Does God suffer?

[Rising_Suns]

Brethren in Christ, peace be with you,

I'm just curious what everyone else thinks about this topic. It would seem that, because of God's infinite perfection, He is incapable of suffering. Yet Jesus Christ, who is eternally both fully man and fully God, suffered atleast in the human aspect of His nature. Another point of discussion, some of the visions the saints had were of Christ suffering because of the personal sins they were commiting; carrying on with the idea that, when we hurt ourselves, we effectively hurt the body of Christ. Yet at the same time, these visions may also just be a symbolic way of communicating; Jesus cannot really be getting hurt since He is at the right hand of the Father, in heaven, where no suffering exists, right?

Anyway, I just wanted to bring this up for discussion, as I have been really discovering lately just how symbolic much of Scripture truly is. For example;

"in all their affliction he was afflicted" (Is. 63:9a); this seems to suggest God was afflicted.

"the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people" (32:14); this seems to suggest God repented.

"the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh" (Ex. 9:12); this seems to suggest God willed evil on another person.
​

Yet, can God really be afflicted, repent, and will evil? Below is an excellent article from Catholic.com that deals with such passages and really helps explain just how metaphorical and anthropomorphic Scripture truly is;


http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/2002/0211bt.asp

May the Lord give you His peace!

-Davide

 

[Dream]

Very interesting question. I wish I could give some input, but I honestly have no idea.

 

[Axion]

I think the answer is in the question: Can God experience less than we can?

If God cannot/has not experienced suffering, then He is in some way less than His creations.

I think a lot of this is bound up in the incarnation.

 

[Victrixa]

Jesus cannot really be getting hurt since He is at the right hand of the Father, in heaven, where no suffering exists, right?

Jesus is hurting. What then, is the Sacred Heart? He's hurting at all the sins which are being committed against Him and His Father. He's hurting to see so many people hurting themselves because they decide to not put their trust in Him. He's hurting that people are hurting themselves because of their sins.

I believe there is suffering in Heaven. There is joyful bliss too. Both suffering and bliss are in Heaven. Suffering will end at the end of times when God will destroy both Heaven and Earth and create a new Heaven and Earth. The saints in Heaven suffer over what is going on on the Earth. They suffer when they intercede for the saints on Earth who suffer.

This is what I believe, anyways from all that I've read.

 

[plainswolf]

Love begets suffering and suffering begets love. If He can love, and love mightily He does, then He can suffer in this certain manner. When His Divine Head was crowned with thorns in the most cruel manner, and His adorable face was pummeled by our malice, this is where Love and sin met.

J.M.J.
plainswolf

 

[Rising_Suns]

What do you all make of John Paul II's statement when he says that suffering is something "which we cannot attribute to God as God-except in an anthropomorphic metaphorical way whereby we speak of his suffering, regrets, et cetera" (General Audience, Oct. 19, 1988).

 

[Maggie893]

What do you all make of John Paul II's /statement when he says that suffering is something "which we cannot attribute to God as God-except in an anthropomorphic metaphorical way whereby we speak of his suffering, regrets, et cetera" (General Audience, Oct. 19, 1988).

I would certainly agree with this in theory, because suffering is a human term understood by human experience. We hardly can say that we understand God's experience of anything. However it is a useful term to be used to clarify that God is not always happy, He does not find joy in our abuses.

I had a great conversation with my Sr. High youth once on suffering. When did suffering begin? Who created suffering? Why does suffering exist?

The bottom line is that Satan tempted Eve to sin. Eve chose to sin as did Adam. At that point they began to know themselves and they began to suffer. Is suffering really an evil or is it a byproduct of Love? What causes suffering? Isn't it the separation from an attachment that causes suffering?

We suffer a broken leg, we are separated from our health.
We suffer in mourning, we are separated from our loved ones.
We suffer from guilt, we are separated from God.

When we suffer we have the great grace from God to be able to bind our sufferings with Christ's. Christ does not live in the past or the future but in this present moment. When we bind our suffering with Christ we do so presently so Christ must be suffering presently as well.

Does God suffer? Well He is pure Love so He is all that makes up Love. Our understanding of His experience is limited but I would say, yes God suffers.

 

[plainswolf]

I don't believe that if God suffers in the certain manner I have described that it takes anything away from His suffinciency unto Himself, but rather glorifies the perfect Love that he is.

