The Suffering God?

[Bob Crowley]

I'm reading (slowly) Alister McGrath's book "Christian Theology - An Introduction" (getting my L plates).

In chapter 9 "The Doctrine of God' he has a passage on "Can God Suffer?". It seems some of the ancients thought He could not suffer, based on the idea of impassibility such that God cannot suffer due to the actions of another, otherwise He would be dependent on their actions.

From Wikipedia - "Impassibility (from Latin in-, "not", passibilis, "able to suffer, experience emotion") describes the theological doctrine that God does not experience pain or pleasure from the actions of another being. It has often been seen as a consequence of divine aseity, the idea that God is absolutely independent of any other being, i.e., in no way causally dependent. Being affected (literally made to have a certain emotion, affect) by the state or actions of another would seem to imply causal dependence."

The argument was that God is perfect. If He was made to change by the actions of another, then He would no longer be perfect, since absolute perfection is immutable.

But this negates God's free will - He can CHOOSE to suffer in empathy with His creatures, and I think He does. He must be multi faceted - He would be taking a neutral stance towards the mechanics of the Andromeda Galaxy, since that is a part of His creation as well. But when it coms to His creatures, He takes a personal interest, so much so He sent His Son to suffer on our behalf.

If, as Christ said, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father." Since God the Son suffered, I fail to see how God the Father could not suffer on account of His son at the very least.

But there is a paradox here - the natural world, which God created, is callous. Most life forms maintain their existence by feeding on other life. The lamb chops we might have eaten a few days ago were a lamb gamboling in a paddock a few days before that. Christ Himself told the disciples to put down their nets to catch some fish, which they did. The fish had been swimming in the sea until that point, when they suddenly found themselves drowning in air. He cursed a fig tree because it didn't bear fruit, and it withered to the roots overnight.

I find the idea of an impassible God to be impractical. Otherwise we would have this perfect immutable God creating creatures who suffer, who have emotions and can feel pain without Himself having any idea what those things were in His own personal experience.

I think the early Christian theologians were guilty of taking on board a (Greek) philosophical concept and deifying it, with their concept of God's impassibility.

 

[Trusting in Him]

If Jesus Christ had not suffered and died uopn the cross, how would we understand God's love for the lost human race, already under sentance of death for sin? Jewish scholars already understood something about this as they had two names for two Messiah's, Messiah ben Joseph and Messiah ben David. Their understanding was the one came to suffer and the other came to rule as king.

Even today authordox Jews do not choose to read certain passages of scripture, which prophecy the coming of Christ. There is much about this, which seems so difficult for many of us to understand. I find it very strange that so much of Jewish teaching on the old testament is very helpful to Christians, but their own teaching is to exclude the Christian perspective completely.

 

[bling]

God out of empathy for Christ would have suffered greatly while on the cross.
As far as your take on animals and plants "suffering", they are not made in God's image and their reactions can be pure instinctive. They all "die" when God stops providing life to them, but do animals and plants fear death?

 

[Trusting in Him]

Many animals certainly exhibit fear when there lives are threatened, but I not sure how meaningful this as a comparison may be. We have been created to have feelings when those close to us are suffering, or even a feeling of loss if they die and this surely enables us to recognise something concerning Jesus choosing to suffer and die for us on the cross.

He certainly did not hold anything back when He died on the cross for us.

 

[ViaCrucis]

There is always a danger in taking philosophical ideas and dialing them up too far, or thinking they are themselves meaningful things to say about God. For example, the impassibility of God.

The impassibility of God is not wrong. But it's also not all that meaningful when talking about God. That is, it's like saying "Oh Billy, he's the one that's got a head on top of his shoulders." It's a perfectly generic statement that is true, and it is necessitated by views which might seek to anthropomorphize God to being just "a really big man in the sky", akin to a Zeus or Odin figure.

As such philosophical talk about God, while not wrong, isn't really doing theology as a Christian. For that we have to look to Jesus Christ, the concrete, real revelation of God in Jesus. Because it is in Jesus that we meet God face-to-face. It is in Jesus that we encounter God as God knows and understands Himself.

