I heard of Thomas Oden and paleo-Orthodoxy for the first time recently, and the more I read about it, the more I realized that Oden was pursuing an aim which I myself had begun to pursue at the beginning of my training as a historian. There is a certain simple allure in what Oden offers, particularly for those of us deeply disturbed by the ongoing fracturing of the Church and the seemingly endless capitulation of faith to secular culture. The Bible has quite clearly proved insufficient as an objective uniting ground for Christianity. Even the Stone-Campbell churches who share a basic theology and hermeneutic could not stay united on the principle of "the Bible alone." So in proposing a broadened basis for unifying orthodoxy, Oden's suggestion of the earliest church as an alternative is promising.
Nevertheless, paleo-orthodoxy and the Vincentian Canon which forms its implicit grounds for unity are flawed in two important ways: one of them historical and one philosophical.
Historically there is very little that has been "believed everywhere, always and by all." If the full scope of those who claim adherence to the Christian faith is considered, then doctrines like the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Resurrection are out. In fact, what was measurably shared between Gnostics and "proto-Catholics" (to borrow a distasteful term from modern scholarship) is almost entirely semantic, reducible to the name "Christian" derived from largely unrelated understandings of "Christ." Of course, Oden and others would never suggest that heretics be included in the "everyone" who is believing. Yet, if heresy is excluded some definition of orthodoxy is assumed and the argument becomes circular. The problem is further compounded by the great diversity even between saintly persons who are recognized as authoritative. For example, the Cappadocian and Augustinian views of free will are not merely in tension, capable of coexisting side by side in a reunited Christianity. They are fundamentally incompatible. Oden elects the Cappadocian view over Augustine's, but the grounds for this are not entirely clear to me. Millions of Calvinists, among others, would certainly object that voluntarism is the universal testimony of the earliest church. Even within the orthodox historical witness, there is so much variation and ambiguity that to suggest that we can in any sense pool the record and come up with a clear majority on orthodoxy is at best optimistic, at worst deluded.
Even if, for the sake of argument, there was sufficient uniformity on matters of faith to select an arbitrary point in time before which orthodoxy would be understood to be in tact, there is a deeper problem to be considered. What are the grounds for assuming that consensus results in truth? The history of the church has rejected this claim as often as it has made it. Certainly Athanasius, who Oden cites as an orthodox father, would not have suggested that the Arian emperor was right to have him exiled by virtue of the Arian majority in the Empire at the time. Maximus the Confessor, another father Oden relies on as a source of truth, was mutilated and died specifically for his claim that even if the whole world testified that he was wrong God would vindicate him in the end. Christian truth can never be understood to be rooted in or even recognized by the consensus of Christians. Truth has as its root the True One, and no other source may be posited. Suggesting that by consensus the Fathers reveal what is orthodox to us is more or less the equivalent of suggesting that Christians might hold a worldwide poll today to determine what we should all believe, with the results being binding on everyone.
I had long since given up on paleo-orthodoxy as a grounds for ecumenicism before I ever encountered Thomas Oden or his theories. Nevertheless, in reading about his theology I am able to better understand precisely why the system is flawed. The practical outcomes of paleo-orthodoxy are certainly desirable as far as I'm concerned. A renewed respect by modern Christians for the theologians who came before. An effort to solve present issues by appealing to the core truths which have been articulated throughout time. A deference paid to the great minds - greater than most of ours, great enough to be preserved much longer than my thoughts here will be - who peered into the abyss that is God and preserved what they saw for the benefit of this blind generation. But as a system for recognizing truth and uniting Christians, it falls woefully short in view of its critical defects. Thus, I agree with Ralph C. Wood (who wrote one of the articles I read about Oden) both when he writes, "Our experience of the Cross is immensely deepened by learning how major (and also minor) theologians have interpreted it. So long as we remain mentally and existentially imprisoned within the cage of modernity, our faith itself is fettered" and, immediately afterwards, when he adds "that the Gospel requires a contemporary re-visioning as much as it needs a classical repeating." It does nothing, to paraphrase a quote I once read from Florovsky, to have a patristic faith if we spend all our time looking at the Fathers and no time following their example.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Suicide According to G. K. Chesterton
"Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. Of course there may be pathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the burial at the cross-roads and the stake driven through the body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines. There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime is different from other crimes--for it makes even crimes impossible."
