Raging With Compassion – Review
One of the areas of apologetics that none of us can avoid concerns the problem of suffering. If not ourselves, we all know someone who will suffer in a way that no easy answers are available.
The common response to the problem of suffering by theologians is called theodicy. This is an attempt to explain how an all-powerful and all-good God could allow such suffering.
One of the best books on this topic that I have read is Raging With Compassion by John Swinton. This is a book that I read as part of my research on Disability Theology, something that Swinton is an expert in.
This book is not the typical treatment of the topic of suffering. For one thing, Swinton is critical of traditional theodicies. Not only does he see them as lacking explanatory power, they are actually dangerous.
While sympathetic with this view, I’m not fully convinced. I see how theodicies can be harmful when forced upon a person experiencing suffering. But theodicies can be helpful in building a Christian worldview and reflecting on suffering when not in the midst of it.
What Swinton attempts to do is to look at theodicies through the lens of practical theology. He calls this practical theodicy and it focuses not so much on the why of suffering as on the when of suffering. When suffering comes, what do we do as a community of followers of Jesus?
Swinton argues for a community in which we stand together in suffering. There is a place for silence and for lament. We should focus on how to help people get through suffering more than trying to explain it away.
Raging With Compassion is a great book for both theologians and for pastors. You will never look at a theodicy the same way again.