J.M.J.
plainswolf

 

[Irenaeus]

Davide,

You (and This Rock) touch on a good point. The Eastern Fathers in particular were fond of describing the divinity as being in a state of permanent apatheia, not in the sense of the English word "apathy", but in a sort of "freedom from all passion," wherein they could both describe the manner of the Son's begetting from the Father and also, making a lexicon for future theology.

It's hard to reconcile the idea that an intransigent being can sorrow over temporal calamity, especially when he is the source of all beatitude. One must not forget, that with things like the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we have the face of the Incarnation; God becoming man, but not being diminished in his divinity. This is the mystery of the Incarnation, how the Human and Divine souls interacted in Christ. You have Christ who asks if Peter loves him, but yet you have the Christ that knows completely the life of the Samaritan woman at the well.

I would very much rely upon the Fathers when we ask ourselves the question you are asking, Davide; these were extremely involved in the Christological and Pneumatical controversies of the 3rd through 5th centuries.

They key word is anthropomorphic. "His thoughts are not our thoughts, nor his ways our ways," So we cannot expect God as Divinity to think like us. However, since he chose in a point in time to become man, we can assume that he has the perfections of man, being divinized (theosis) and therefore we can attribute all such pain and suffering to the human part of Christ, (like when he was on the cross) but yet attribute his omniscience and power to the Divine side of him.

I think that in order to be orthodox we must interpret verses that have God "repenting", etc. as metaphorical, because by God's own admission, he does not change, as in his ousia (essence, attributes). Just like we often describe unknown things by things known, so too the inspired authors used anthropomorphic terms in order to understand God, as far as we can, for it is inconceiveable that an eternal omniscient God should "repent", unless we consider that we as humans are looking at an eternal God from a single point of time.

 

[ZooMom]

Irenaeus, my friend...you are going to be scary when you hit thirty. You are simply awesome. Great post.

 

[Rising_Suns]

I think that in order to be orthodox we must interpret verses that have God "repenting", etc. as metaphorical, because by God's own admission, he does not change

Just an aside note, here's an exert from the article regarding the verse of God's repentence;
.
.
.
Divine Repentance
In modern speech, repentance refers to a sorrow over and conversion from one's sins. This kind of repentance is never ascribed to God, whose absolute holiness is unquestioned in Scripture.

The term repentance historically has been used in other senses, referring either to a change of course or a change of opinion, and in these senses Scripture does apply the concept of repentance to God. This is not literal because God's omniscience prevents him from ever having any cause of changing his opinion (he cannot gain new information that he previously was unaware of) and because his timelessness prevents him from ever changing in any way. The point elsewhere in Scripture is made explicitly: "God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should repent" (Num. 23:19).

Nevertheless, it is fairly easy to unpack the metaphor of divine repentance when it is used in Scripture. For example, Exodus says "the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people" (32:14) following Moses' intercession for them. This fits the same pattern as all answered prayer: God has determined that he will give certain things to us only if we ask for them, otherwise not. Had Moses not interceded for the people of Israel, punishment would have come upon them. This avoidance of the calamity that otherwise would have occurred is spoken of as if it were a change of course on God's part. In actuality, there was no change. God had determined two possible paths to go down depending on the response of Moses. The prophet's intercession simply determined which path was taken.

Similarly, when Genesis speaks of God repenting of or regretting having created man (Gen. 6:6-7), it signifies not that God got new information on how bad men are but that he fully recognized how bad man's sins were (i.e., sufficiently bad to allow the race to be destroyed) and that he correspondingly chose to allow the calamity of the Flood.

 

[Irenaeus]

Right Davide...
That's why I hold that article in High regard..

"This Rock" has a tendency of explaining very very old ideas, and decoding the somewhat difficult latin and greek theological terminology that surround them.

 

[Carrye]

Two ?s:

Is God immutable?

How does one experience suffering? ie, what part of one's being can experience suffering?

 

[jamesrwright3]

I don't know if God suffers in the traditional sense that we do, but just by his very nature, being all loving, I would find it hard to believe that he is not affected if one of His creation does something against his will..

Is not your earthly father disappointed if you make bad choices? I don't think God would be any different.

 

[Truth and Reconciliation]

Last year I had a horrible relationship with a girl I liked. We broke all relations almost a year ago, and it still hurts as if it occured yesterday. I was going to get her a St. Valentine's Day gift and she (figuratively) threw it back in my face. I was rejected.

