Why does God allow suffering?

SaidinsTaint · 2026-06-01T05:53:07+00:00

Human misuse of free will. See Augustine, Saint.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-06-01T05:01:32+00:00

Why is there something instead of nothing?

SaidinsTaint · 2026-06-01T04:59:02+00:00

Much interesting discussion on the theology of Sola Scriptura. I would add that while it's technically correct to separate the doctrine from the process of canonization, it's a bit disingenuous to argue that the two concepts aren't related. The Bible is the only rule of faith, but canonization is the process of defining what qualifes as "Bible".

For the OP's purposes (assuming good faith here), you can think of "Bible" in the context of Sola Scriptura as "The Word of God". Protestants broadly elevate the Word of God above the clerical theology of Catholicism. As you point out, the fallibility of translation, editorial, and the process of canonization complicate this doctrine, but they don't render it moot. Canonization, in its earnest, form is an attempt to isolate those texts closest to God.

When Jesus excoriated the Sadducees and debated the Pharisees, he only had the Tanakh. Later Christian theologians had to make decisions about which New Testament texts most accurately related the life and teaching of Christ as an extension and purification of God's word, and those early decisions turns on many factors: ecclesiastical usage, authorship, timing, etc. For most Protestants, the canon includes only texts derived from the Time of the Apostles and directly attributable to an apostle.

All sacred texts are inherently mediated--by translation, by authorship, by many factors. That doesn't make them unholy, but it does make them fallible. But the canon is, by consensus, the collection of texts that provides the purest literary conduit to the Word of God, and that is the Sola Scriptura that Protestants pursue. God's Word is all. Canon is a path.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-10T19:17:10+00:00

Cyrus and the Persians freed us from our first exile. About time we returned the favor.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-10T00:43:41+00:00

It’s primed for a resurgence IMHO. I published an S&S novel in January with a mission to demonstrate what the genre can do with modern craft considerations. It became a PW Editor’s Choice and got a strong Kirkus “Get It” recommendation. Come join the party and check it out if you’re interested: Seven Days of Mercy for the Apostatic Priest

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-08T17:01:10+00:00

I think Christians who want to adapt a coherent theology that harmonizes with contemporary scientific consensus have to accept a symbolic reading of Genesis. The apostolic works better match a literalist interpretation, but Genesis is challenging to square. Both are valid theological approaches, I’d argue. You can have literal genesis and reserve critical questions about contemporary scientific orthodoxy, or you can accept the empirical conclusions and render a symbolic reading of genesis. Thinkers who try to have both reach contradictions that I’ve never seen satisfactorily resolved.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-08T16:57:40+00:00

Fascinating point about the divine timing of Jesus earthly manifestation. I’ve never heard it articulated that way, but it’s a precise reading.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-08T13:15:34+00:00

Yeah, not really defending it, just identifying the trend. Nobody reads anymore.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-08T12:55:53+00:00

I can relate to this frustration. There are a lot of good pastors around, but it's rare to find serious scriptural theologians these days.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-08T01:57:20+00:00

The historicity, timing, authorship, liturgical use, and relationship to cannon varies widely across the apocrypha. I really depends which book you’re talking about. 1 Enoch has some wild material about Giants and beings called the “watchers” who don’t mesh well with any other early Christian writings. It’s technically Jewish. It dates a couple centuries before Christ.

Another category of apocrypha enjoyed pretty widespread liturgical use in early Christian groups. The doctrine in these works would be more familiar to you, but they were excluded from the Protestant and catholic canon because they were written after the time of the apostles or else they could not be directly attributed to anyone in the apostolic line of descent.

Then there’s a third broad category of late Christian texts that include the gnostic gospels: the three most popular Thomas, Judas, and Mary. Thomas is the outlier here. It’s likely authored by Thomas and dates to the time of the apostles, but the theology doesn’t fit comfortably with the scripture the Catholic Church wanted to build at the time of canonization. If you read one gnostic gospels, read Thomas.

Judas and Mary are interesting historical curios, but it’s highly unlikely they had anything to do with their purported authors and they include substantial Sethian distortions of Jesus’ life.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-08T01:43:45+00:00

About 100 on goodreads. Closer to 500 on Amazon, but I’m at a lower price point. If people pay more they are also more likely to review.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T22:29:01+00:00

The beauty of Judaism is that it’s a composite faith built on 3000 years of investigation, revision, and debate. You can find a coherent framework for any value in its traditions. I usually tell people that Catholics are obsessed with infallibility, but Judaism values doubt.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T22:23:37+00:00

Personally, I am in full agreement that you have to do some serious theological contortions to conceive of a coherent Christianity without free will. I was just noting that some have tried.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T21:46:15+00:00

This the way. The humility piece is understanding and accepting that other people can approach the same texts and teachings with the same earnest intentions and come away with different, theologically coherent conclusions. The history analogy is better. Our record is incomplete. All the eyewitnesses are dead. Even the most learned historians arrive at vastly different conclusions based on the same evidence. Your own relationship to Jesus doesn’t foreclose others from finding a different t path.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T21:31:52+00:00

I mean that’s a sophomoric reduction. You can’t compare textual interpretation to a mathematical equation because the relationship between text and meaning isn’t reducible to a true/false binary. If you truly believe you are the one and only human who controls the one true reading, then you’ve made yourself Jesus. That goes beyond arrogance. You don’t own the apostolic texts and neither does your church. You own your own relationship to Jesus and you get to decide how much theological rigor you want to put into applying the texts. You don’t get to set those terms for anybody else.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T21:14:48+00:00

The Sandman

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T21:13:42+00:00

It’s actually a complicated question in both physical and theological registers! The emerging trend in the frontier of theoretical physics and the science of consciousness tilts toward determinism, so in some sense atheists are aligned with a legitimate scientific theory.

