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1 results

  • 10 - The “Uselessness” of the Triune God

  • from Part III - Power
  • David H. Kelsey, Yale University, Connecticut
  • Book:
    Human Anguish and God's Power
    Published online:
    23 January 2021
    Print publication:
    17 December 2020, pp 349-376

  • Summary

    The Triune God’s intrinsically glorious singularity and experiences of its gracious presence and the objective reality of “evils” and experiences of horrendous suffering are both “mysteries.” Both are “unmanageable” by human creatures. The appropriate initial response to each is silence.They differ in that God’s concrete reality is intrinsically a “positive” mystery a se that cannot be comprehensively “grasped” cognitively or “explained,” whereas particular “evils” are “negative” mysteries crying out for explanations leading to their eradication. If “positive mystery” is not acknowledged, it may be hoped that moral and natural evils can all be “explained” and eliminated. So their “mystery” is not intrinsic. If “positive mystery” is acknowledged, the concrete actuality of “negative evils” is itself an a-rational and inexplicable reality. Because God is intrinsically “mystery” God cannot be the causal explanation of the reality of “negative mysteries.” God is not a useful “explanatory hypothesis.”The singularity of God’s intrinsic glory entails God’s intrinsic “uselessness.”