RT Article
T1 Why the Hardship?: Islam, Christianity, and Instrumental Affliction
JF Open theology
VO 6
IS 1
SP 636
OP 645
A1 Pieper, Christopher Nicolas
LA English
YR 2020
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/183000641X
AB Viewing hardship through the Western tradition of theodicy, Western theologians and philosophers sometimes approach their Muslim neighbors with questions about the Islamic perspective on suffering. But merely by asking about "suffering," these Western friends already project a theological category foreign to most Muslims, particularly those from a non-Western background. In order for Christian and post-Christian Westerners to understand the Islamic approach to hardship, they must first learn to distinguish between affliction and suffering. This requires a careful look at the creation narratives each tradition tells: for example, does God initiate human affliction? And what does the answer to this question say about the nature of affliction, if God is also good? Answering these queries helps one to distinguish Christian and Islamic responses to catastrophe, pain, and even violence. Furthermore, examining the koranic reply may redirect Western persons to teachings within the biblical tradition, which Christians often overlook or avoid. The instrumental role of affliction is relatively unpopular in the West, but dialogue with Islam uncovers the fact that it is a concept neither alien nor unimportant to biblical teaching. In fact, God’s repurposing of affliction is vital to Christian doctrine. Dialogue with Islam may help to recover this Christian lesson.
K1 Bible
K1 Christianity
K1 Genesis
K1 God’s will
K1 Islam
K1 Koran
K1 Qu’ran
K1 Trinity
K1 affliction
K1 Creation
K1 Death
K1 Doctrine
K1 Hardship
K1 Hope
K1 Illness
K1 instrumental affliction
K1 Interreligious Dialogue
K1 Oneness
K1 Pain
K1 Redemption
K1 repurposing
K1 Sovereignty
K1 Suffering
K1 Theodicy
K1 Theology
K1 Transformation
DO 10.1515/opth-2020-0137