BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS

Rev. Douglas Whitelaw, M.A. is the executive director of Ark Aid Mission in London, Ontario. This post is from his paper 'Toward A Theology of Suffering'.

SECTION 4/9

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So, for now, we live in a broken world and this has some consequences we should notice in terms of suffering. One would concern natural disasters or 'acts of God.' God takes a lot of heat for these; many have lost their faith from suffering one and critical atheists like Christopher Hitchins and Richard Dawkins rarely pass an opportunity to impugn God's existence or character for such events. But, while God allows such events, he does so in the sense that he also allows us to carry on in the created order we crippled. God has bound himself to us and his world to work patiently towards the restoration of his rule in a way that humans can be included. Perhaps he could have done it another way – we'll never know. This is akin to Liebniz' 'best of all possible worlds,' the central concept in his theodicy. It evidently is the best of such worlds with us still in it and living in the world broken by sin means it is hostile. An emphasis on God's soteriological purposes rather than his absolute responsibility should bear some pastoral comfort.