Without commenting on Chesterton's view of suicide, I will add some observations based on my recent work on Gregory of Nyssa. For Gregory, all sin is the active choice of non-being instead of being. In view of this understanding of sin, suicide becomes not the greatest of sins, as Chesterton suggests, but merely the physical acting out of what is already a metaphysical direction in every sin. Sin is the choice of death, of more than death, of descent into non-being altogether. To choose to kill oneself is, at least in the philosophical sense, merely the playing out of the drama of sin up to its inevitable conclusion.
Without commenting on Chesterton's view of suicide, I will add some observations based on my recent work on Gregory of Nyssa. For Gregory, all sin is the active choice of non-being instead of being. In view of this understanding of sin, suicide becomes not the greatest of sins, as Chesterton suggests, but merely the physical acting out of what is already a metaphysical direction in every sin. Sin is the choice of death, of more than death, of descent into non-being altogether. To choose to kill oneself is, at least in the philosophical sense, merely the playing out of the drama of sin up to its inevitable conclusion.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Disaster Movies
I just finished watching the film 2012 for the second time. (Don't ask me why I sat through it a second time. I didn't enjoy it the first time.) It strikes me as I watch it, mulling over in my mind what a terrible film it is, that the whole concept for the movie is little more than the serial destruction of major landmarks by natural forces. The Washington Monument crumbles. The Eiffel tower crumbles. St. Peter's Bascilica crumbles. And so on. In fact, that seems to be the scheme for most disaster movies. The Day After Tomorrow cover shows the Statue of Liberty succumbing to the elements. Armageadden sees major world cities leveled to dust. There are, of course, more examples.
I wonder what the attraction is? How many times can we watch Paris, New York, and Tokyo destroyed before we get bored? I'd like to believe that what draws people to these kinds of images is some subconcious awareness of our own fragility and finitude when compared with creation. The movies are to me little subliminal theist apologies that remind people that there is something out there in whose hands we all are. And some part of us likes that reminder, or at the very least needs it.
I'm sure I'm reading too much into it, but that was my thought anyhow.
I wonder what the attraction is? How many times can we watch Paris, New York, and Tokyo destroyed before we get bored? I'd like to believe that what draws people to these kinds of images is some subconcious awareness of our own fragility and finitude when compared with creation. The movies are to me little subliminal theist apologies that remind people that there is something out there in whose hands we all are. And some part of us likes that reminder, or at the very least needs it.
I'm sure I'm reading too much into it, but that was my thought anyhow.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Apophatic Moment for the Day
"Men have never discovered a faculty to comprehend the incomprehensible, nor have we ever been able to devise an intellectual technique for grasping the inconceivable." - Gregory of Nyssa
Thursday, July 1, 2010
The Way the Bible Reads the Bible
I am always delighted, though never surprised, to find serious flaws in the application of the supposed ideological presuppositions of the Churches of Christ. (It’s that immature, rebellious child in me that likes to lash out at my spiritual parentage.) It was a major turning point in my spiritual development when my wife asked the very innocent question, “Where does the Bible talk about selecting elders?” It took about two hours for us to finally conclude that the Bible not only never outlines the democratic selection process so popular in the Churches of Christ but actually speaks exclusively of an appointment process. Another month of posing my wife’s question to every professor I could lay hands on did little to impede my growing realization that the very framework of Restorationist belief and practice was in fact little more than a thin façade hiding rationalism and capitulation to a nineteenth century culture that is now obsolete. Calling Bible things by Bible names, doing Bible things in Bible ways, speaking where the Bible speaks and being silent where the Bible is silent - in short, restoring the first century church based only on what can be derived from Scripture - make for good slogans and bad founding principles.
