Theodicy?

[hermeneutika]

Well for my sins i attend a CofE Assembly. For the weeks preceding Passsover we did 5 weeks of the "Cruciform Life"...ie the Cross centred life. Then came the pagan feast of the Angle Saxon godess Eostre(Easter) which of course all good Christian churches keep. So we had two weeks of the Cross and the Risen life.
And now the Church is starting a series of teaching on "unanswered prayers".This using the teaching of a Mr Pete Grieg. Using the book he authored called "God on mute".
I have bought a kindle version of the book and am now reading it. However funnily enough this is not a question that has never occured to me before. I have often wondered why prayers never seem to get answered. And i have looked into the issue. So i found a book called "Evil and the God of love" by John Hicks. And also i found a book called "The silence of God" by Sir Robert anderson. The silence of God was suggested to me when my mother died.
So Mr Grieg is not the only person on the planet who has suffered, and he is not the only person who has investigated this issue.
So if Mr Grieg is being presented to me as THE established orthodoxy , and yet i am aware of at least two allegedly christian authors who have dealt with the issue, and i want to present the arguements that Anderson and Hicks suggest....what should i do??

thanks for reading. We will be studying this in a small group setting.

[Kendall K. Down]

On 24/04/2022 12:46, hermeneutika wrote:

> Well for my sins i attend a CofE Assembly.

Good. Makes a change from the nutty house groups you have seemed to
specialise in previously.

> For the weeks preceding Passsover we did 5 weeks of the "Cruciform Life"...ie the Cross centred life. Then came the pagan feast of the Angle Saxon godess Eostre(Easter) which of course all good Christian churches keep. So we had two weeks of the Cross and the Risen life.

So far as I know, the Saxons were well-rounded and not at all angular.

> And now the Church is starting a series of teaching on "unanswered prayers".This using the teaching of a Mr Pete Grieg. Using the book he authored called "God on mute".

I imagine you'll find that this book is used as the basis of discussion.
Unlike some of the groups you have gone to previously, the CofE
recognises that there are no black-and-white, hard-and-fast answers to
many of life's questions. In some cases there isn't even
right-and-wrong, just shades of gray.

> I have bought a kindle version of the book and am now reading it. However funnily enough this is not a question that has never occured to me before. I have often wondered why prayers never seem to get answered. And i have looked into the issue. So i found a book called "Evil and the God of love" by John Hicks. And also i found a book called "The silence of God" by Sir Robert anderson. The silence of God was suggested to me when my mother died.

I would disagree with you that "prayers never seem to get answered". My
experience is that prayers are *always* answered. Sometimes the answers
are miraculously wonderfully just what we wanted; sometimes the answers
are equally miraculous but not at all what we wanted - the miracle comes
in that they are what we needed! Sometimes, of course, the answer is "No".

> So Mr Grieg is not the only person on the planet who has suffered, and he is not the only person who has investigated this issue.
> So if Mr Grieg is being presented to me as THE established orthodoxy , and yet i am aware of at least two allegedly christian authors who have dealt with the issue, and i want to present the arguements that Anderson and Hicks suggest....what should i do??

Present the answers and arguments suggested by the other two authors.
They will add to the discussion, provided you don't insist that they (or
one of them) is absolutely right and Grieg is absolutely wrong.

> thanks for reading. We will be studying this in a small group setting.

Usually the perfect setting for a grown-up discussion in which different
points of view are welcome and considered but often times no clear
solution is found.

I would suggest that your group discussions will very likely reach
conclusions *in general* but be entirely unable to read a conclusion
about any specific case. So they might conclude that God generally does
this or that, but be unable to explain whatever it was that happened
with your mother.

The good thing is that, as the song says, "We'll understand it all
by-and-by".

God bless,
Kendall K. Down

[Stuart]

In article <t445d5$h8b$1...@dont-email.me>,

Kendall K. Down <kendal...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> I would disagree with you that "prayers never seem to get answered". My
> experience is that prayers are *always* answered. Sometimes the answers
> are miraculously wonderfully just what we wanted; sometimes the answers
> are equally miraculous but not at all what we wanted - the miracle comes
> in that they are what we needed! Sometimes, of course, the answer is
> "No".

Absolutely.

God is our father and always knows what is best for us.

When my children asked me for something sometimes the answer was "Yes" and
sometimes the answer was "No"

Simples, no need for deep theology or interminable questioning and
discussions.

--
Stuart Winsor

Tools With A Mission
sending tools across the world
http://www.twam.co.uk/

[Kendall K. Down]

On 24/04/2022 23:36, Stuart wrote:

> Simples, no need for deep theology or interminable questioning and
> discussions.

Indeed, though when one introduces the problem of evil - why a good God
permits evil - there can be profitable discussion.

It also does no harm to remind people that God's answers include "Yes",
"No", but also "Later" and often "Yes, but in this way".