Irenic Thoughts

Irenic. The word means peaceful. This web log (or blog) exists to create an ongoing, and hopefully peaceful, series of comments on the life of King of Peace Episcopal Church. This is not a closed community. You are highly encouraged to comment on any post or to send your own posts.

9/13/2007

God's Wrath

The biblical doctrine of God’s wrath is rooted in the doctrine of God as the good, wise and loving creator, who hates — yes, hates, and hates implacably — anything that spoils, defaces, distorts or damages his beautiful creation, and in particular anything that does that to his image-bearing creatures. If God does not hate racial prejudice, he is neither good nor loving.

If God is not wrathful at child abuse, he is neither good nor loving. If God is not utterly determined to root out from his creation, in an act of proper wrath and judgment, the arrogance that allows people to exploit, bomb, bully, and enslave one another, he is neither loving, nor good, nor wise.

—N.T. Wright

Labels: N.T. Wright

2 Comments:

At 9/13/2007 7:29 AM, Anonymous said…

I don't agree. The God I worship is full of love. Love is the opposite of hate. I think that God is sorrowful and hurt in the face of these adversities. If he were hateful or wrathful, then we would not be dealing with abuse, prejudic, exploitation, etc..He would have already driven them away with his wrath, just as we humans are trying to do with our hatred and wrath. So far, I see that doesn't work.
At 9/13/2007 11:21 AM, Anonymous said…

To quote Frank, "I think it's more complicated than that."

I don't think love and hate is an either/or choice. God, in his love, has provided a way to counter the evil in this world. He loves us enough to allow us the freedom to choose - and that includes the freedom to choose to do evil.

When my children are disobedient, I don't hate them - I still love them more than my own life - but I may be angry about the things they do. I don't behave hatefully or maliciously to them, but correcting them is still necessary. Sometimes that means punishment, and sometimes it means that they reap the consequences of their own behavior.

Unfortunately, in our human condition, we associate hate with visiousness and maliciousness. I believe God's example is a different than the words we use to express hate and anger. They're just the closest language that we possess. For us, hate and love make no sense.

Gratefully, God hated what happened to his creation so much that he sent Jesus to rescue us. Once again, God did not behave as people do, but did something unexpected and holy.