And thus we encounter God not in the glory of high philosophy, but in the lowliness of the Crucified and Suffering Jesus.

And that means this: It is true enough to say, "God cannot suffer"; and nevertheless we can, and indeed must confess that God the Son truly suffered. He suffered as a man. But we cannot say "only the man suffered" because Jesus is not a man inhabited or co-existing with the Divine Logos, Jesus is Himself the Divine Logos who is also human by the real union of humanity to His Deity in His conception from the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And thus St. Ignatius of Antioch writes,

"There is only one Physician, both of flesh and spirit; both made and unmade; God existing in flesh; true life in death; both of Mary and of God; both passible and impassible--even Jesus Christ our Lord." - Ignatius to the Ephesians 7:2

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Trusting in Him]

I don't see why God can not suffer. Jesus triumphed over a life of being rejected and suffering for us. He triumphed over death and rose again to life. He is an example to us in all that is suffering and failure in our own lives. His example to me is my inspiration in my own struggles. I have been crippled by a stroke, but His example to me stops me giving up and wallowing in self pity. I really need that!

He has His own way of conforming us into His likeness, it won't be the same for each one of us, but those of us who lives lives of suffering are much strengthen by His example. Jesus never gave up, He is the ultimate example of an overcomer, He overcame everything and He is the one who I will follow while I still have life and breath. He is my Lord and my God!

 

[ViaCrucis]

I don't see why God can not suffer. Jesus triumphed over a life of being rejected and suffering for us. He triumphed over death and rose again to life. He is an example to us in all that is suffering and failure in our own lives. His example to me is my inspiration in my own struggles. I have been crippled by a stroke, but His example to me stops me giving up and wallowing in self pity. I really need that!

He has His own way of conforming us into His likeness, it won't be the same for each one of us, but those of us who lives lives of suffering are much strengthen by His example. Jesus never gave up, He is the ultimate example of an overcomer, He overcame everything and He is the one who I will follow while I still have life and breath. He is my Lord and my God!

Essentially it's about understanding that God in His Essence is incomprehensible, He is ineffable. So when we speak of certain things like God's immutability or impassibility, or His omnipotence, omniscience, etc we are basically saying "God is not like a man". God doesn't steal, God doesn't cheat, God doesn't go back on His promises, God doesn't change His mind, we can't cause God injury.

Left at that there isn't anything particularly good said, though the whole of it is essentially true (to whatever limited capacity we have to be talking about the subject at all).

The above description of God isn't especially Christian at all, it's a very generic statement.

At the same time Christianity does not subscribe to a Stoic view of God. Because Christianity understands that God reveals Himself; God reveals Himself in the lowliness of Jesus Christ.

And it is Jesus Christ that makes the word "God" become truly meaningful in an especially Christian way: The Word became flesh, He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, buried, and on the third day rose again. He ascended into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father, from whence He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom shall have no end.

Thus Theopaschite (the traditional term for the idea that God can suffer) debates have tended to always be centered on these two things: God's Essential impassibility and the reality of God Incarnate who suffered.

That God (the Son) suffered is hardly controversial, especially in light of the rejection of the ancient Nestorian heresy. So instead discussion usually comes upon this: Did the Father also experience suffering somehow, did the Spirit?

That gets us to far more complicated and, potentially, far more dangerous territory. As one of the ancient heresies that the Church has tried to avoid is Modalism/Patripassionism. That by speaking of the Father suffering on the cross in Jesus introduces confusion to the Persons of the Trinity. Though others may counter that such language does not necessitate a Patripassionist or Modalistic conclusion.

I would argue that an orthodox view requires that we locate the suffering of God in the humanity of God, that is, it is squarely in Jesus, who is both God and man, without confusion or separation of His Godhead and manhood. He is fully God, only-begotten of the Father before all ages as the Son and Word, and He is truly human by His conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Truly God and truly man.

