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The attempt to understand how God can be just and good in light of the countless evils that take place in the world is the purpose and study of theodicy. This week on Advent Next our guest is Dr. John Peckham professor of Theology and Christian Philosophy at Andrews University, and author of the new book "Theodicy of Love."
“There doesn’t seem to be a 1-to-1 correlation of ‘you were good so you get good things,’ and ‘you were bad so you get bad things.’ In fact, the Bible argues in exactly the opposite.” Trying to answer huge life-altering questions about why God allows injustice if He is inherently good requires more than mere simplistic answers. Peckham walks us through some key aspects of creating the kind of framework that can help us begin to make sense of these types of questions.
While we explore the proper framework for tackling such enormous questions regarding why suffering exists if God is just, the main premise of theodicy, Peckham leaves us with this advice: “In the book of Job, we often overlook this, but for the first week Job’s friend came and they just sat with him. But they get into trouble when they open their mouth and try to explain things they don’t know.” Sometimes the best comfort we can provide is to be present and not theologize about the reasons why God allowed someone else's pain. Since in truth, we really know very little about the reasons why or what God is doing behind the scenes.
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