Creation Untamed, by Terence E. Frcthcim
The book, Creation Untamed: The Bihle, God, and Natural Dísasters, by Terencc E.
Fretheim, is a dedicatecl Olcl Testament theological interpretation of human sufTering, especially during a natural disaster. Frethcim explores on of the most disturbing questions in human life, about the presence and role of God when a natural disaster occurs. In answering the question, thc author provides an interactive analysis and a ncw perspective of human suffering and natural disasters offered by some well-known Old Testament incidcnces, such as the account of creation,
Noah and the great flood, and the suffering of Job. The biblical excerpts provide the guide to
Fretheim's discussion as hc highlights the natures,
…show more content…
Hence, hc makes an important deduction that God, as described in the Old Tcstament, is sympathetic, considerate, and relational. He is involved in natural disasters and consequently suffers thcir outcomes. Due to thcse qualities, God can be engaged through prayers during any adversity.
The book is organized into fivc interrelated chapters with overlapping and repeated ideas,
This makes Fretheim to provide persuasive emphases to his arguments effectively. In the first chapter, Fretheim argues that the world as created by God was good, but with no absolute perfbctness, He supports his arguments by exploring the creation story, as recorded in the frrst and second chapters of book of Cenesis. According to him, God created a good world. However, thc creation did not achieve outright perfbotness, in terms ol orderliness (Frcthcim, 2010).
Adranacus 2
Hence, it is still undergoing the process of crcation to bccome perfbct, which in somc instances may create disorclerliness that result into natural disasters. Therefore, Frctheim related the natural disasters with the continuity process of the crcation towards perfbctness. In the samc
…show more content…
Therefore, both human and God are responsible for continuous nurturing of the orderliness of the creation.
In chapter two, Fretheim (2010) discusses the occunence of natural disasters in terms of the relationship between God and humans. He also looks into the possible role of evil, human sin, and God's judgment in the occurrence of natural disaster. His main reference text is the account of Noah and the great flood. He tries to argue against the common notion that that, disasters are direct consequences of God's judgment to some kinds of sin. Fretheirn argues that the judgment of God is not punitive, but recuperativc in nature and is meant to bring cleansing to people. With this idea, Fretheim introduces the idea of intimate relationship between God and humans. Consequently, the judgment of God over sin or evil associated with human behaviors shows the goodness of God and his grief over the disaster inflicted upon humans. For instance, he says that despite God allowing people to the consequences of their sins, hc does not give up on them. This makes God to suffer the consequences of natural disasters. Meaning, the suffering of God is also expressed as the judgment of humans. Therefore, suppose there is no
Drea Knufken’s thesis statement is that “As a society, we’ve acquired an immunity to crisis” (510-512). This means that humans in general, or citizens of the world, have become completely desensitized to disasters, we think of them as just another headline, without any understanding of their impact upon fellow
...ere watching the actual God. In this work, the events and nouns in nature symbolize the presence of God; whether it is beautiful and giving such as the pear tree, or destructive and vengeful such as the hurricane. Many events of the book revolve around the weather and the climate, the seasons, and it shows that religion is open-minded, and that it can be interpreted in many different forms.
this because he does not want to believe in a God that would let him suffer the way he has (by
After reviewing the work of David Hume, the idea of a God existing in a world filled with so much pain and suffering is not so hard to understand. Humes’ work highlights some interesting points which allowed me to reach the conclusion that suffering is perhaps a part of God’s divine plan for humans. Our morals and values allow us to operate and live our daily lives in conjunction with a set of standards that help us to better understand our world around us and essentially allows us to better prepare for the potential life after life. For each and every day we get closer to our impending deaths and possibly closer to meeting the grand orchestrator of our universe.
It is easy to place the blame on fate or God when one is encumbered by suffering. It is much harder to find meaning in that pain, and harvest it into motivation to move forward and grow from the grief. It is imperative for one to understand one’s suffering as a gateway to new wisdom and development; for without suffering, people cannot find true value in happiness nor can they find actual meaning to their lives. In both Antigone and The Holy Bible there are a plethora of instances that give light to the quintessential role suffering plays in defining life across cultures. The Holy Bible and Sophocles’ Antigone both mirror the dichotomous reality in which society is situated, underlining the necessity of both joy and suffering in the world.
