Animal Suffering, God and Lessons from the Book of Job

Nature shows itself to us in ambivalent ways. Breathtaking beauty and cruelty lie close together. A Darwinian image of nature seems to imply that nature is a mere place of violence, cruelty and mercilessness. In this article, I first explore the question of whether such an interpretation of nature is not one-sided by being phrased in overly moral terms. Then, I outline how the problem of animal suffering relates to a specific understanding of God as moral agent. Finally, in the main part of the argumentation, I pursue the question to what extent the problem of animal (and human) suffering does not arise for a concept of God couched in less personalistic terms. If God’s perspective towards creation is rather de-anthropocentric, then moral concerns might be of less importance as we generally assume. Such an understanding of the divine is by no means alien to the biblical-theistic tradition. I argue that it finds strong echoes in the divine speeches in the Book of Job: They aim at teaching us to accept both the beauty and the tragic of existence in a creation that seen in its entirety is rather a-moral. Finally, I address the question what such a concept of God could mean for our existence.

Human Suffering and Theological Construction of Suffering

Suffering, as a natural part of life, will be burdensome and burdensome when we respond in the wrong way. Therefore, it is necessary to have a theological construction so that humans can survive and pass through their sufferings victoriously. This paper aims to build a theological response to human suffering by proposing the presence of a theology of suffering. It can be concluded that through the theology of suffering, suffering humans can accept suffering as God's sovereignty. This theology also builds on the understanding that the way of suffering can identify God. The suffering experienced by humans does not come immediately because it has a unique purpose for everyone. It is also found that in the theology of suffering, God suffered through the death of His Son on the Cross for the benefit of humanity. This paper is written entirely with an analytic approach by relying on various theories and interpretations of Bible verses through in-depth literature studies ABSTRAK: Penderitaan sebagai bagian alami kehidupan, akan menjadi sesesuatu yang membebani dan menjerumuskan ketika ditanggapi dengan cara yang salah. Oleh sebab itu, diperlukan kehadiran sebuah konstuksi teologis agar manusia dapat bertahan dan melewati penderitaanya dengan kemenangan. Paper ini bertujuan untuk membangun tanggap teologis terhadap penderitaan manusia dengan mengusulkan kehadiran teologi penderitaan. Disimpulkan bahwa melalui teologi penderitaan, manusia yang menderita dapat menerima penderitaan sebagai sebuah kedaulatan Tuhan. Teologi ini juga membangun pengertian bahwa Allah dapat dikenali melalui jalan penderitaan. Penderitaan yang dialami manusia tidak hadir serta merta karena memiliki tujuan khas bagi setiap orang. Juga ditemukan bahwa di dalam sebuah teologi penderitaan, Allah ikut menderita melalui kematian anak-Nya di atas Salib untuk kepentingan manusia. Paper ini sepenuhnya ditulis dengan pendekatan analitik dengan mengandalkan berbagai teori dan tafsiran ayat-ayat Alkitab melalui pendalaman kajian pustaka.

Divine Impassibility: A Comparison of Weinandy's and Culpepper's Perspectives on Whether God Suffers

From being generally regarded as a philosophical and theological impossibility, since the late nineteenth century the idea that God suffers has become popular and attractive among a vast array of Christian theologians. Due to this shift, many theologians no longer see the need to argue for it and divine passibility has even been called the ‘new orthodoxy.’ The matter has not yet been laid to rest and is made more complex because the terms ‘suffering’ and ‘impassibility’ are used with a variety of connotations. At the heart of the debate is the desire to assert God’s personalised love for all human beings. If suffering is intrinsic to love, as some ‘passibilists’ state, only a suffering God can also be a God who loves humankind absolutely and unconditionally. Also at stake is the salvation of human beings. For some, a suffering God necessarily implies His lack of transcendence and thus His impotence. From their perspective, Jesus suffers only in His humanity. The divine attributes of omnipotence and immutability are wholly unaffected by the crucifixion. For others, the intimacy of the hypostatic union makes it possible to attribute suffering to the Son in His divinity. Furthermore, by deciding to grant free will to humankind, God makes Himself vulnerable; the eternal knowledge of the divine permission for evil establishes an ‘eternal wound’ in God. This essay will examine the contrasting positions of Thomas Weinandy and Gary Culpepper to assess how it can be said that God must or must not suffer.

God, Suffering, and Omniscience

The topic of divine predication leads more broadly to issues surrounding divine omniscience, freedom, and evil. The question of why the righteous suffer remains one of the most intractable issues in philosophical theology. More generally, the very concept of a caring deity who is both omniscient and omnipotent gives rise to a logical dilemma: if God is omniscient, then God knows past, present, and future contingents; if God is omnipotent, then God can actualize any state of affairs; if God is benevolent, then presumably God wishes the best possible state of affairs for God’s creatures; and yet we cannot help but recognize the basic fact that the righteous suffer. And so, given the ineluctable reality of human suffering, God is either not omniscient, or not omnipotent, or not benevolent. Jewish philosophers struggle to address these problems.

Penderitaan Kristus Sebagai Wujud Solidaritas Allah Kepada Manusia

This article is a contemporary theology study about an idea of suffering God. Although there were some notion of suffering God in the church history, yet this remain important to be reconstructed today’s in considering the suffering of believers nowadays. This article is a literature research using methodology with qualitative approach, considered developing phenomenons surrounded churches, and analyzed it with biblical reflection of an idea of God’s suffered. As the conclusion, with biblical and theological phenomenon analysing, the suffered of Christ must be understood from a big God’s plan upon human being.Abstrak: Tulisan ini merupakan sebuah kajian Teologi Kontemporer tentang ide Allah yang menderita. Walaupun ada banyak pendapat atau pemikiran teologis tentang Allah yang menderita di sepanjang sejarah gereja, namun ide ini tetap penting untuk dikaji kembali pada masa kini, dengan mempertimbangkan konteks penderitaan orang percaya di masa kini. Penelitian ini merupakan literasi dengan menggunakan metode pendekatan yang bersifat kualitatif, mempertimbangkan fenomena yang berkembang di sekitar gereja, dan menganalisisnya dengan pendekatan refleksi biblikal atas ide Allah yang menderita tersebut. Pada akhirnya, melalui analisis biblikal dan fenomena teologis, maka penderitaan Kristus harus dipahami dari sebuah rancangan Allah yang besar atas manusia.