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Eduqas RE A level Christianity Can God suffer?
What is impassible?
Does not have any human feelings/ cannot suffer.
What is immutable?
Unchanging
What is the traditional Christian view?
Taught God is impassible and immutable.
View was strongly influenced by Plato/ Aristotle- links with Ontological arg because TTWNGCBC.
What does St Anselm say about the nature of God?
We experience God as compassionate but that does not mean he is compassionate.
What is the quote from St Anselm?
‘We experience the effect of your compassion; you, however, do not experience this feeling.’
What does St Thomas Aquinas say about the nature of God?
God shows us mercy but ‘it does not belong to God t sorrow over the misery of others.‘
What is the quote from St Thomas Aquinas?
‘Mercy.. is considered as an effect not as a feeling of suffering.’
What was God seen as in the traditional Christian view?
transcendant, omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omniscient, hence outside of suffering and emotions.
What is Jesus seen as in the traditional Christian view?
He is the exception because he is of hypostatic union. As God he is impassible, as man he is passible.
What are some examples of Jesus being (God) impassible and (man) passible?
Crucifixtion (Matthew 27:32-56)
Garden of Gethsemane→ left alone by God (Matthew 26:42)
Last supper (betrayel) (Matthew 26:14)
What does St Cyril argue?
If any man does not confess that the Word of God (Logos) suffered in the flesh and was crucified in the flesh, let him be anathema (exiled).
What does St Athanasius argue?
The Word is impassible whose Nature is Divine. But what is impassible cannot suffer. Consequently, Christ’s Passion did not concern His Godhead (his divinity).
What are the three main reasons as to why Christianity turn away from an impassible God to a passible one?
Christianity’s response to the rise of Protest Athiesm (Problem of evil and suffering).
Hume ‘The problem of evil and suffering is the rock of athiesm‘
Theologians rediscovered Marin Luther’s work in 1883 about ‘Deus Crucifixus‘ (God crucified).
Realisation on greek ideas have found their way into Christian theology. The heresy of God being impassible needs to be revised.
What one of the three main reasons was Jurgen Moltmann concerned about?
Problem of evil and suffering.
He said ‘Jesus Christ is the human face of God. And without Jesus Christ I would not believe in God‘
What influenced Jurgen Moltmann to think God is passible?
The Jewish holocaust.
‘Unthinkable’ that there is a God were it not for Jesus ‘and his message and his suffering on the cross and his resurrection’.
Jesus’ crucifixion gave him the understanding that God is present ‘in the midst of suffering’
What quote from the Bible contradicts the traditional Christian view?
Matthew 27:46 “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.”
What doctrine does Jurgen Moltmann use to defend his argument?
Doctrine of the Trinity to make the case that, as Jesus is fully God, then as Jesus suffered, God suffered.
Who did Jurgen Moltmann base his work off of?
Martin Luther who wrote ‘Deus Crucifixus.‘
Who’s work did Moltmann use to support a suffering God that came from WW2
Elie Wiesel who wrote a book called Night
Context of Night by Elie Wiesel
A Jewish boy was abut to be hung by the Nazis along iwth two men in the concentration camps.
Quote from Night by Elie Wiesel
‘Where is He? He is here. He is hanging there on the gallows.‘
Why did Moltmann use Night?
To argue for a God who suffers in union with those who suffer. Hence God is passible
What did Wiesel believe about God?
He believed in him but he did not believ he deserves to be worshipped.
To speak here of a _____ who could not ____ would make God a ________.
To speak here of a God who could not suffer would make God a demon.- The Crucified God
Mark 15:34
My God, my God why have you forsaken me
What does Mark 15:34 show?
God (father and son) experiencing death.
What do Christians need to learn from the ressurection?
We need the pain of the negative to fully grasp the hope of the resurrection.
What is Christ identified with?
Those who are abandoned by God.
Meaning those who are poor, oppressed and alien (Lev 19:34)
What did the poor refer to themselves as in the middle ages?
‘Mysticism of the cross‘- Salvifici Doloris St Pope John Paul II
What classical idea did Moltmann dismiss and what did he call it?
Jesus only suffered in his human nature and his divine nature was unaffected. Called it Docetism
What is docetism?
The heresy (false teaching) that Jesus did not suffer on the cross because his body was not human- hence disagreeing with Anselm and Aquinas.
What did Moltmann argue the death of Jesus?
The death of the Son and the grief of the Father led to the outpouring of the holy spirit.
Son suffers the pain and death of the cross.
Father gives up and suffers loss of son.
In the cross of Christ, God tastes and is affected by death, God knows what death is like.
But the one who cannot __________ cannot _____ ____. So he is a ______ being. _______ God cannot love… The ‘unmoved _______‘ is a ‘loveless _____________.‘
But the one who cannot suffer cannot love either. So he is a loveless being. Aristotle’s God cannot love… The ‘unmoved mover‘ is a ‘loveless Beloved.‘
What are arguments against Moltmann?
Anthropomorphism.
Accusing human experiences and feelings onto God, but since God omnipotent and omnibenevolent, that would just be anthropomorphism.
Note
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