Our Savior Christ Jesus with his nail-scarred hands held Heaven's gates wide open for us. He opens His arms and says, "I love you this much!" What if you rejected His gift of saving grace and His love? How'd He feel?

He'd be crushed as anyone who lost their love (READ: Jn 3:16). I believe God is distressed when we reject Him.

 

[Carrye]

Does suffering change us? What does it mean if we say God suffers? Does that change him?

 

[Rising_Suns]

Does suffering change us? What does it mean if we say God suffers? Does that change him?

I think you are following the path of logic I intended for this thread; if God is immutable (unchangable) and eternally perfect in every sense, then nothing we can do ever can affect/change Him. At first glance it would seem that God's immutability and His capacity to be affected by our actions (in whatever sense) are in conflict with each other.

For example, if we sin, God may be "hurt", dissapointed, etc., and may react by disciplining us because of His love for us and His dislike of sin. So the questions remains, is God's reaction a violation of His immutability? And for me personally, I don't think it is. God's nature is still eternally constant; He eternally dislikes sin and always wills man towards Himself, so His reaction to our actions correspond with the nature of who He is, which what is immutable and unchanging.

Actually, that would perhaps be a clearer description of Immutability; that His nature is unchanging, rather than simply saying He is unchanging. Any thoughts?

 

[Rising_Suns]

Right Davide...
That's why I hold that article in High regard..

Me too. That article helped show me just how metaphorical and anthropomorphic Scriputre really is, which naturally showed me just how supremely magnificent God is and unlike anything we can possibly imagine or put into words.

Since man wrote Scripture, I tend to see it more of like a replica of a Michelangelo masterpeice painted by an 8-year old child; the basic ideas are there, but it can never fully portray/embody the original.

 

[Irenaeus]

Davide,

You have it together.

One of the most essential properties of God is that of his immutability. In my opinion, this is the foundation of all his properties - if he were a changing being, he could not possibly be an eternal God...instead, he would be one time true, one time false, one time good, one time evil. Of course, to sober Christian thought, these ideas are abhorrent, that God could be changeable as such.

Especially in the 4th century when the Great Greek Fathers (Basil, the Gregories) were forming their apologetics in regard to paganism, with their dialogues with the pagans (including Julian, [the apostate], ironically enough) they mention especially the belief in an immutable God as a necessary component in any consistent monotheism over and above the "fables of the pagans."

There is a HUGE difference between modern anthropomorphic "theology" (like New Age beliefs, and certain "Progressive Christianities") and anthropomorphism in hermeneutics. The former focuses on how God supposedly changes based on how we perceive him, a sort of "Open Theism." The latter focuses on how God, in his economia, (economy) is related to us in theology; interpreting his actions as those based in the dimension of mortals, but yet preserving is immutability. Open Theism has a terrible property in that it interpets the economy of revelation more as a theology. As Jaroslav Pelikan would comment regarding a peculiar error among the pagans and heretics, "The Greeks put creation into eternity, and the heretics put the Trinity into time" (pg. 235, Christianity and Classical Culture)

What I mean by this, of course, is that while the Open Theist (or classical pagan) may see the Incarnation as being a change in God's essential ousia, or essentia, as the Latins would have it...a Christian, especially a Catholic or an Orthodox individual, would know that this is not a change in God's nature, but rather a dispensation of his economy, as he is revealed in human flesh to man...not that his divine ousia has changed, but in the "fulness of time" he came born of a woman, clothed in human flesh, very much assuming our nature, but yet undiluted in his divinity.

 

[Carrye]

Actually, that would perhaps be a clearer description of Immutability; that His nature is unchanging, rather than simply saying He is unchanging. Any thoughts?

Exactly! By saying "He is unchanging", what does that mean for God in the Incarnation? We say, "God became man". 'Becoming' implies change, but is it? Because of the hypostatic union, we can say that Christ was fully divine and fully human without any contradiction - what we call the communication of idioms (communicatio idiomatum). Jesus is the Logos existing in a human way, but the unity is on the level of the Person of the Logos, not the soul of Jesus. The soul is a 'what', not an 'I', and so the soul is not the subject of unity.

And all of this is really just a continuation of Irenaeus' final paragraph in his last post.