A Look at Suffering - Part Five - A War?

Again, the cornerstone of our faith is based upon how we view God.


We've taken a look at the Blueprint Worldview - the predominant view of Christian's and the Church - that states: everything that happens in the world is ordained, if not allowed, by God for the accompliment of His will, or "secret plan."

But Boyd offers us a different view of God.  A view, he argues, is more aligned with with what we see in Jesus.

Boyd writes, "Jesus didn't come to declare that everything already manifests the Father's will.  He came, rather, to establish the Father's will, because the world as it now is doesn't consistenly manifest God's will."

Is there any argument there?

All it takes is five minutes of watching the nightly news or reading the top stories of today's paper to prove this.

Thus, Jesus' ministry is not one of a blueprint God but of an embattled God.

Boyd states, "Jesus' ministry reveals a warfare worldview in which God wars against those what oppose him."

A war against, "powers and principalities" as Paul says.  A war against those who would oppose his will.

In short, a war against Satan.

Boyd asks, "How are we to make sense of this fact?  How could the omnipotent God's creation become a war zone in which he has to genuinely fight to establish his will?"

Especially against Satan, and in light of God being "all-powerful?"

While a search to find answers to these questions may help us to understand the nature and reasons of suffering, the answers will fail in answering them completely.

However, "So long as we think of God's greatness in terms of sheer power, there is no adequate answer to these (any) questions."

If God is at war what does that mean for us?  What is our part?  What else might be going on that we don't understand?  How does this answer suffering?

Does it answer suffering?