Redemptive Suffering: Understanding Suffering, Living With It, Growing Through It.

William J. O'Malley

ISBN 10: 082451680X / ISBN 13: 9780824516802

Published by PublishDrive, 1997

About this Item

Fast Free Shipping â Good condition book with a firm cover and clean, readable pages. Shows normal use, including some light wear or limited notes highlighting, yet remains a dependable copy overall. Supplemental items like CDs or access codes may not be included.

Seller Inventory # GWV.082451680X.G

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Redemptive Suffering: Understanding Suffering, Living With It, Growing Through It.
• Publisher: PublishDrive
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 082451680X
• ISBN 13: 9780824516802
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: good

About this title

Synopsis

This compelling book addresses important questions on the meaning of suffering: Why must we suffer? Does suffering have a purpose? How can we grow through our suffering to find peace, and give peace to others? O’Malley suggests that while reflection and introspection cannot in themselves give meaning to suffering, suffering that is beyond our control can be transformed through action.

Review

In a disarmingly off-the-cuff yet earnest style, William O'Malley challenges earlier interpretations of the problem of evil, and finds them all inadequate. One reason is that for O'Malley, a God who is all powerful and all good is self-evident in the workings of the universe. It is our inability to understand suffering that makes it so difficult to accept. One thing we can be sure of, according to O'Malley, is that facing up to challenges with grace and courage makes us more human and thereby brings us closer to others and to God.

There is an undercurrent of bravado in O'Malley's writing that shuns self-reflection, equating it with self-pity. Facing our pain and acting responsibly is the only way out. "Wisdom is making peace with the unchangeable,"he says. We are not responsible for our unmerited sufferings, "but we are responsible for what we do with the effects, what we build with the rubble fate has made of our lives."