My most recent reinforcement of this dismal perspective came during a course I took under Fr. John Behr at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. In the course, he addressed at length the importance of a person’s theological presuppositions in forming one’s hermeneutical presuppositions. In the context of juxtaposing Jewish and early Christian hermeneutics, Fr. Behr discussed some of the most basic beliefs about the character of Scripture in general which were shared by Jews and Christians as well as the theological disparities which yielded such radically different interpretations of the text. He made the point in passing that our own presuppositions have made it very difficult to conceive of Scripture in the way the early church did. Even simply understanding why it is certain fathers, or even the apostles, understood a text the way they did requires a complex harmony of history, theology, and exegesis. The modern person has no less a distinct starting point for biblical interpretation than did the Jews who rejected early Christian “misappropriation” of their Scriptures.
The Churches of Christ are no less guilty of this charge. In spite of claims to be restoring a first century church, a simplified Christianity with an authentic Christian mindset, Churches of Christ adopt the same basic hermeneutical launching point as most major Protestant denominations. They cling quite readily to principles of interpretation which locate relevant meaning first and foremost in a thorough and accurate exegesis of the text. Quite contrary to antique views of Scripture which held a text to be cryptic and perpetually speaking to the present, modern hermeneutics begin by stripping away any sense of mystery through scientific evaluation of what a text meant in the past. If that should happen to give insight in the present, all the better, but that is by no means an inherent characteristic of Scripture as such.
In fact, Churches of Christ may be guiltier than other groups. Their acceptance of historical-critical presuppositions is logically prior to their engagement of Scripture. The historical concept of a first century church in need of restoration and the critical belief that the plain sense of Scripture is readily accessible are the founding beliefs of the Restoration Movement which thus cloud every engagement with Scripture. Only by accepting fundamentally unbiblical ways of engaging the Bible a priori can the Churches of Christ uphold “key” beliefs, e.g. the plurality of elders, the radical autonomy of the local church, and a capella worship.
Were we to apply the “Bible things; Bible ways” principle to hermeneutics, the result would not be a historical-critical framework which locates meaning in right exegesis. That assertion ought to be self-evident, but a few simple examples should suffice to prove it nevertheless. Matthew 13:35, Mark 12:10, Luke 4:21, John 5:39, and Acts 2:16 serve as obvious illustrations of the primarily Christological interpretation of the Scriptures in the Gospels and Acts. The same basic hermeneutic continues in the epistles, e.g. 1 Cor 15:13 and 1 Pet 2:6. Other interpretations of the Scriptures include ecclesiastical (1 Tim 5:18) or theological (Gal 4:27) appropriation of Old Testament texts. The common thread, of course, is that none of these interpretations of Old Testament texts (and perhaps a New Testament one in 1 Tim 5:18) adopt the rationalistic interpretive strategy on which the Churches of Christ base everything from their ecclesiology to their deepest theology. There is little regard, if not positive disregard, for the historical context of a passage. Meaning, for the New Testament authors at least, comes not from human evaluation but only when God has “opened the Scriptures to us” (Luke 24:32).
As a closing disclaimer, let me clarify that my point is neither to undermine historical-critical hermeneutics nor to propose primarily Christological hermeneutics as an alternative. My purpose is only to illustrate a deficiency, even hypocrisy, in the way Stone-Campbell churches (of which I am a part) apply their hermeneutical presuppositions. There is a great deal of discord over a variety of issues based on whether or not the Bible approves of them. Can we have extra-congregational superstructures? Can we have instruments in worship? Can we have kitchens and gyms and fellowship halls in church buildings? What does the Bible say about this? This last question is often the first question posed. The original question, if consistency is to be maintained, would be “What does the Bible say about how to read the Bible?” Frankly, I am of the opinion that anyone honest enough to pursue that question first will be unsatisfied with the implications of the answer. I admit, however, that someone who genuinely undertakes to do Bible things in Bible ways is better than someone who only pretends to do so.
My most recent reinforcement of this dismal perspective came during a course I took under Fr. John Behr at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. In the course, he addressed at length the importance of a person’s theological presuppositions in forming one’s hermeneutical presuppositions. In the context of juxtaposing Jewish and early Christian hermeneutics, Fr. Behr discussed some of the most basic beliefs about the character of Scripture in general which were shared by Jews and Christians as well as the theological disparities which yielded such radically different interpretations of the text. He made the point in passing that our own presuppositions have made it very difficult to conceive of Scripture in the way the early church did. Even simply understanding why it is certain fathers, or even the apostles, understood a text the way they did requires a complex harmony of history, theology, and exegesis. The modern person has no less a distinct starting point for biblical interpretation than did the Jews who rejected early Christian “misappropriation” of their Scriptures.
