Human Anguish and God's Power
Current Issues in Theology Series

Persons anguished by another's profound suffering are often outraged by well-intentioned efforts to console them which suggest that God 'sent' that horrific suffering to their loved one for a 'purpose' according to a tailor-made 'plan' for just that person. However, the outraged reaction simply deepens the anguish. This book argues that such 'consolation' is theologically problematic because it assumes that unrestricted power is what makes God 'God.' Against that it outlines an account of 'who' and 'what' the Triune God is, framed in terms of God's intrinsic 'glory,' the attractive and perfectly self-expressive self-giving in love that is God's life, and sets limits to the range of things we can say God 'does.' Correlatively it offers an account of different senses in which God is 'sovereign' and 'powerful', one which reflects three ways God relates to all else: to create, to bless eschatologically, and to reconcile, as is scripturally narrated.

1. Introduction: consoling anguish and making it worse; I. Glory: 2. The glory of the triune God; II. Kingdom: 3. God's intrinsic “sovereignty”; 4. Creation, providence, and theologically problematic pastoral consolation; 5. The triune God's sovereignty in two registers; 6. Excursus: must God have only one eternal purpose?; III. Power: 7. Assumptions about God's power in problematic pastoral remarks; 8. The triune God's intrinsic power; 9. The triune God's power in two registers; 10. The “uselessness: of the triune God; 11. Stammering in praise of the useless triune God.

David H. Kelsey is the Weigle Professor Emeritus of Theology at Yale Divinity School. He is the author of Proving Doctrine (1999), Imaging Redemption (2005), and Eccentric Existence (2 vols., 2009).