A God Without Wrath...?

Chris at Paradoxology raises the question of how we are to understand the wrath of God. I wrote: "Part of the problem of wrath is that we most immediately associate it with unfair and disproportionate anger as we have all to often experienced it. We are also very often aware of the terrible damage anger can do and we are hardwired to avoid it, therefore to associate it with God is a prima facie conceptual no-no. What we need to do, I think, is to find ways of talking about things that contextualises 'wrath' as the response of love to whatever damages or harms the beloved; our culture is saturated with stories of anger flowing from love; a mother's love for her child causes her to lash out at an abuser -no-one chastises her anger, in fact the commments would be made if she was not angry; it would be asked whether she really cared for her child. There may be issues with how she might express the anger but not the anger itself. God's 'problem' is that he passionately loves the victim and the perpetrator, and passionately hates the things that both of them do that harm others and themselves...."

Paradoxology: A God Without Wrath...: