On Irenaeus

There are many unresolved questions in Christianity as those of you doing “Living the Questions” have been exploring. Perhaps one of the greatest of those unresolved issues is the question of “theodicy” (literally the “righteousness of God”). Essentially this dilemma asks:

If God is all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful, then where does evil come from?

In more recent times, the dilemma has been asked in more human terms: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” There is no definitive Christian response to this question, although many theologians have wrestled with it.

One theologian who wrestled with it and posed a possible solution was Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons at the end of the 2nd century AD. The Christian calendar commemorates Irenaeus on 28 June each year.

In the face of people who tended towards thinking about having 2 gods (a good one and an evil one), Irenaeus affirmed both the goodness of the one God and God’s unity. A corollary of this affirmation was the emphasis on the goodness and purposefulness of God’s creation.

These affirmations led Irenaeus to understand humans as being on a journey from immaturity to maturity towards God. Part of that journey involved suffering or encounter with evil, in order to learn to persist faithfully on the journey. Of course, this approach isn’t enough in the face of momentous human tragedy such as the Holocaust, but it does remind us that part of being created is living in a world that is constantly changing. Change around us forces change within us; and, if we understand ourselves as creatures of God, then we must also expect that God will be working in and through those changes.

Process theology is a contemporary heir of Irenaeus and his emphasis on humanity’s journey towards God. Some process theologians even go so far as to suggest that God is also in the process of “becoming” from the limited perspective of our lineal view of time. If we believe that God is all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful, then surely we will expect that God is travelling the journey with us, in all its changes, and vagaries, and difficulties; and that God is the ultimate goal and purpose of all that we are and do by the very grace of God.