Talk of the Father or the Spirit experiencing suffering is, probably at best, a messy bit of theological speculation rife with potential pitfalls; but we ought to understand that the suffering of God is the suffering of a Man, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ the God-Man. Not that "only the humanity suffered", that would be Nestorianism; but that God suffered as a man, God has partaken of our humanity. He bore all our humanity in all of its weakness, but without sin.

Can God suffer? No. He's God.
Did God suffer? Yes. He was beaten, mocked, and crucified.

God, who cannot suffer, suffered.
God, who cannot die, died.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[GreekOrthodox]

15th Antiphon of Great and Holy Friday Matins

Today is suspended on a tree He who suspended the earth upon the waters.
The King of the angels is decked with a crown of thorns.
He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in the purple of mockery.
He who freed Adam in the Jordan is slapped on the face.
The Bridegroom of the Church is affixed to the Cross with nails.
The Son of the Virgin is pierced by a spear.
We worship Thy passion, O Christ.
We worship Thy passion, O Christ.
We worship Thy passion, O Christ.
Show us also Thy glorious resurrection.

 

[Fervent]

The central issue with God suffering is that God doesn't change, which means if God suffers it is an eternal suffering. This is one of those issues that you can tie yourself in knots if you try to figure it out because Jesus definitely suffered at the cross, in a real and meaningful way. So either there is division in the Godhead, or there is an eternal suffering in God.

 

[ViaCrucis]

The central issue with God suffering is that God doesn't change, which means if God suffers it is an eternal suffering. This is one of those issues that you can tie yourself in knots if you try to figure it out because Jesus definitely suffered at the cross, in a real and meaningful way. So either there is division in the Godhead, or there is an eternal suffering in God.

The suffering is also on account of the manhood; that is essential. It is meaningless to speak of the suffering of God except Incarnation: God became man. The suffering of God is the suffering of the Man, Jesus Christ; because the Man, Jesus Christ, is God Himself: The Eternal Word and Son of the Father, uncreated and only-begotten.

This is why it is considered dangerous to speak of the Father or Holy Spirit suffering; because we seek to avoid even the implication of Modalism or Patripassionism.

In other words, we are talking about the suffering of a Person: God the Son. In the same way that when we say that Mary is the mother of God, we are saying Mary conceived and gave birth to a Person: God the Son. We do not mean that Mary is the mother of God's Essence or Being, we are not saying that Mary gave birth to the Father or the Spirit (she didn't). In the same way, we are not saying that God in His Essence suffered. We are saying the distinct Divine Person of the Son, who became man in Mary's womb, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, buried, and dead; and that He rose on the third day, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father from whence He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

The Divine Person, the Son, the Logos, Jesus Christ our Lord, suffered. That is how we can say "God suffered", because Jesus Christ is God.

We do not say the Divine Essence suffered, because that would amount to meaninglessness.

In this way we continue to affirm the basic confession of the Trinity: "We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the Essence."

Nestorianism destroys this, because at its core Nestorianism denies the Incarnation: It denies the real union of Deity and humanity by asserting that the Logos/Son is still distinct from Jesus, the man. Thus Nestorius is recorded as having said, "I confess God in a man".

Eutychianism likewise destroys this, by presenting Jesus as an amalgam of divinity and humanity, and thus Jesus ceases in some sense to be either fully God or fully human.

So, instead, we confess the One undivided Person and Hypostasis of Jesus Christ, the Word, the Only-begotten Son of the Father, both born of the Father before all ages and born of Mary in real time. The same Jesus, fully God and fully human. Neither dividing the Person nor confusing the Deity and humanity.

It is this Person--the fully Divine-and-Human Person--that was conceived and born of Mary, who suffered under Pilate, etc. Thus the suffering of God can only and ever mean the suffering of Jesus Christ, the God-Man.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[hedrick]

I think it's a mistake to separate the experience of Father and Son too completely. If his Son suffered, the Father would suffer too, though in a different way. All actions of God are actions of all three persons, although they participate differently. Furthermore, Jesus' whole concept of God as Father implies that he is affected by what happens to his children, much less his Son.

