And the point is what, exactly?
Posted: Sun Sep 21, 2014 12:04 pm
My Mother passed away yesterday with my sister and I at her side. She had a troubled and difficult life. Some of the problems she had were of her own doing, others were not. A mixed bag I suppose, like most of us.
She was raised a JW from about age 4, She backslid for a number of years and returned to that Organization when she was 29. Over the years she has had a difficult time keeping up with the WT Society's "program" of "spirituality", until failing health made it impossible for her to do anything. Needless to say she had a great deal of guilt over this. The question about future destiny in light of human suffering are always on the mind when something like this happens. The standard (cliched) answers seem to come in one of the following:
This was predestined. God did this according to His good pleasure
This was not predestined. Things happen, good and bad to everyone, righteous or unrighteous.
A subset of these views is the following:
This was the only opportunity to accept Christ, so right now she is expereincing eternal seperation from God.
This was the only opportunity. Right now she experiences eternal extinction (with the possible exception of a brief resurrection to tell her she's going back to extinction again).
This was not the only opportunity. There is a future resurrection that will give people otherwise addled with weaknesses and problems an unfettered opportunity to accept the Gospel.
This is not the only opportunity. There are an unlimited number of ages during which one will have an opportunity to become reconciled to God.
Which one is the truth? Are any of these?
In human suffering, how is God honored? I try not to be provincial in my thinkng--I do not believe my problems, troubles and grief trump that of anyone else. We all have problems and grief--it is the way of all flesh. However, I to this day still struggle with how God is "glorified" in any of this temporal madness we call the human experience. Call me a "kindred spirit" with the Qoheleth, the "Congregator" of Ecclesiastes.
The only idea that makes any remotely rational sense to me from a theological perspective, and yet I believe it is not Biblical, is the Catholic notion of our suffering being joined with Christ's for some merit, either for the world or us personally.
Life is a sentence of sorts. Although, I am also thinkng of a "sentence" as in a "sentence" of words. Its a long, run-on sentence that is full of words both good and bad. When the bad happens, it puts an exclamation point (!) at the end of the sentence, and forces us to re-read it. I still grapple with this gaggle of words called life.
Regards, Brenden.
She was raised a JW from about age 4, She backslid for a number of years and returned to that Organization when she was 29. Over the years she has had a difficult time keeping up with the WT Society's "program" of "spirituality", until failing health made it impossible for her to do anything. Needless to say she had a great deal of guilt over this. The question about future destiny in light of human suffering are always on the mind when something like this happens. The standard (cliched) answers seem to come in one of the following:
This was predestined. God did this according to His good pleasure
This was not predestined. Things happen, good and bad to everyone, righteous or unrighteous.
A subset of these views is the following:
This was the only opportunity to accept Christ, so right now she is expereincing eternal seperation from God.
This was the only opportunity. Right now she experiences eternal extinction (with the possible exception of a brief resurrection to tell her she's going back to extinction again).
This was not the only opportunity. There is a future resurrection that will give people otherwise addled with weaknesses and problems an unfettered opportunity to accept the Gospel.
This is not the only opportunity. There are an unlimited number of ages during which one will have an opportunity to become reconciled to God.
Which one is the truth? Are any of these?
In human suffering, how is God honored? I try not to be provincial in my thinkng--I do not believe my problems, troubles and grief trump that of anyone else. We all have problems and grief--it is the way of all flesh. However, I to this day still struggle with how God is "glorified" in any of this temporal madness we call the human experience. Call me a "kindred spirit" with the Qoheleth, the "Congregator" of Ecclesiastes.
The only idea that makes any remotely rational sense to me from a theological perspective, and yet I believe it is not Biblical, is the Catholic notion of our suffering being joined with Christ's for some merit, either for the world or us personally.
Life is a sentence of sorts. Although, I am also thinkng of a "sentence" as in a "sentence" of words. Its a long, run-on sentence that is full of words both good and bad. When the bad happens, it puts an exclamation point (!) at the end of the sentence, and forces us to re-read it. I still grapple with this gaggle of words called life.
Regards, Brenden.