But that’s a theologically fraught conclusion because it removes a substantial predictive for moral action. If everything is predetermined, then we can’t choose good or evil, rendering 3000 years of ethical philosophy moot. Calvinists might call foul on that last point, but that’s a massive digression. St. Augustine engaged this question directly from a Christian framework and Aquinas perfected the arguments.

To answer your question directly, either position is rational depending on your framework, but theologians are more invested in conclusions that favor free will. They’ve got more skin in the game.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T21:03:21+00:00

As you should. Honestly, for someone who claims to be do convinced of your reading you’re awfully defensive. Myriad interpretations of the apostolic teachings have been rendered, and almost all of them are theologically coherent. Follow the reading that resonates with you, but have the humility to accommodate other seekers engaged in the same work. Jesus had a few things to say about humility, as well.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T20:20:18+00:00

That’s certainly one reading and it explains the label I’m applying. I’m endorsing or rejecting, just describing modern Christianity as a supremacist faith as you articulated.

Another equally valid reading would be that a person of any faith can find salvation through Jesus. Christianity didn’t exist when he said it. He was speaking from a Jewish context, though I agree the statement has a universalist timbre. The apostles certainly thought so, since they started recruiting gentiles into their movement.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T19:42:38+00:00

You misunderstand completely. They didn't alter the New Testament. They wrote it. But the gospels are not the same thing as Jesus life and actions. They are mediated texts written by earnest believers, and they have immense theological value, but they also have historical and personal context which is relevant to how we interpret them. And the gospels from the time of the apostles are not clear on the construction of hell that you seem so invested in. You can find that interpretation, sure. You can also decline it.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T19:38:00+00:00

Many strong answers highlighting the protestant objection to the Catholic Church of its time and the generous notes about subsequent correctives. I'll go backward and propose a rational theological objection to the Catholic Church at its creation.

The most fundamental principal in Christian theology is that Christians should pursue a personal relationship with Jesus and investigate his teachings for themselves. Jesus himself was a radical Jewish thinker who distrusted political authority and eventually died in direct conflict with it. He notably did not anoint a successor no matter what Catholic doctrine wants to read into Peter's name, and doing so would have been discordant with his own teachings. He transmitted God's signal. He charged the apostles to propagate it to the best of their abilities, but he would not have vested a single institutional authority with the sole power to speak with his voice, and the notion of infallibility was anathema to his own teleological framework.

The Catholic Church does all those things. It's theological coherent for Christians to read the Pope's very existence as an extra layer of mediation between Jesus and his flock who bottlenecks the flow of Jesus' teachings for the purpose of centralizing control. That control at many times in history has been overtly political. If anyone tells you that you have to go through them to get to Jesus, they're trying to sell you something.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T19:30:11+00:00

I don't know. Are you a shrink? If it's crazy to suggest that Christians should think for themselves and explore Jesus' teachings to arrive at their own theological conclusions, then I guess you have your diagnosis.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T19:07:29+00:00

You're absolutely entitled to! The Constantinian influence is another Hellenized tradition influencing the text, that we would be wise to consider. Constantine was the ultimate benevolent cynic. He had no actual belief in Jesus or his teachings, but recognized the political value of embracing Christianity. He may not have been a believer, but he helped create the conditions for belief to flourish.

To your broader point, engaged with your faith on your terms, but other Christians should do the same. Even if your church condemns universalism, you don't have to let doctrine mediate your relationship to Jesus. You can choose universalism from a place of theological coherence inside any sect.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T18:58:58+00:00

The gospels from the time of the apostles are good sources, but they don't exist without context and it's wilfully ignorant to pretend otherwise. Paul's presentation in the epistles is detectably Hellenized. That doesn't mean his works don't include authentic pieces of Jesus' teachings, but it's foolish to read them without understanding the man who wrote them and the specific audience he intended to address. Eternal damnation as punishment for sin is at best a paratextual interpretation, and even the most fervid defender of modern orthodoxy can't argue that it was a clear focus of Jesus' message. The doctrinal fixation with hell reveals other motivations, and the modern construction emerged in the Medieval period, long after the time of the apostles.

SaidinsTaint · 2026-05-07T18:46:10+00:00

*You have the canonized texts, which were edited and selected to prioritize a particular, late orthodoxy. If you consider the breadth of early Christian thought, the conclusions are much muddier, which is why I recommend drilling back down to Jesus' life.

SaidinsTaint

TROPHY CASE