Posted on 05/20/2006 7:50:26 PM PDT by sionnsar
So where was God in the tsunami?
Where was God? In and beyond all things, nearer to the essence of every creature than that creature itself, and infinitely outside the grasp of all finite things.
The answers in this interview, coming from my younger brother, an Eastern Orthodox theologian, are all of them answers with which I wholeheartedly agree. This includes my brother's strong critique of Calvin. But, he and I have long agreed that it is time to treat Calvinism as a heresy, the same way we do Mormonism or the teachings of Jehovah's Witnesses.
From the interview:
The gospel of the ancient church was always one of rebellion against those principalities and powers--death chief among them--that enslave and torment creation; nowhere does the New Testament rationalize evil or accord it necessity or treat it as part of the necessary fabric of God's world. All that Christian scripture asserts is that evil cannot defeat God's purposes or thwart the coming of his kingdom. Divine providence, of course, will always bring about God's good ends despite--and in a sense through--the evils of this world; but that is not the same thing as saying that evil has a necessary part to play in God's plans, and that God required evil to bring about the kingdom. As the empty tomb of Christ above all reveals, the verdict of God that rescues and redeems creation also overturns the order of the fallen world, and shatters the powers of historical and natural necessity that the fallen world comprises.
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