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A Biblical Review of Modern Discourse on Pain

  • Journal of Counseling and Gospel
  • Abbr : Jocag
  • 2022, 30(3), pp.5-34
  • DOI : 10.17841/jocag.2022.30.3.5
  • Publisher : Korean Evangelical Counseling Society
  • Research Area : Humanities > Christian Theology > Pastoral Counseling
  • Received : September 29, 2022
  • Accepted : November 10, 2022
  • Published : November 30, 2022

Kyu Bo Kim 1

1총신대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Pain is an inevitable existential problem for all human beings. If humans are created in the image of God and God governs over all creation, the problem of human pain is incomprehensible apart from God's providence and His redemptive history. Modern discourses on pain, however, are mostly formed without the consideration of God’s existence and providence. Therefore, it is a meaningful project to explore the modern discourses of pain from a biblical point of view and present a biblical alternative. This paper argues that Modern discourses of pain entail meaninglessness, avoidance, personalization, comparison, and spiritualization of it. People today are gradually losing the meaning of pain, and the loss of its meaning makes them lean to avoiding or deleting the experience of pain from their personal lives. Pain is getting considered an individual problem, so it weakens the public responsibility of taking care of the problem of pain in a sociocultural level. The personalized pain, in turn, brings about pain comparison with other people’s pain. There is also an approach to radically spiritualize the experience of pain, losing the earthiness of it. Such discourses have a limitation in the lack of a holistic understanding of human beings, and therefore fail to see its narrative and meaning in God's providence and His drama. A follow-up study of a biblical discourse of pain and its practical implications for soul care is suggested.

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