A world without suffering can't exist

Sounds like she's cribbing from Lewis' "The Problem of Pain".

I always thought the point about Christianity was that God could create a world without suffering, and did - Eden.

Green's doctrine sounds more like Stoicism or some kind of Buddhism, or something??

Some random disjointed thoughts:

The only time the body is in equilibrium is when we are dead. There will be enough time for freedom from suffering and peace of mind then.

About the "know everything about violence, but nothing about suffering" line: this is true; we watch violence together, but suffering in the modern world is (increasingly) a private matter.

The quote above by Green is very Stoic/Buddhist, but the rest of the article is really not.

To this nonbeliever, that there is suffering doesn't disprove the existence of god. But it does disprove the idea that god intervenes in human affairs.

I'm not versed enough in theology to tackle this properly, but the essay seems predicated on the idea that in a world where free will allowed the possibility of the Fall which then happened, the only way to preclude any further suffering would be to remove free will--a concept I tend to agree with.

However, it is possible to imagine an unfallen world with no suffering; indeed, ought we not as Christians see suffering in a sense as being part of the discord between what ought to have been and what is?

In other words, that an adult can--and sometimes does--abuse a child, causes us to recoil in horror. But why? Why do we continue to expect that adults will not harm children as the norm in the face of so much evidence that adults *do* harm children--and not only physically or sexually, but emotionally as well?

Do we, ourselves, know no adult who still suffers the trauma of having been torn down repeatedly by a parent whose abuse left no bruises and isn't illegal (and really couldn't be, unless we're going to make it illegal ever to say anything slighting or dismissive to a child)? Worse, can we look at ourselves as parents and say that we have never, out of tiredness or inattention or fear or some other reason, said cutting or empty or rude things to a child?

Then why do we think this is wrong, flawed, broken of us or of those parents whose adult children still suffer? Why do we insist in the face of the near universal reality that adults, even if they never actually abuse a child, frequently fail to treat the child as a beloved Other, that this is not how it ought to be--that, indeed, treating not only our children but our spouses and our neighbors and even the stranger among us as a beloved Other is how we ought to behave?

I'm sure the atheists or materialists have lots of explanations as to how we evolved to hold this little bit of insanity so firmly, this notion that such things as peace, harmony, and the true capacity for the kind of love that is never selfish but elevates the Others to the level of the Self and is willing to sacrifice all for them really does exist, and that we fail when we don't live up to that ideal in some way or another. As a Christian, I think we are haunted by the echoes of the sinless world that was meant to exist; suffering strikes us as a wrong note because it is.

Mathewes-Green: There’s no distance. His life permeates creation, filling every bug and every blade of grass, sustaining every molecule.

Sounds like Frederica is going panentheist on us. Do they have holidays and take up collections?

I could buy into that notion, what with her vindication of plate tectonics and so forth. In fact, I am a fervent believer in Intelligent Design. But having spent years in engineering, I think the universe and especially the biological universe looks like it was designed by a committee. I am therefore led to conclude that polytheism is the only rational theology.

Now, about those earthquakes, O Mighty Poseidon ....

Timbo: But it does disprove the idea that god intervenes in human affairs.

I think you are right.

We knew a family where the wife had been raised Catholic and attended a Catholic women's college. (She had majored in French and spoke it beautifully, so I used to sort of flirt with her innocently since her husband didn't understand French. My wife however does speak French so there was hell to pay when we'd get home.) Devout to a fault, she had holy pictures all over the house, crucifix in the stairwell (no one ever fell down those stairs), a May altar, the works. Enough sacramentals to make a convent full of nuns mortally covetous. Whenever we went to their house for dinner and drinks, I had the feeling that it was All Saints' Day all year round. Even St. Augustine was staring sternly down from the dining room wall at me. After a few glasses of wine, I felt like saying, "hey, what are you glaring at me for? At least I haven't put away my wife and my kids are legitimate."

Anyway, to return to our sheep, she maintained that her mother had been cured of breast cancer by the application of some Lourdes water. I should mention also that her father had lost a finger in an extrusion machine at work.

She stopped speaking to me for a time, when, after hearing the story for the hundredth time, I suggested it was unfortunate that they had not saved some of the water for her father' hand.

BTW, her lukewarm-Catholic husband though this was hysterical. He did not get along well with his father-in-law.

"Sounds like Frederica is going panentheist on us. Do they have holidays and take up collections?"

Eastern Christian theology has always been "panentheist." God is in everything not in essence but in his energies. And yes, the Orthodox Church has both holidays and collections.

"But it does disprove the idea that god intervenes in human affairs."

No it doesn't. It simply disproves the idea that God is somehow bound to intervene in human affairs when we think it's necessary.

Franklin Evans: the correct deity would be Vulcan. Poseidon rules the waves, as it were, but Vulcan can shake them up at will. It's only logical.

Actually, Hephaestus is the Greek god (Vulcan is the Roman compeer). But Hephaestus is the god of the forge. The god of earthquakes is Poseidon (Neptune in Latin).

The reason I know this is that I was once a Jovian Witness. But I had to give it up. The orgies were wearing me out.

Actually, Hephaestus is the Greek god...

Gesundheit.

I was once a Jovian Witness.

O, excellent!

But I had to give it up. The orgies were wearing me out.

You were clearly given no knowledge of Dionysus. He was the patron god of stamina, amongst other things.

"Your penchant for Jesuitical casuistry is showing, Rob."

No, seriously. The essence/energies distinction in Eastern Christian theology goes back at least to the Cappadocians. Later you find it in Maximus Confessor and then most notably in Gregory Palamas.

"we then are confronted with God's recently energising a Pakistani earthquake, just to cite the latest in a long line of catastrophes from Noah onward."

Travel with all possible speed to amazon.com or Borders and secure a copy of David B. Hart's book 'The Doors of the Sea.' It's the only book on theodicy you'll ever need, until someone, perhaps Hart himself, writes a bigger one expanding on his thesis. In case you didn't know, Hart is the premier Orthodox theologian/philosopher of our time, possibly the premier American theologian, period.

Re: amputees, God apparently didn't perform that particular trick even in Bible times, unless you count the healing of Malchus' severed ear. It's never been a problem to me, therefore, why he doesn't do it now.

No problemo.