The Churches of Christ are no less guilty of this charge. In spite of claims to be restoring a first century church, a simplified Christianity with an authentic Christian mindset, Churches of Christ adopt the same basic hermeneutical launching point as most major Protestant denominations. They cling quite readily to principles of interpretation which locate relevant meaning first and foremost in a thorough and accurate exegesis of the text. Quite contrary to antique views of Scripture which held a text to be cryptic and perpetually speaking to the present, modern hermeneutics begin by stripping away any sense of mystery through scientific evaluation of what a text meant in the past. If that should happen to give insight in the present, all the better, but that is by no means an inherent characteristic of Scripture as such.
In fact, Churches of Christ may be guiltier than other groups. Their acceptance of historical-critical presuppositions is logically prior to their engagement of Scripture. The historical concept of a first century church in need of restoration and the critical belief that the plain sense of Scripture is readily accessible are the founding beliefs of the Restoration Movement which thus cloud every engagement with Scripture. Only by accepting fundamentally unbiblical ways of engaging the Bible a priori can the Churches of Christ uphold “key” beliefs, e.g. the plurality of elders, the radical autonomy of the local church, and a capella worship.
Were we to apply the “Bible things; Bible ways” principle to hermeneutics, the result would not be a historical-critical framework which locates meaning in right exegesis. That assertion ought to be self-evident, but a few simple examples should suffice to prove it nevertheless. Matthew 13:35, Mark 12:10, Luke 4:21, John 5:39, and Acts 2:16 serve as obvious illustrations of the primarily Christological interpretation of the Scriptures in the Gospels and Acts. The same basic hermeneutic continues in the epistles, e.g. 1 Cor 15:13 and 1 Pet 2:6. Other interpretations of the Scriptures include ecclesiastical (1 Tim 5:18) or theological (Gal 4:27) appropriation of Old Testament texts. The common thread, of course, is that none of these interpretations of Old Testament texts (and perhaps a New Testament one in 1 Tim 5:18) adopt the rationalistic interpretive strategy on which the Churches of Christ base everything from their ecclesiology to their deepest theology. There is little regard, if not positive disregard, for the historical context of a passage. Meaning, for the New Testament authors at least, comes not from human evaluation but only when God has “opened the Scriptures to us” (Luke 24:32).
As a closing disclaimer, let me clarify that my point is neither to undermine historical-critical hermeneutics nor to propose primarily Christological hermeneutics as an alternative. My purpose is only to illustrate a deficiency, even hypocrisy, in the way Stone-Campbell churches (of which I am a part) apply their hermeneutical presuppositions. There is a great deal of discord over a variety of issues based on whether or not the Bible approves of them. Can we have extra-congregational superstructures? Can we have instruments in worship? Can we have kitchens and gyms and fellowship halls in church buildings? What does the Bible say about this? This last question is often the first question posed. The original question, if consistency is to be maintained, would be “What does the Bible say about how to read the Bible?” Frankly, I am of the opinion that anyone honest enough to pursue that question first will be unsatisfied with the implications of the answer. I admit, however, that someone who genuinely undertakes to do Bible things in Bible ways is better than someone who only pretends to do so.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Faith and Doubt: Psalm 138
I recently counseled someone struggling with the problem of doubt by reminding that person that faith and doubt are not mutually exclusive. God does not, I suggested, expect us to live totally without doubt, and genuine faith does not preclude the possibility of doubt. Instead God makes allownace for our doubt to be expressed in the context of faith. Rather than internalizing our doubt and allowing it to consume and define us, we ought to call out to God in our doubt. "I believe. Help my unbelief." (Mark 9:24)
I found this possibility expressed profoundly in Psalm 138:
This psalm is very overtly about the psalmist's faith in a truly faithful God. It introduces itself with the explicit praise of God's "love and faithfulness" and proceeds to quantify that faithfulness throughout. When he called, God answered. Though he is lowly, God is with him. When he walked in the midst of trouble, God preserved him. God will fulfill His purpose for him because His love will endure. Throughout you see no expression of doubt, only the constant affirmation of God's great works and the response in faith of the psalmist. In view of God's faithfulness, he will praise Him. He will bow down in the temple. He even invites all the kings of the earth to join in. God is faithful and worthy of our faith in Him.
