ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CUE NET CONFESSIONS CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK CONFESSION 1 QUESTION 52 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 3238 Rose Street Franklin Park, IL 60131 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >>So if christians have been forgiven, why do they still suffer many of the same calamities of life that non-christians experience? Do the two kinds of righteousness provide help in understanding this, also? >>DR. CHARLES P. ARAND: That is a very good question. If we're forgiven, why do christians still suffer the common calamities of life. I might at the outset suggest that we not confuse these common troubles of life, loss of children, health, jobs, things along those lines as referring to the caring or bearing of one's cross. I think the New Testament of bearing one's cross to suffering on account of the Gospel. But in the article on repentance, Melanchthon examines his opponent's position that divine repentance is three parts. At the very least you had contrition, confession, and satisfaction. Well, he deals with the first two in paragraphs 1 through 98. But then he turns the question of penance, doing pen ants for suffering or making recompense, if you will, in other words, the view almost seemed to be -- now, I may be characterizing a little bit at this point -- that we sin and yes, we are forgiven. But there is still something that we have to pay back. An analogy might be that if a neighbor boy breaks a window or my son breaks a window playing baseball, he may come to me and say Dad I am really sorry I broke the window I would say I forgive you but you're still paying for the window. Well, that seemed to be the approach, also, towards God in the understanding of repentance or the understanding of doing penance, namely, we may be forgiven but God still imposes a penalty upon us or a punishment. And we have to pay off. So the view was that Christ may have taken care of our eternal punishments and so in repentance, absolution would commute the eternal punishment into a temper punishment. And those temporal punishments we have to pay off in this life and if not in this life later on in purgatory. 8: The Lutherans didn't adopt that Confession approach. They argued instead repentance has only two parts, namely contrition and faith. And with faith in the Gospel, all sins and all punishments are forgiven. Removed as far as the east is from the west. So it was only natural the question arises: Then why do christians still suffer the basic calamities of life? Does it mean that God is somehow punishing them? This section provides some of Melanchthon's best pastoral counseling in how to grapple with these kinds of questions. He acknowledges that God may well impose them upon us, however, they are never to be regarded as punishments on account for sin for the purpose of paying off our sins. Instead, they may be regarded at best as I suppose what we would call chastisements or mortifications of the flesh. That is they are means by which God continues to attack the old Adam within us so that the new Adam may arise stronger each day. The question -- but the entire question of the calamities of life or the common troubles of life in our day and age perhaps is expressed often in what theologians would call the question of theodicy. The question is -- theodicy is really in a sense a question about God. Namely if God is an all loving God, he doesn't want us to suffer. And if God is all powerful, he can certainly remove that suffering. Well, suffering exists. Suffering is a reality in daily life. What does this mean? Well, one might conclude either God doesn't want to remove it, which calls into question his love or can't remove it, which calls into question his power and authority. Indeed, in the last couple of decades the movement known as process theology has gone in that direction, that God is not an all powerful God in other words he can provide a vision what he would like us to become and perhaps encourage us and help us along the way. Now, I've got to be honest. While this theodicy question is a major question in light of the Holocaust during World War II in Germany, the killing fields in Cambodia and the massive suffering that we've seen throughout the 20th century, the theodicy question is not one that Lutherans has ever been good at answering. It's not one we're entirely comfortable with. I think the reason for that is this: To attempt or reconcile God's wrath and power is in any many an attempt to explain God. It's to explain God and why he's doing what he's doing and perhaps it's even an attempt to absolve God from all responsibility within human suffering. In other words, it's not his fault. In other words, how could God allow innocent people to suffer? He may not have caused it. But you know what, he didn't exactly stop it, either. Like I say, you either end up with an attempt to limit God's power or perhaps to limit his love. Lutherans I think have tended to follow more the approach that you find in the complaint psalms where David and the people of Israel simply complained to God and saying, "God, why do the righteous suffer and unrighteous prosper?" They don't necessarily get an answer that satisfies their logic or reasoning. But they are clinging to God in that very complaining or arguing. To put it another way: Melanchthon is going to stress that in the midst of it, we have to cling to the God who has revealed himself in Christ and in the Gospel. And we have to cling to that God over and against the God who is hidden in suffering and the tragedies of life and even in the atrocities of history. Something Luther would call believing in God against God. So we cling to the God revealed not in the world over and against the world who is hidden in suffering about which we can't explain or rationalize a way. So a second section of Apology 12 I think has some tremendous counsel and guidance in how to think about the everyday problems that christians continue to encounter, even though they are righteous in God's eyes. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***