It has become apparent to me that the biggest factor in determining a persons atheism/theism has been the question of Theodicy in the face of the reality of suffering and injustice. It seems that if God was good and all powerful, then He would set the world aright, and there would be no pain, no suffering, and people would treat each other with love and respect. Experience teaches us that this is not the world we live in. So then it follows that we as Christians are left with a primary question that we are mostly unable to answer: is God good and all powerful? Our immediate response is and has been, yes. But how? If we are serious about asking these questions along with those we want to share Life with we had better spend some time wrestling with them. Here is how I am thinking and would love some input and response.
Walter Bruegemann has published and article in JSOT entitled “The Costly Loss of Lament”. In it he argues that in our modern/postmodern worship we have forsaken the most widely used form of worship in the Scriptures, the Lament. And as the Lament primarily calls into question God’s actions/inactions, by it’s loss we have reduced God to a two dimensional character who can only be praised and exalted, much like a despot who can never be questioned or criticized. Bruegemann argues that in so doing we remove from our relationship with God both our ability to effect a change by calling on God, and God’s ability to relate to us in love and to heal our wounds. (This is an oversimplification of Bruegemann’s article, and I recommend you read that work for further clarification, but for my purpose here it will suffice.)
Now this leads me my question of Theodicy. If the Bible is true, and I understand it correctly (a big if), after God creates mankind in the Genesis Narrative, he gives them dominion over all the earth (Gen. 1:28-30). If this is the case, then the question of God’s Goodness/Power is from the beginning transferred to us. If our experience with life has shown us that the authority over it is either not good, or not all powerful, then we can say, yes. Mankind is neither good, nor all powerful. And it follows that the loss of our corporate ability to call on God to rescue, to save and to fix the mess we have created is a primary reason for the world we observe. The Old Testament records several (12-18 depending on who’s counting) instances of God changing His mind when called upon by His people. If this is true, and the other half of that thought is true as well (God is unchanging in His nature, Heb. 13:8, etc) then it follows that God still allows Himself as the most powerful tool in our arsenal for doing good. And to not allow it’s use seems to be a plausible answer to our question of Theodicy. God, because of His nature and His desire for relationship with us, waits for us to call upon Him for change. And by not calling on Him, we remove Him from the equation and condemn ourselves to the vicious cycle that we find ourselves all to often in.
There is much more to be said on this topic, but I would like for others to weigh in on it and share their thoughts so that mine may be better informed and together we can wrestle with this question