It is jarring, to say the least, to conclude as he does. After affirming in so many ways that God has not and will not abandon him, the psalmist still cries out ironically from his unbelief: "Do not abandon me!" Here faith does not preclude doubt, but allows doubt to find its expression in the framework of this faith. "God, I know you are faithful. Please be faithful." It permits the tension which is always in us to find voice before a God who understands our frailty.
Authentic faith does not necessarily preclude doubt, but it always gives us a context in which to voice our doubt before God. We ought to find comfort in that freedom.
I found this possibility expressed profoundly in Psalm 138:
I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart;
before the "gods" I will sing your praise.
I will bow down toward your holy temple
and will praise your name
for your love and your faithfulness,
for you have exalted above all things
your name and your word.
When I called, you answered me;
you made me bold and stouthearted.
May all the kings of the earth praise you, O LORD,
when they hear the words of your mouth.
May they sing of the ways of the LORD,
for the glory of the LORD is great.
Though the LORD is on high, he looks upon the lowly,
but the proud he knows from afar.
Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
you preserve my life;
you stretch out your hand against the anger of my foes,
with your right hand you save me.
The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me;
your love, O LORD, endures forever—
do not abandon the works of your hands.
This psalm is very overtly about the psalmist's faith in a truly faithful God. It introduces itself with the explicit praise of God's "love and faithfulness" and proceeds to quantify that faithfulness throughout. When he called, God answered. Though he is lowly, God is with him. When he walked in the midst of trouble, God preserved him. God will fulfill His purpose for him because His love will endure. Throughout you see no expression of doubt, only the constant affirmation of God's great works and the response in faith of the psalmist. In view of God's faithfulness, he will praise Him. He will bow down in the temple. He even invites all the kings of the earth to join in. God is faithful and worthy of our faith in Him.
It is jarring, to say the least, to conclude as he does. After affirming in so many ways that God has not and will not abandon him, the psalmist still cries out ironically from his unbelief: "Do not abandon me!" Here faith does not preclude doubt, but allows doubt to find its expression in the framework of this faith. "God, I know you are faithful. Please be faithful." It permits the tension which is always in us to find voice before a God who understands our frailty.
Authentic faith does not necessarily preclude doubt, but it always gives us a context in which to voice our doubt before God. We ought to find comfort in that freedom.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Why Evil: Formulating the Question
Having completed my readings for my course on the problem of evil, I find myself in very much the same place I began. Most of the authors I have been introduced to in the past month have spilled no small amount of ink either to prove that their theodicy is the correct one or to demonstrate that no theodicy is viable (or sometimes even necessary). Though I do not feel like I have gained any great knowledge or insight, let me see if perhaps I have at least developed the ability to better articulate my thoughts on the problem of evil.
The answer to any question is conditioned by the nature of the question itself, and the conundrum that is suffering is no different. The traditional formulation of the problem, which has been repeated by most authors I have read, is structured thus:
Therein lies the problem. Certainly the logical formulation of the problem of evil is both valid and disturbing, but even those admissions fall short of making it damning. I cannot imagine anyone reclining casually at home on a sofa who contemplates the problem of evil and concludes, “Well that doesn’t add up. God must not exist.” As much as we covet labels like reasonable, enlightened, modern, and logical, no one’s worldview has ever been decimated in a moment by the purely intellectual realization that their beliefs contain a mathematical inconsistency. Anyone who rejects God as the answer to the rational formulation of the problem of evil either never believed in God to begin with (and here, quite clearly, among atheists is where the argument is thought have the most “weight”) or that belief was never more than intellectual assent. Faith, being more than intellectual assent, is undisturbed by mathematical imprecision (or even contradiction).