Since patrepassian means "father suffering" it's sort of circular to avoid saying that the Father suffered to avoid patrepassianism. The more serious problem is that avoiding attributing suffering to the Father was one of the major things pushing development of the Trinity. While I think something like the Trinity is inevitable for Christian theology, I worry that the specific form it took was driven by something I'm convinced was a mistake.

It appears there was a concern that if God changed, it meant he was either imperfect to begin with or was perfect and became imperfect. But suffering supposedly involved change.

I would argue, however that we know God through Christ. How we think of God should be driven by what we see in Christ. That implies that God can suffer. This isn't a change, because he was always that way. But I'm implicitly separating essence from experience, saying that God's nature can't change, but his experience can.

I don't claim to be a philosopher, but my naive view would be that experience is inevitable. If God is outside time, then he has always had that experience, and suffering doesn't in fact involve any change. If he's inside time, then I think his experience is going to have to change, or being within time is meaningless.

I believe denying that the Father can suffer ends up denying that the Father can experience. That rejects large parts of the Biblical picture of God.

Furthermore, I think it creates a division within God. If the Son can suffer, so can the Father, since God's nature obviously allows suffering. You could try to argue that the Son has two natures, and only the human nature suffers, but if you try to attribute suffering only to one nature I think you've got Nestorianism. And even if you don't name it a heresy, you deny that Jesus is showing us God accurately.

 

[Fervent]

I think it's a mistake to separate the experience of Father and Son too completely. If his Son suffered, the Father would suffer too, though in a different way. All actions of God are actions of all three persons, although they participate differently. Furthermore, Jesus' whole concept of God as Father implies that he is affected by what happens to his children, much less his Son.

Since patrepassian means "father suffering" it's sort of circular to avoid saying that the Father suffered to avoid patrepassianism. The more serious problem is that avoiding attributing suffering to the Father was one of the major things pushing development of the Trinity. While I think something like the Trinity is inevitable for Christian theology, I worry that the specific form it took was driven by something I'm convinced was a mistake.

It appears there was a concern that if God changed, it meant he was either imperfect to begin with or was perfect and became imperfect. But suffering supposedly involved change.

I would argue, however that we know God through Christ. How we think of God should be driven by what we see in Christ. That implies that God can suffer. This isn't a change, because he was always that way. But I'm implicitly separating essence from experience, saying that God's nature can't change, but his experience can.

I don't claim to be a philosopher, but my naive view would be that experience is inevitable. If God is outside time, then he has always had that experience, and suffering doesn't in fact involve any change. If he's inside time, then I think his experience is going to have to change, or being within time is meaningless.

I believe denying that the Father can suffer ends up denying that the Father can experience. That rejects large parts of the Biblical picture of God.

Furthermore, I think it creates a division within God. If the Son can suffer, so can the Father, since God's nature obviously allows suffering. You could try to argue that the Son has two natures, and only the human nature suffers, but if you try to attribute suffering only to one nature I think you've got Nestorianism. And even if you don't name it a heresy, you deny that Jesus is showing us God accurately.

You've hit on one of the major issues with engaging in speculative theology, namely that we can only speak of God by way of analogy. We cannot say God experiences as we experience, because God is both transcendent and immanent while we only know what it is to experience in an immanent way. This is simply to say that God is Holy, which is to say entirely alien. Nothing we know is like God and so we do not know how far we can reasonably take our analogies, and so we must confine ourselves to what God has revealed about Himself in His word.

 

[The Liturgist]

The central issue with God suffering is that God doesn't change, which means if God suffers it is an eternal suffering. This is one of those issues that you can tie yourself in knots if you try to figure it out because Jesus definitely suffered at the cross, in a real and meaningful way. So either there is division in the Godhead, or there is an eternal suffering in God.

