Saturday 18 February 2006

The suffering love of God

“God created through love and for love.... He created love in all its forms. He created beings capable of loving from all possible distances. Because no other could do it, he himself went to the greatest possible distance, the infinite distance. This infinite distance between God and God, this supreme tearing apart, this agony beyond all others, this marvel of love, is the crucifixion. Nothing can be further from God than that which has been made accursed.

“This tearing apart, over which supreme love places the bond of supreme union, echoes perpetually across the universe in the midst of the silence, like two notes, separate yet melting into one, like pure and heart-rending harmony. This is the Word of God. The whole creation is nothing but its vibration.”

—Simone Weil, Waiting for God (New York: Putnam, 1951), pp. 121-22. [Thanks to Kim Fabricius for putting me on to this extraordinary book!]

2 Comments:

Anonymous said...

Now there's a "thought for the day"!

By the way, a lot of what Weil has to say about suffering, affliction, the cross and the hiddenness of God might usefully inform the discussion on Piper.
For example:

"So soon as a man falls into affliction the question takes hold and goes on repeating itself incessantly. Why? Why? Why? For his question 'Why?' does not mean 'By what cause?' but 'For what purpose?' There can be no answer to the 'Why?' of the afflicted, because the world is necessity and not purpose . . . Whenever we look for final causes in this world it refuses them. But to know that it refuses, one has to ask."

Or:
"If I thought that God sent me suffering by an act of his will and for my good, I should think that I was something, and I should miss the chief use of suffering which is to teach me that I am nothing. It is therefore essential to avoid all such thoughts, but it is necessary to love God through the suffering."

Paul W said...

Ben,

Thank you for referring to Weil. _Waiting On God_ is indeed an extraordinary book. Her wisdom on suffering and affliction has helped me through a long(ish) period of unemployment.

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