How Are Sufferers Specially Loved by God | Eleonore Stump
Channel: Henry Center
Date: 2020-12-11

Lecture Title - Suffering and Flourishing

Although we sometimes praise a person who suffers for not sinking under his suffering, we still suppose that the sufferer is to be ranked more among life’s losers than among life’s winners. The disability rights movement is an exception to this general attitude—it wants others to see that those with disabilities are people to celebrate. The Christian tradition has held an analogous position as regards suffering in general: those who endure serious suffering are not the pitiable losers of life or even the heroic overcomers of tragedy but rather are those specially loved by God. This lecture looks closely at the relevant Christian doctrines to explain this attitude towards suffering and to distinguish it from the neighboring perverse attitude that sees suffering as an intrinsic good.

Eleonore Stump (PhD Cornell University) is Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University. She is author or editor of seventeen books, including Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering (Oxford University Press, 2010) and Atonement (Oxford University Press, 2019).

The Henry Center for Theological Understanding provides theological resources that help bridge the gap between the academy and the church. It houses a cluster of initiatives, each of which is aimed at applying practical Christian wisdom to important kingdom issues—for the good of the church, for the soul of the theological academy, for the sake of the world, and ultimately for the glory of God. The HCTU seeks to ground each of these initiatives in Scripture, and it pursues these goals collaboratively, in order to train a new generation of wise interpreters of the Word—lay persons and scholars alike—for the sake of tomorrow’s church, academy, and world.

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