Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God Cover Art
Jonathan: Hast thou non read my "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," in which I say that all of us, who accept offended God, have no more power to stay God'due south casting united states into Hell than a spider's web canst stay the torrent of a inundation?
Dionysius: Of a truth, and there might be worse things be said.
Jonathan: So k knowest men to be sinners in the hands of an angry God.
Dionysius: The saying is limited and more limiting than k wittest.
Jonathan: Which of my sayings is false? Accept I not expounded Scripture, and that carefully?
Dionysius: Thou hast such in mutual with St Athanasius the Great, and with Arius, the father of heretics.
Jonathan: Then wherein is information technology wrong to speak of sinners in the hands of an angry God.
Dionysius: Hath God the Male parent material easily, such easily of clay such equally we have?
Jonathan: My speech of hands is an anthropomorphism used to convey a truth.
Dionysius: And so perhaps it behooveth thee to recognize that speaking of God as angry is an anthropomorphism used to convey a truth.
Jonathan: How be it such? May information technology exist the end of the manner that all nosotros say is an anthropomorphism used to convey a truth?
Dionysius: All we can say of God has some truth, and all of it fails to exist equal to the task of speaking its reality.
Jonathan: Is all a shade of grey?
Dionysius: To speak of shades of grayness is not to pigment all in an identical, centermost, most insipid mid-range of greyness. All nosotros say of God has some truth and some limitations, but information technology is non entailed that all has the aforementioned degree of truth and of limitation. Differing statements are diff in splendor, and what they accept is held in divers ways.
Jonathan: Then what is true, and what is faux, in maxim that all man's plans are but a spider'south gossamer spider web in its impotence to restrain the wrath of God?
Dionysius: St John the Theologian hath not written, "God is wrath," and one who reads "Sinners in the Easily of an Aroused God" receiveth no shade of invitation to contemplate the true wrath of God.
Jonathan: Then in what consisteth the wrath of God?
Dionysius: Hast thou read Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamatzov?
Jonathan: Permit united states of america say that accept I not.
Dionysius: The book opens in nihilism, and Fyodor does non pull a single punch in letting the problem of evil rage equally wildly as it can. Then information technology whispers at the end.
Jonathan: And what is that whisper?
Dionysius: The same whisper as in the Gospels, which portray in detail the Lord'southward mercy to Judas, letting him go along the purse to soothe his greed, and the betrayal with a kiss, the passion, and death of the Incarnate Savior in which all hope is dashed. Then a whisper announces, "Christ Is Risen!" and there is scarce whatever more to say.
Jonathan: Sayest thou that a spider's web can stay a surging flood?
Dionysius: I say rather that all the horrors of Hell, all devils' malice, all temptation, and all sin is only a spider'due south web likewise gossamer and flimsy to stop the surging flood of the Calorie-free and Providence of a Loving God.
Jonathan: It beseemeth me that thou speakest not of the gravity of sin. Sayest m that God be unjust?
Dionysius: Permit us say that I do.
Jonathan: Then what is thy secret?
Dionysius: In the Parable of the Talents, the wicked and lazy retainer says of his Master, "Thou art an austere Human being: Thou takest up that Yard layedst not down, and reapest that Thou didst not sow." And his Master contests him not a give-and-take.
Jonathan: That is a matter near perplexing.
Dionysius: And so let the passage exist opened with the Spirit'southward breath. The Three Persons of the Trinity take non sown sin, nor sorrow, nor death. God hath not manipulated Judas, or for that matter Satan, to be instrumental to, in the phrase of St John the Theologian, "destroy the devil'southward work." Satan rebelled his worst against the God-homo to preclude him from working, and fifty-fifty killed him. The God-human's answer never reverses what the devil did to him, but instead made it the earnest of the resurrection of all, who must dice in that all have sinned.
Jonathan What? Deniest thou that society decayest now, when every evil is rising?
Dionysius: There was a time when the voices of prophet, priest, and king were all silenced. That was the moment when the most beautiful Song in the world was ever sung.
Jonathan: (Later on a intermission.) And tin can such a God brand use of even sins and errors such as mine?
Dionysius: Of this something is noised even from your own camp. It is not merely that you tin be 10 thousand steps away from God simply information technology takes only ane stride for you to plow towards Him. Thou triest to do God'south job for thyself and be thine own Providence, and your plan A falls by the wayside, and your programme B is wrecked, and your programme C goes up in fume before you can even prepare it in motion. And then you fail, going down the alphabet. But God, whose Providential Love rests on yous, is merely, always and ever dealing with y'all on Plan A.
Jonathan: And how can I know it?
Dionysius: Go thou a catechumen, and be thou baptized and chrismated into Christ's Holy Church...
...and so dare to arroyo the Chalice, and receive Christ as ever thy Lord and Savior, and join yourself to His Holy Church.
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Source: https://cjshayward.com/sinners-in-the-providence-of-a-loving-god/
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