Sin and Suffering Is there a reason for sin and suffering? It is obvious the two are directly related in the Bible. In the Old Testament we see Saul/Paul feeling the wrath of God when he killed innocent people, as a king. Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden when they took fruit from a tree which God told them not to do. Today though, the relationship between sin and suffering is not so clear. We see poor, starving people in Africa. They suffer terribly, but there is no evidence that they have sinned to the extent of being starved to death.
Sin and suffering have been interpreted in different ways by different aspects of Christianity. Conservative Christians believe the Adam and Eve story to be literal history, and suffering is a direct consequence of their breaking of the covenant that Adam had with God. The Old Testament gives us an overall understanding of sin. Some beliefs include turning away from God and putting yourself before him. Not fulfilling God’s will or goals or rebellion or disobedience towards God. A classic view of sin is highlighted in Jeremiah (17.
9): ‘Sin is that which sets up in place of God. It is an inner attitude of going against what is right, with it’s basis in the heart.’ ; Is sin free will? Or is it something we are born with; something we have inherited from Adam? The Westminister Larger Catechism summarises the Biblical teaching of sin itself. It takes Paul’s argument: ‘The wages of sin is death’; in Romans. (6. 23) Like this verse, many books in the Bible see the punishment for sin being death and going to hell. Another punishment for sin is Alienation.
The Term Paper on Natural Evil God Suffering Moral
THE CHRISTIAN CONCEPT OF GOD Christians claim that their concept of God is found in the Bible. Known as classical theism, this view of God has long been considered the orthodox theistic position of the Western world. Though there are numerous divine attributes that we could examine, for our present purposes it is sufficient to say that the God of classical theism is at least (1) personal and ...
Alienated from our God, our neighbour, and our environment and through this alienation we will suffer greatly. John called Alienation, ‘ The most dreadful of all sin’s consequences.’ ; Suffering is part of the process of death and decay. Before the fall in the garden, Adam and God could talk and communicate; through simple obedience and trust. (their mutual understanding) When Adam ate the fruit and God tried to find them they ran and hid. Their spirits died because the friendship and mutual understanding between them was lost. It is said that Adam and Eve had already died when they trusted the serpent over God.
God created Adam and Eve as perfect creatures, in their form of spirit, soul and body. They died morally when they trusted the serpent over God. They died spiritually when they ate the fruit from the tree. They began to die physically after spiritual and moral death. Augustine was the man who adopted this theory, he believed that because of Adam and Eve’s sin, ‘Original sin’; was created. Irena eus contradicts this by saying that we had not fallen from a perfect state.
It has also been said, ‘that sin is the selfish and destructive use of free-will which leads to eternal suffering’; It seems clear-cut in the bible, when somebody did something wrong they were punished, examples include Adam, Saul and Jacob. Using these examples of sin and suffering in the bible, (do bad things: get punished) we can not understand what is happening around us today. Saddam Hussein has massacred thousands of Kurdish and Iranian people, like Saul did with his empire and yet God has not made Hussein suffer. Innocent street children in India walk the streets scavenging for food and compared to Hussein’s sins they have hardly broken God’s law. This isn’t quite an accurate argument.
Even in the bible people suffered and did not do much to deserve it. It is likely the message the bible is trying to tell us is that, even if we suffer greatly in life, if we stick by the rule of God we will receive what we deserve in heaven, taking things like what Hussein has done into account. The terrible things in the world, rape, murder, abuse and the suffering which follows is incredible. All of man-kind isn’t all bad, but all of the good things they do are infected with sin.
The Term Paper on God And Suffering Men Suffer
Why do men suffer This is a question that has been pondered by countless philosophers and theologians for many thousands of years. Some believe that God brings down suffering upon those of us who sin. Others view man s suffering as an indiscriminate act of God. The only certainty with respects to this timeless question is that a definite answer does not, and will never, exist. With the desire to ...
It has been said that God is the source of all good. Who or what is the source of all bad? Is it our free will; we suffer because we have done something wrong? We are in many different minds about what sin is, so how do we find out what suffering is? Could it be that if you suffer, you are a victim of circumstance? Rich people do not suffer greatly because they were born to rich parents and they grew up with a loving family in a nice area with nice friends. A poor child is born to poor parents and seven other children around him, this child has no future, he will suffer not because he thought to himself ‘ I will not obey God, I will go against his word’; , it is because he can’t get out that situation. Some people want to see an end to suffering.
I do also to a certain extent. However if we did not have suffering, how could we measure the good times? I am not justifying the situation in countries like Sudan, in the eighties millions of people of starvation. If we had a perfect world, in which everyone was happy and content there would be nothing to strive for. I believe that striving for something and being challenged in the face of suffering is what keeps us alive. Because of this I believe that suffering is not a direct consequence of sin.
