Theodicy
The problem of reconciling the fact of human suffering under the power of a loving God has always been very real to me. It has long since been a primary reason to vote "no" on God. But right now I'm having a terrible time with three deeply felt thoughts:
1) Is human suffering on this plane, with the free will to cause it, still a better possible world for us than all other options God could have created without it? Are there worse hells? Is this form of suffering actually the most loving kind?
2) If God, as in process theology, or even if in the theology that says He Sent His Son, is fundamentally a reflection of all of us, then does God suffer as much as any of us? And, if so, does that make the existence of suffering... okay?
3) A great injustice in my mind has always been the idea that people who, for any number of good reasons, do not believe in this specific notion of God, are somehow pitiable (at best) and doomed to Hell, at worst. But what if Hell literally is living in a world where you cannot believe there is a God that Loves you? What if there are no consequences; the eternicity is every moment without Love? How could that not be Hell--one we know all too well?
I'm really having a fuck of a time over here.
John 14:6 needs to do some explaining before I'd go Protestant on anyone, though.
John 14:22-24, on the other hand, reads as verses I've never ever seen before...
22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”
23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me. [NIV]
And, as I've referenced before, this quote from an interview, recently heard:
CHRISTIAN WIMAN: I am convinced that the same God that might call me to sing of God at one time might call me at another to sing of godlessness. Sometimes when I think of all of this energy that’s going on, all of these different people trying to find some way of naming and sharing their belief, I think it may be the case that God calls some people to unbelief in order that faith can take new forms.