He was a man who “provided the perfect atoning sacrifice for the sins of all mankind, thus making the crucifix, or cross, one of the defining symbols of Christianity” (Fairchild). Jesus was pinned on a cross and took on the burden of sins of the world in order to relieve humanity of all suffering. Although Jesus experienced momentous amounts of agony during this process, he was successful in appeasing the suffering of the Christian community, ultimately resulting in a positive outcome of relief for future generations of people. The well-being of one was sacrificed for the progression of many, making a reasonable case for the justification of Jesus’s actions. Suffering is not all bad the way that we perceive it to be and the amount that we suffer is largely based on our own emotional will to endure pain and seek personal and communal benefit from our own agony. Jesus can be said to have tolerated an unimaginable quantity of emotional suffering through displacing the sins of the world onto himself. On the other hand, his will to withstand this suffering and reasons backing his sacrifice diminished the pain that he underwent. Humans suffer so that we can improve our own lives and utilize our experiences to prevent the suffering of others who have not yet taken part in the misery that we
If God is all-good, he would this world to be the best of any possible world.
of it. If we look at the example of Christ, he had to suffer but rose
these terrible events happen to him and even starts to question if God is even real. “For the first
Then, in the preceding section, Rachels, tries to validate the existence of God by using several types of arguments such as Argument from design, Evolution and Intelligent
In the first chapter of the book, Creation Facts of life, Dr. Gary Parker goes on to tell the reader about his conversion from evolutionist to creationist. Dr. Parker informs the audience that the only tools needed to see how God’s hand is present in science are logic and observation. He utilizes the example of the pebble and the arrowhead to show how easy it is to see when a designer is present. In addition, Dr. Parker explains how it would have been impossible for life to begin from DNA and proteins through time and chance. But it was very possible for God to create life with same materials because He designed everything in such an organized way that it would create system. Furthermore, the author disproves evolution’s claim of homology when
feelings, he lets those that he loves die, and abandons his own creation. Even the creature couldn’t have committed
At the early stage of novel, God is used as narrator’s scapegoat for failures that resulted from his actions. Narrator mentions God multiple times in the passage that usually talks about his failure. The views on God seem to be neutral as Narrator slightly mentions that “…God only knows if there’s any sense in my looking for a job any longer! All these refusals, these partial promises, simple noes, hopes built up and knocked down, new tries that ended each time in nothing” (Hamsun 5). Narrator believes that God is omnipresent and confess that only God understand what he is going through. But narrator’s view on God turns into anger as more misfortunes befall upon him and he states that “I came on the weightiest objections against the Lord’s arbitrariness in letting me suffer for everyone else’s sins” (Hamsun 20). The narrator suddenly changes his attitude toward God and goes into delusion like thought that God has chosen him to suffer and he thinks the God is the root of problem and that he is the problem for all his unfortunate ends regarding his living conditions and job status.
The concept of suffering plays an important role in Christianity, regarding such matters as moral conduct, spiritual advancement and ultimate destiny. Indeed an emphasis on suffering pervades the Gospel of Mark where, it can be argued, we are shown how to "journey through suffering" (Ditzel 2001) in the image of the "Suffering Son of Man" (Mark 8:32), Jesus Christ. Although theologians have suggested that Mark was written to strengthen the resolve of the early Christian community (Halpern 2002, Mayerfeld 2005), the underlying moral is not lost on a modern reader grappling with multifarious challenges regarding faith in the face of suffering. In his article "A Christian Response to Suffering", William Marravee (1987) describes suffering as an "experience over which we men and women continue to stumble and fall". The way we view God is crucial to the way we view suffering according to Marravee, who delineates the disparity between a view of God as an ‘outsider’ and the biblical image of God – where God is an ‘insider’ who suffers with us in our struggle. This essay seeks to explain the Christian view of suffering and the purpose suffering can have in our lives.
When God created the world “by faith is we understand that the world were framed by the word of God, so that the things which we see how did not come into being out of things which had previously appeared” (Athanasius...