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Showing posts from October, 2012

The Problem of Suffering

The Book of Job  ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb and naked shall I return, the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’.  ‘Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes.’ ‘ Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and not receive the bad?’ Job is a righteous man who is visited with tragedy and suffering: the death of all his children and an illness which sees him infected with painful sores all over his body. His suffering and whether God is just is the subject of the Book of Job in the Old Testament. If we suffer even when we are righteous and follow the law, is God therefore unjust? For the writers of this book, suffering cannot be seen as visited upon Job as punishment for a secret sin he is not aware of – his three friends that come to lament with him, but then accuse him of wrongdoing are shown to be in error. The book

Art and Imagination: the apocalyptic vision

Rev 12.7-12   Michael Defeats the Dragon   And war broke out in heaven ; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.  Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, ‘Now have come the salvation and the power    and the kingdom of our God    and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down,    who accuses them day and night before our God. But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb    and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. Rejoice then, you heavens    and those who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea,    for the devil has