Perhaps this is why God has never given us the answer key to the problem of evil. Since the problem of evil is not primarily a logical problem, why should He be bothered to furnish us with a logical answer. I have not, by asserting this, done away with the problem of evil. I have merely suggested that when we speculate, the problem is not primarily rational but existential. Put in simpler terms, our interrogative should not be “how” (as in, “how can an omnipotent, omnibeneficent God coexist with evil”) but “where” (as in, where is the omnipotent, omnibeneficent God in my suffering”). It is only when the question of why suffering exists is reframed as an existential rather than a logical conundrum that God condescends to answer it.
The answer to “where” is “here.” An honest theodicy begins with the cross, where God literally entered into human suffering. Surely He was present for the Patriarchs and the Prophets and the people of Israel when they suffered, but in Jesus He was not merely present but a participant. He emptied himself, not merely of power or privilege but of sufferinglessness (if you’ll pardon the made up word). When we suffer and cry out, when our existence has itself become the crippling problem (in a way that our reason never could), we know that we petition, lament to, berate, and praise a God who knows what it is we go through, not merely by virtue of His omniscience but because of His participation in us and our suffering (in order, hallelujah, that we might participate in Him).
When we hear unfortunate stories about people who fall away from faith because of the suffering in the world, it is rarely (if ever) a product of an inability to reconcile reason with evil. Evil is unreasonable whether you believe in God or not. We falter, we fall, we leave because evil has left the realm of mathematics and broached the walls of everyday life. It is the death of our children, our spouses, our parents, our friends that shake our worlds and threaten to undermine their very foundation. It is not the concept that death exists. The problem of evil is a problem of living in evil, and we should formulate the question in this way. Only when we have structured the question properly, can we expect to find a satisfying answer.
The answer to any question is conditioned by the nature of the question itself, and the conundrum that is suffering is no different. The traditional formulation of the problem, which has been repeated by most authors I have read, is structured thus:
- God is all good
- God is all powerful
- Evil exists
Therein lies the problem. Certainly the logical formulation of the problem of evil is both valid and disturbing, but even those admissions fall short of making it damning. I cannot imagine anyone reclining casually at home on a sofa who contemplates the problem of evil and concludes, “Well that doesn’t add up. God must not exist.” As much as we covet labels like reasonable, enlightened, modern, and logical, no one’s worldview has ever been decimated in a moment by the purely intellectual realization that their beliefs contain a mathematical inconsistency. Anyone who rejects God as the answer to the rational formulation of the problem of evil either never believed in God to begin with (and here, quite clearly, among atheists is where the argument is thought have the most “weight”) or that belief was never more than intellectual assent. Faith, being more than intellectual assent, is undisturbed by mathematical imprecision (or even contradiction).
Perhaps this is why God has never given us the answer key to the problem of evil. Since the problem of evil is not primarily a logical problem, why should He be bothered to furnish us with a logical answer. I have not, by asserting this, done away with the problem of evil. I have merely suggested that when we speculate, the problem is not primarily rational but existential. Put in simpler terms, our interrogative should not be “how” (as in, “how can an omnipotent, omnibeneficent God coexist with evil”) but “where” (as in, where is the omnipotent, omnibeneficent God in my suffering”). It is only when the question of why suffering exists is reframed as an existential rather than a logical conundrum that God condescends to answer it.
The answer to “where” is “here.” An honest theodicy begins with the cross, where God literally entered into human suffering. Surely He was present for the Patriarchs and the Prophets and the people of Israel when they suffered, but in Jesus He was not merely present but a participant. He emptied himself, not merely of power or privilege but of sufferinglessness (if you’ll pardon the made up word). When we suffer and cry out, when our existence has itself become the crippling problem (in a way that our reason never could), we know that we petition, lament to, berate, and praise a God who knows what it is we go through, not merely by virtue of His omniscience but because of His participation in us and our suffering (in order, hallelujah, that we might participate in Him).
When we hear unfortunate stories about people who fall away from faith because of the suffering in the world, it is rarely (if ever) a product of an inability to reconcile reason with evil. Evil is unreasonable whether you believe in God or not. We falter, we fall, we leave because evil has left the realm of mathematics and broached the walls of everyday life. It is the death of our children, our spouses, our parents, our friends that shake our worlds and threaten to undermine their very foundation. It is not the concept that death exists. The problem of evil is a problem of living in evil, and we should formulate the question in this way. Only when we have structured the question properly, can we expect to find a satisfying answer.
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