the 'whys' and 'hows' of suffering in this world now.

So, what will God do?

God is going to renew the creation. Our physical existence is not going to be removed, but renewed. Things will be as they should be. Again, this is something I haven't really thought about at much length and I enjoyed reading about it. What a joy to be reminded that heaven will come to earth and everything will be transformed; a new creation.

How do we know God's going to do it or that he can do it?

Through the resurrection of Christ. Dickson says, God "is willing and able to breathe new life where there is currently death." For me, Dickson was presenting Jesus' resurrection in a whole new way. I found this was a different perspective that I hadn't really considered before. The resurrection of Jesus is God's way of showing us that he can re-create the universe.

What were your thoughts on this?

The Devil on Suffering

I came across this this post about an article from The Briefing, 'The Devil on Suffering'. It's an interesting read.

Thoughts?