Divine-human dialogue
Our current practice in the church is that we must not question God. Bill raises a good comment that “if God is a God whom we cannot question, then what kind of God is to whom we are committing ourselves?” West says that …show more content…
Brad argues in a psychological direction about object-relations and ego development. I agree with Brad that “where there is lament, the believer is able to take initiative with God and so develop over against God the ego strength that is necessary for responsible faith“ . If we are unable to initiate, we are only left with praise. As Brad says “the outcome is a ‘False Self’, bad faith which is based on fear and guilt and lived out as resentful or self-deceptive works of righteousness. The absence of lament makes a religion of coercive obedience the only possibility.” The “I-lament” as expressed by Job is a good example of taking initiative. The “I-lament” can be well accepted by contemporary culture of promoting “I” and the church should not have difficulty to recover lament prayer in the