Well, Scripture describes God as “longsuffering” Also eternal doesn’t mean an infinite amount of time; this mistake terrified me in my youth, and only Eastern Orthodoxy brings relief. Divine immutability and omnipresence combine to ensure, as several prayers say, that our God is always and everywhere present. That said, the sacrifice He made cannot be understated; even the Incarnation, putting on our finite and fallen nature, is thought to have been an act of extreme humility.

 

[The Liturgist]

I think it's a mistake to separate the experience of Father and Son too completely. If his Son suffered, the Father would suffer too, though in a different way. All actions of God are actions of all three persons, although they participate differently. Furthermore, Jesus' whole concept of God as Father implies that he is affected by what happens to his children, much less his Son.

Since patrepassian means "father suffering" it's sort of circular to avoid saying that the Father suffered to avoid patrepassianism. The more serious problem is that avoiding attributing suffering to the Father was one of the major things pushing development of the Trinity. While I think something like the Trinity is inevitable for Christian theology, I worry that the specific form it took was driven by something I'm convinced was a mistake.

It appears there was a concern that if God changed, it meant he was either imperfect to begin with or was perfect and became imperfect. But suffering supposedly involved change.

I would argue, however that we know God through Christ. How we think of God should be driven by what we see in Christ. That implies that God can suffer. This isn't a change, because he was always that way. But I'm implicitly separating essence from experience, saying that God's nature can't change, but his experience can.

I don't claim to be a philosopher, but my naive view would be that experience is inevitable. If God is outside time, then he has always had that experience, and suffering doesn't in fact involve any change. If he's inside time, then I think his experience is going to have to change, or being within time is meaningless.

I believe denying that the Father can suffer ends up denying that the Father can experience. That rejects large parts of the Biblical picture of God.

Furthermore, I think it creates a division within God. If the Son can suffer, so can the Father, since God's nature obviously allows suffering. You could try to argue that the Son has two natures, and only the human nature suffers, but if you try to attribute suffering only to one nature I think you've got Nestorianism. And even if you don't name it a heresy, you deny that Jesus is showing us God accurately.

This is brilliant, and I had no idea that you, like me, and like St. Severus of Antioch, had Theopaschite leanings.

 

[Trusting in Him]

I think that theopaschisum is undoubtably true. The full gravity and understanding of God's triune nature is not something which many modern day Christians tend to study in depth. A puritian writer called Stephen Charnock wrote some very weighty volumes about a number of related subjects. The language is quite dated and these are truely gigantic books to try and read.

These are not books which you can read in one sitting and take lots of time thinking about what is written to grasp what is being said. Perhaps his best known book is "The Existance and Attributes of God". I have a very old copy of "Studies in the Godhead", which I had only read very little of thus far. Books written by so many of the puritians, require a lot of commitment to read all the way through.

 

[The Liturgist]

I think that theopaschisum is undoubtably true. The full gravity and understanding of God's triune nature is not something which many modern day Christians tend to study in depth. A puritian writer called Stephen Charnock wrote some very weighty volumes about a number of related subjects. The language is quite dated and these are truely gigantic books to try and read.

These are not books which you can read in one sitting and take lots of time thinking about what is written to grasp what is being said. Perhaps his best known book is "The Existance and Attributes of God". I have a very old copy of "Studies in the Godhead", which I had only read very little of thus far. Books written by so many of the puritians, require a lot of commitment to read all the way through.

You can also find plenty of Theopaschitism in much more compact Patristic volumes and ancient hymnals. The Eastern and Coptic Orthodox hymns of the Nativity and Holy Week, particularly Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Pascha (Easter Sunday) pack a lot of theology in them. Also The Orthodox Way by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Orthodox Christology by Fr. Peter Farrington.

As a Congregationalist minister (in the US; British Congregationalism appears to have dissolved into the United Reformed Church, I would rather read the above than any of the writings by our Puritan predecessors. Perhaps they got theopaschitism right, but so did the Lutherans, and without iconoclasm or the human tragedy of what Cotton and Increase Mather did in Salem, which was to hang people including children on the allegation they were witches, based on spectral evidence, i.e. alleged nightmares.