Biblical Responses to Biblical Responses to the Problem of Evil: 2the Problem of Evil: 2

Comunicación y Gerencia

1.1. Three functions of suffering in the OT.Three functions of suffering in the OT.2.2. Evil and the Providence of God.Evil and the Providence of God.

Three functions of suffering:

1. Retributive punishment.

2. Discipline.

3. Test.

Retribution

1. “No ills befall the righteous, but the wicked are filled with trouble.” (Prov. 12: 21).

2. “Tell the righteous it shall be well with them, for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds. Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with him, for what his hands have done shall be done to him.” (Isaiah 3:10-11).

Discipline

• “My child, do not despise the Lord’s discipline or be weary of his reproof, for the Lord reproves the one he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.” Prov. 3: 11-12.

• “My soul melts away for sorrow; strengthen me according to your word… Before I was humbled I went astray, but now I keep your word… It is good for me that I was humbled, so that I might learn your statutes.” Ps. 119: 28, 67, 71.

Test: Sacrifice of Isaac

“After these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ He said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt-offering on one of the mountains that I shall show you.’” Gen. 22: 1-2.

Test: Job story

God’s answer

William Blake, William Blake, Satan Inflicts Boils on JobSatan Inflicts Boils on Job

God Promises David:

“I will establish the throne of his [Solomon’s] kingdom for ever. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will punish him with a rod such as mortals use, with blows inflicted by human beings. But I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever.”

2 Sam. 7: 13-16.

Reality Check

Red—great time; blue—bad time; black– so-so time.1020-922 undivided monarchy (in reality, numerous civil wars)922 Solomon’s kingdom divided into Northern (Israel) and Southern (Judah)721 Northern kingdom is defeated by the Assyrians597-538 Babylonian exile; 587 Jerusalem destroyed538-332 Persian rule; 520 Temple rebuilt. 332-167 Hellenization under Alexander the Great and his successors from Egypt & Syria166-63 Hundred years of independence under the Maccabees (in reality, civil wars)63 BC Roman conquest of Palestine. Independence lost till 20th c. AD!70 AD Second Temple destroyed.132-35 AD Bar-Kokhba revolt suppressed. ……..1948 Recognition of the state of Israel (after Holocaust)

Jeremiah takes the righteousness poll in Jerusalem:

“Run to and fro through the streets of Jerusalem, look around and take note!Search its squares and see if you can find one person who acts justly and seeks truth—so that I may pardon Jerusalem.” Jer. 5: 1

Result: destruction of Jerusalem.

Rembrandt: Jeremiah lamenting the destruction of Jerusalem

1630. Oil on panel. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Joseph Story

“Realizing that their father was dead, Joseph’s brothers said, ‘What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?’” Gen 50: 15. 

Joseph’s reply: God draws good out of evil

“But Joseph said to them, ‘Do not be afraid! Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today.” Gen 50: 19-20; cf. Gen 45: 7-8.

Marcion and his version of Christianity

• State of evidence: mostly unfriendly sources

• Starting point: problem of evil?• Antinomianism• Docetism• Marcion’s biblical canon• Discussion: Marcion’s God• Tertullian’s critique

Floor mosaic of a ship. 3rd c. AD Forum delle Corporazioni,

Ostia Antica.

Food for thought:

“Marcionism was the most formidable rival and almost the only dangerous rival that Christianity had to encounter during the whole time it was in the process of being organized into a system.”

--Alfred Loisy, La naissance du Christianisme (1948).

More food for thought:

“The rejection of the Old Testament in the second century was a mistake which the great church rightly avoided; to maintain it in the sixteenth century was a fate from which the Reformation was not yet able to escape; but still to preserve the Old Testament in Protestantism as a canonical document since the nineteenth century is the consequence of a religious and ecclesiastical crippling.”

--Adolf von Harnack, Marcion: The Gospel of the Alien God (Durham, NC: Labyrinth Press, 1924), 134.