Thomas Weinandy asks 'Does God Suffer?'

Just dipping into Weinandy's book Does God Suffer? I am finding a penetrating and illuminating discussion of the 'problem' of the impassability of God. I noted this comment, on evangelism and the 'suffering God':

...it should be noted that inherent within a theology of a suffering God is a feeble theology of evangelization. Those who propose that God suffers in himself speak as if this gives consolation to those who suffer. This has been shown to be a deceptive consolation. Moreover, they speak as if everyone, regardless of whether one is a Christian or not, is equally consoled by a suffering God. Thus, there is no urgent need to preach the gospel. But this too is false to the gospel. The Father does wish to console everyone, and that is precisely why he sent his Son into the world. However, the Father can only fully console those who are in union with Christ for Christ is the Father's consolation. It is only in Christ Jesus that one can come to experience fully the riches of the Father's mercy.... p. 249

It is a telling critique if he is right.

Of course, martyrdom is inevitably part of a discussion of whether God suffers, even if briefly:

While one should not seek martyrdom, yet to suffer for the sake of the gospel and even to die for the name of Jesus is a Christian's supreme honour. It is the Christian's consummate boast. p. 280

[Weinandy also reminded me that John Paul II once said this cool thing:

Martyrdom, accepted as an affirmation of the inviolabilty of the moral order, bears splendid witness both to the holiness of God's law and to the inviolability of the personal dignity of man, created in God's image and likeness.]

Divine impassability?

The overwhelming consensus in twentieth century theology was that divine impassability had become an untenable doctrine. In the wake of Auschwitz and Hiroshima, it seemed impossible to believe in a God who is not sensitive, emotional and compassionate. Moltmann wrote:

The doctrine of the essential impassability of the divine nature now seems finally to be disappearing from the Christian doctrine of God.

While the tradition has fairly consistently taught impassibility of one form or another for 1900 years unbroken, there are of course good biblical grounds for questioning it at least. And Colin Gunton in his book Act and Being (which I think is one of his best) calls it a 'doctrine that damages as well as supports the gospel' (p. 125). It was the heresy of Nestorianism that taught the Eternal Son did not suffer, after all. Whatever account is given must incorporate a fully two-natured account of Christ on the cross, or Christianity itself is denied.

Gunton concedes in the end that

the doctrine expresses...the ontological integrity of God, his immunity from alteration in his being as the result of things done by creatures. It is linked with his moral consistency and integrity, as well as his sovereignty - the assurance that he cannot be deflected from achieving his purposes. p. 131

This sounds more than a little reluctant on Gunton's part. But, I think that while rejecting impassability fits in with the zeitgeist I am not sure it can be any way said to reflect orthodox teaching, not really. Trouble is, how to articulate it without depersonalising the deity... Perhaps Thomas Weinandy's Does God Suffer? will help.

Hart on impassability

At Wittenham Clumps, Oxfordshire, in the dead of winter...

The doctrine of the impassability of God has been something of an embarassment for modern theology. For Anglicans, it stands very prominently at the head of the 39 Articles: God is 'without body, parts or passions'. The suspicion is that this is yet another piece of Greek metaphysics entering into the doctrine of God, a metaphysics that should be scoured from its surface immediately and forthwith.

Not so fast, says David Bentley Hart:

...I should observe that the widespread impatience among theologians with the language of divine impassability, always fortified by the prejudice that such a doctrine represents an unreflective 'hellenization' of the gospel, has too often served to obscure the real question at issue, the doctrinal concerns that the teaching of divine impassablity answers, and the real philosophical revision - utterly consistent with itself and Scripture - that the teaching underwent in the hands of the greatest of the patristic theologians... p. 158

Which is to say, the 'oh, its Greek' accusation is far too simplistic. The doctrine protects us from imagining God as somehow dependent or interdependent on the creation. The absence of creation (says Hart) would no way alter God as God... Hart especially has a go here at the Teutonic Hegelianism of Moltmann, Juengel, Pannenberg and co. God, he says, does not require creation to fecundate his being or to determine his personality.