Christianity - Can God Suffer?

what has this traditional Christian theology always proclaimed

the impassibility of God

why does God have no feelings analogous to human suffering

because he is unable to experience emotion or suffering or pain

what does the Old Testament reveal

that God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent and transcends all that exists. nothing can cause a change in his inner emotional state

while he displays a range of emotions such as love and anger, what is consistent

consistently acts with compassion and mercy

what does the NT reveal

that God has become incarnate in Jesus

how is Jesus, in his human nature, passible

because he is able to feel emotion and pain

how have several theologians challenged the traditional view of God

in response to a conviction that after the two world wars, the Jewish Holocaust, continuing genocide, Christians cannot have faith in a God who is immune to suffering

how can theologians argue that God is passible

he does undergo emotional change and he can suffer

who is Jurgen Moltmann and what doe she argue

German theologian who argued in ‘The Crucified God’ that God suffers with humanity

what does he attempt to answer

Jesus’s cry from the cross, ‘my God, my God, why have you foresaken me?’

what does he maintain

that in the cross of Christ, God experienced death

what is his theology of the cross the reverse side of

his theology of hope

what is Christian hope based on and why cannot it be realistic

based on the resurrection, but it cannot be realistic and liberating, ‘unless it apprehends the pain of the negative’

how is Christian identity an identification with those abandoned by God

God suffers with those who suffer

what does Christian identification with Christ identify

solidarity with the poor, the oppressed and the alien

how has the church made the cross attractive

by stripping it of its significance e.g the mass as sacrifice denies the finality of Christ’s death

in the Middle Ages, how did the poor come to see the cross in a mystical way

in which God was recognised in the suffering Christ

why is this mysticism important

because it shows God suffering with the oppressed

what is the meaning of Jesus’ death cry

-that the abandonment on the cross is something which takes place within God himself… the cross of the son divides God from God to the utmost degree

what does the resurrection of the son abandoned by God unite

God with God in the most intimate fellowship

what does he say about the crucified Jesus is God

‘God is not greater than he is in his humiliation… nor more glorious than he is in this self-surrender’

how is protest atheism resolved in the cross

where God himself protested against suffering in the death of the Son

how does he dismiss docetism

the idea that it was only the human nature of Jesus that suffered while his divine nature was unaffected

what does God’s impassibility mean

that he cannot suffer

what are theologians who believe in an impassable God accused of?

panentheism - God is part of the natural world, infected with evil and suffering. if this is the case, he cannot be the omnipotent creator

what do theologians believe about if God can suffer

he loses his transcendence and cannot free humans from sin and death

how does some biblical evidence contradict this

Old Testament refers to God as responding to events on earth, sometimes with compassion or anger

how does the NT show Jesus’ possibility

feels pain, weeps at the death of Lazarus, displays mercy or anger

what does Moltmann argue about in order to be omniscient

God must be able to experience emotions and suffering

what does Biblical images do to affirm the impassibility of God

betrays images of God who is involved with his creation