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The Purpose Of Suffering: A Christian Perspective. The Purpose of Suffering:
A Christian Perspective The concept of suffering plays ...
... suffering is limited and serves little purpose to those ... a Christian�s assurance that
suffering is temporary. From the perspective of Christian hope, the time ...
... political life and to relieve the suffering of the ... He said that the only worthwhile
purpose man can ... mean to be a human person from the Christian perspective? ...
... there is no pain nor suffering and Revelation ... of final events and the ultimate purpose
of life ... Goals of History: a Theological Perspective." Christian Hope and ...
... creation, which He does for the purpose of bringing ... a rock of strength in suffering,
a source ... The Christian perspective, however, maintains that humanity has a ...
Submitted by Dannika001 on May 17, 2008
Category: Religion
Words: 1579 | Pages: 7
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The Purpose of Suffering:
A Christian Perspective
The concept of suffering plays an important role in Christianity, regarding such matters as moral conduct, spiritual advancement and ultimate destiny. Indeed an emphasis on suffering pervades the Gospel of Mark where, it can be argued, we are shown how to “journey through suffering” (Ditzel 2001) in the image of the “Suffering Son of Man” (Mark 8:32), Jesus Christ. Although theologians have suggested that Mark was written to strengthen the resolve of the early Christian community (Halpern 2002, Mayerfeld 2005), the underlying moral is not lost on a modern reader grappling with multifarious challenges regarding faith in the face of suffering. In his article “A Christian Response to Suffering”, William Marravee (1987) describes suffering as an “experience over which we men and women continue to stumble and fall”. The way we view God is crucial to the way we view suffering according to Marravee, who delineates the disparity between a view of God as an ‘outsider’ and the biblical image of God – where God is an ‘insider’ who suffers with us in our struggle. This essay seeks to explain the Christian view of suffering and the purpose suffering can have in our lives.
Suffering is an individual's basic affective experience of pain or distress, often as a result of one’s physical, emotional or spiritual circumstance (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy 2006). Suffering can be classified as physical; for example pain caused by a dislocated knee, emotional; for example one’s grief over the death of a loved one, or spiritual; which is described as the state of being separated from the blissful nature of your divine self (soul). To suffer physically or emotionally is often unavoidable; however it can be argued that spiritual liberation is possible through raising our consciousness from our ordinary human consciousness to the divine consciousness (thus...
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